Today we’d like to introduce you to Derek Baird.
Hi Derek, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started playing and making music from a very early age. My mother has stories of me disappearing as soon as I could walk, only to turn up by the record player or piano. The connection to music and impetus to create has always been there.
I started taking violin and piano lessons from five years old, and at about 11, a friend introduced me to electric guitar. There was an immediate attraction to it, so after saving up lawn-mowing earnings to buy a guitar, I started joining bands, writing songs, and playing wherever possible. Actually, my first band in middle school was with John Sherman, who would go on to be the drummer of metal gods Red Fang.
Playing guitar has led to so many great collaborations and experiences–from playing at CBGB’s to playing with gospel queen Shirley Caesar to off-broadway plays, post-punk bands–whatever came along was an opportunity to learn and experiment. You could say picking up the guitar was the gateway to turning this musical journey into a career.
I went on to study composition at North Carolina School of the Arts and then moved to NYC, where I worked for the composers from Sex and the City and Dora the Explorer while continuing to play in bands and other performance opportunities.
Around 2007, I was referred to compose for a PBS film for the Wide Angle series. That was my first foray into documentaries. The combination of the positive experience working on that film and an addiction to documentaries at the dawn of the Netflix era made it seem like a natural fit.
Wanting to learn more and hone my film scoring skills, I attended the graduate film scoring program at USC in 2011-2012. This brought me to Los Angeles, where I have been working since.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
The pursuit of a career as a composer is a continuous journey. No magical moment has happened were Steven Spielberg just called and said “I like your stuff! Let’s make a film…”. It was apparent fairly early on that originality, talent, and drive are not enough in this field. Yet, it has always been my belief that if I just stick to my strengths and keep producing, good things will inevitably happen. An endless fountain of creativity will always be of value and there is in some sense a duty to apply that gift to helping others.
Also, it is never lost on me the privilege that I have to be on the filmmaking end of a documentary, which is often a life which is polar opposite from that of the film’s subjects. If even one of these projects bridges that gap a little bit, then that is what may be considered success, and any difficulties that I may have seem small in that context.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My job, in short, is to help bring someone’s story to life via music. I’m very responsive to the arc and movement of a scene. If the stars align and there is a good story to tell, the music will almost write itself because the scene is a solid framework from which to hang the composition. In the best of cases, the music brings something new to the film and lifts it up, enabling the audience to really engage with the story personally.
While I have been very fortunate to work on some projects with high-profile people like Bill Moyers, Robert Redford, and Patrick Dempsey, my attraction to composing is that there is a real reward in the work itself. Staging a successful backdrop for a director’s cinematic vision is a magical thing, but if that film is aimed at making a positive change in the world, then that is what really makes it all worthwhile.
It is a great feeling to dive into a new film and discover what it has to say. What new sounds will come of it? How can we weave together a dynamic emotional landscape for the film that will be picked up by the audience? What will the audience take home from this experience, and in what way might they go out and do something positive? Knowing that there are natural ripples to working in a greater cause makes it easier to be yourself as an artist and is something to be proud of.
For a director, adding new music to your film can be a daunting process. It is my role to help navigate the world of music and how it affects what is on the screen, both objectively and subjectively. In the end, we are all there to help connect the story with the audience, so finding the most effective process to do that is key. But I always stand by the philosophy that you must find the unique voice of each individual film and grow it into something that is an original identity. Errol Morris and Ken Burns are great examples of directors who share this philosophy. Their films reflect this idea of unmistakable, original identity, which is what leaves an impression on viewers.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Like many kids in the 1980s, I loved music, computers, and exploring outdoors. Music was around everywhere: my older sister would play pop radio every morning and we’d listen to the Top Forty Countdown on Sundays. Along with piano and violin lessons, there were performances at school and church, where I would often sit and take notice of what the organists/pianists were doing differently with the harmonies each week.
My stepfather worked as the theater director at North Carolina State University, so our family would go to plays frequently and the university also hosted several multicultural events every year. So we had exposure to things like traditional Japanese music, the Pan-Afrikan Festival, British pipes and drums, traditional Indian music, The Peking Acrobats, blues and jazz artists, even Itzhak Perlman and Victor Borge…it’s actually a pretty astounding list of stuff that was available right there at the university, and that’s on top of the booming Triangle area indie, blues, and jazz music scenes of the 1980s-1990s. That exposure is very much something that became an artistic and musical influence, but more importantly, it is something that enabled a bigger world view from the outset.
I would also watch PBS all the time, not only for the great kid’s shows like “Electric Company” and “3-2-1 Contact”, but also programs like Nova and nature docs. I had a very inquisitive nature, which is probably the specific personality trait that led to working in film. Every new film is a discovery for both the audience and the filmmakers, with multiple opportunities to learn and to question what we know.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.derekbaird.com
Image Credits
Lisa Whiteman Don Norris Stephanie Farrant-Baird
