
A successful artist has the capability to unite, to inspire and to make the audience feel in what the artist is trying to convey in their music- Thomas E Rouch does this flawlessly on his latest release “The Pathfinder”. We are treated to a somber piano melody where we can envision Thomas delicately pressing the black and white keys. The song is crafted with soft poignant pauses and carefully accentuated notes that makes your subconscious create a scene in which you can imagine the actions and atmosphere of what’s happening in that scene, that’s what Thomas is capable of doing with his compositions.
Based in Melbourne Australia, Thomas works as a film composer that to date has scored seven feature films garnering him several screen music award nominations and winning the award for Best Music at the British Independent Film Festival in 2014. When creating scores, Thomas aims to find the essence in the story and to connect people to the stories he tells through his music. Recently Thomas has started composing solo piano pieces; those pieces have welcomed a steadily growing fan base worldwide, adding over 7,500 Instagram followers in just 9 months! His first solo piano release: “The Pathfinder” was released on April 4th, 2019 and is available on popular music platforms.
Listen to "The Pathfinder by Thomas E. Rouch here and get to know him below.
Thomas, thank you for taking the time to speak to us. We thought “The Pathfinder” was a beautiful song, can you tell us a bit more about this piece?
The Pathfinder is the title track of my first solo piano EP which has just been released on Infinite Noise Records. For the last ten years I've been working as a film composer, scoring al kinds of feature films and TV shows, but recently I really felt the need tell my own story, because even though I'd achieved many of things in life that I'd set out to do, somewhere along the way I lost touch with what was important to me beyond the work. I had focussed on getting things done and lost touch with what it meant to be me. So this record is really a journey of self discovery and a document of that process.
You mentioned the importance of storytelling in your score creation, what happens first for you in the creation of a piece? Do you first envision a particular scene and let the music evolve from there?
With film scores I'm really trying to connect the audience to the inner world of the characters, music is such a powerful tool for conveying not just emotion but psychological states and deep primal instincts. My process involves are fair amount of experimentation and for me it starts with getting the right sound for the film, choosing instruments and tones to match the vision and feel of the film
How long have you been playing the piano and what do you love about its capability as an instrument?
I started playing the piano when I was 4 so quite a long time! I ended up playing more guitar as an adult and working as a session guitarist but the piano has always been a very special instrument for me. Because there are only a few ways to change the sound of the instrument it really makes you focus on choosing the perfect combination of notes and using timing to convey feel. It also has such a large range both dynamically and in octaves so it's a wonderful instrument to compose music on.
A lot of the time listeners can gather a meaning of a song from lyrics. With lyrics being absent from your pieces, how do you convey a message across to your listeners?
I think when I write instrumental music I'm trying to communicate those feelings that words cannot describe, so I try to open myself up and let the feelings come out into the music, it's hard to pinpoint exactly how it works. It's about removing the barriers in your mind and being instinctual.
Was there a particular score from a movie that made you want to be a film composer?
Well Star Wars was the first film I can remember seeing, my parents took me to see it at the drive in and I loved the music. In fact my youth is signposted by all the big John Williams film scores like E.T. Indiana Jones and Superman.
Follow Thomas E. Routh on social media!
Facebook: www.facebook.com/rouchcomposer
Instagram: www.instagram.com/thomaserouch