Today we’d like to introduce you to Harrison Lee.
Hi Harrison, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m a musician and composer from Canada who just celebrated 12 years in Los Angeles last year. Growing up in my hometown of Edmonton, Alberta, I participated in as much music as I could, from classical symphonic music to big band jazz to producing and DJ’ing electronica. After graduating university, I applied to USC’s Scoring for Motion Picture and Television program and was accepted! Suddenly, I was packing my whole life into a sedan and driving down to Southern California. The USC program introduced me to so many friends and opportunities as much as it tested my mettle as a composer and music producer.
I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with film composers Darren Fung and Ed Shearmur. I’ve also had great opportunities to write music for short films, documentaries, and some additional music on some big films! Along the way, I’ve met an amazing community of musicians and have performed with them in various bands such as SUMEAU, La Mascarada, The Mosaics, and The Red Grenadines (a Grateful Dead cover band).
These days I find myself leaning more into electronic music producing Techno/House music as well as exploring modular synthesis and generative ambient music. Both present an effective creative restraint on what to write when presented with a ‘blank slate’. For example, EDM must have that perfect groove with strong bass and good drum production. Generative ambient music must start with a seed of an idea that can unfold nigh-infinitely and respond to itself. This year, I’ll be releasing tracks in both genres under ‘hal9kay’ on Spotify and YouTube.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The first hurdle I had to navigate was securing a VISA to continue working in the US. I was fortunate to be eligible for a VISA that I could get in time, but it is always an unknown when trying to do long-term planning. Just as I landed my first work visa, my apartment balcony had caught on fire, throwing a massive wrench into my work and my living situation. I’m forever grateful for my work colleagues that allowed me to crash both at their apartments and at the recording studio I worked at the time. Thankfully, the road was MUCH smoother after these events.
LA is a big sea full of big fish when it comes to music writing. I think every composer struggles with finding their voice that helps them stand out to the public as well as commercially. I’ve tried writing many types/genres of music for any project that came my way and I’ve found that not everything sparked a certain joy or ease. I’ve even been fired from some projects, which I’ve learned is a rite-of-passage for every film-composer!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
While studying in LA, I learned that computer skills are essential to modern film music composition and found a niche for myself as a technically capable composer. I’m known as a problem solver among friends and co-workers when it comes to computers. A lot of modern film music creations have tedious tasks outside of the core creative element, and I naturally jumped at the opportunity to automate or simplify the situation. For example, music for a television episode typically has a tight deadline where most of the working hours are used up just writing the notes and recording. The pipeline of tasks both before (music editing/re-use) as well as after (bouncing stems, mixing, dubbing) need to happen as parallel to each episode’s composition as possible. To accomplish this, I was able to automate the time-consuming and tedious “bouncing stems” step with a bit of Python code, which improved both time saved and accuracy by removing some human error.
I studied the cello growing up, and while I was younger, I didn’t appreciate it as much as I should have. After graduating from USC, I found myself playing cello more and more as different opportunities appeared through my friends. I started to appreciate how my cello performance helped me stand out! Every composer needs to have a certain minimum of piano skills as a midi-keyboard is a fast way to enter musical ideas into the computer. If I grab my cello instead, I am presented with a whole different universe of music as the mechanics of playing and the limitations of only a few strings vs 88keys tickles my brain differently. I also enjoy performing and recording aleatoric music on the cello (a fancy way of saying random or atypical sounds). In 2017, I had the opportunity to perform and record a bunch of aleatoric cello playing for the new ‘The Mummy’ production. The process felt very intuitive for me, and I’m happy to say that the recordings ended up being featured throughout the score (My cello plays the last note of the movie!)
I’ve written music for a couple of documentary films which had, in my opinion, very important messages. ‘How We Grow’ is a film about young farmers getting started within Colorado and highlights their difficulties as well as how rare it is for Millennials or younger generations to actually own their operation. It’s shocking to find out that the average farmer’s age is well above 55. I collaborated with Christopher Sousa on this project, and we ended up writing music that highlights the pastoral scenes of farming and the overall hope and joy the interviewees expressed throughout the film despite the hardships of nature and economics. ‘The Devil We Know’ is another important documentary that I wrote some additional music for. It covers the nasty details of Teflon chemical byproducts and how it deeply affected communities in West Virginia. I ended up writing with a mix of deep, dark synths and somber cello playing on top, and I’m very proud of how the recordings turned out!
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I struggled to define what success is when I was new to LA. I had an urge to be focused on productivity, which was driven by a need to please people. As I got older, I found clarity on a healthier sense of success measured by both my own joy in a project and a connection to others who also enjoy it! Guided by this new metric, I am happily exploring any music venture that brings me maximum joy and figuring out ways to share it with as many people as I can.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.harrisonlee.ca
- Instagram: @hal9kay
- Twitter: @hal9kay
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@hal9kay
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/harrisonlee
- Other: https://linktr.ee/hal9kay
