Noted Composer, Brad Hatfield, Scores Daytime Emmy Win with SONiVOX
Strings That Make Ya Say "Ooooo"

With SONiVOX Strings in hand, pianist/composer, Brad Hatfield created Emmy award winning sunshine for the CBS soap, "The Young and the Restless." The heart-warming composition titled, "Sunshine," prominently featured SONiVOX Muted Strings, adding just the right color to the beachside scene. We sat down with Brad to get the 411 on his Emmy win and we found out why SONiVOX MI Strings was the perfect choice when he was under the gun to finish music for Clint Eastwood's Mystic River.

What category did you win at the Emmy's?
It was an Emmy for Outstanding Original Song. It ("Sunshine") was a collaboration with myself and a gentleman named Michael Kisur who is Canadian.

How did your song get nominated?
The way this business works is they have music supervisors handling all the music in the soaps. The music supervisor for "The Young and the Restless" went out on a limb by putting our scene, our tune up as a pre-nomination to see if we could even get nominated. So he was out on a limb not using his own guys and believe me when I sat at that table they were giving me the hairy eyeball, "What's this guy doing here? We've been doing this for twenty years."

What was your first reaction when they called your name?
When they called out our tune it was like, "Oh my god, I have to walk up there and say something." It was unbelievable!

How did you get the gig for the Young and the Restless?
The publisher that I work for hooked me up with one of the other sort of top earners (Michael Kisur) in this TV/FILM source music racket we're in and his strength is vocals, lyrics and putting songs together. He just didn't have the production facility to do the big orchestral kind of things that we had in mind, so I would write a tune, remove the melody and just send him a track. There was a scene coming up on the "Young and the Restless" and we had a target for what the tune was supposed to be about and that was; despite all the pain and trouble you have to go through, there's light at the end of the tunnel hence the name "Sunshine."

How did the collaboration work out?
What we ended up with was a nice blend of the best of both worlds of these two people. I've still yet to meet him and he didn't make it out to the awards.

What was your first introduction to the SONiVOX String Library?
It was for Mystic River which was an under the gun has to work right now deal. I had my artillery that I had been using for years and to bring in something new was a huge risk for me, but I also knew I had to do it because I needed more articulations than I had available.

And you were able to get the variety you were looking for?
(Using the muted strings) I always get goosebumps. It's all about making that pass and going "Oooo". That was a great set of tools to have. The variety of the palette that I could choose from, I could play as quickly as I could think of and I could get the things loaded in and I could get them working. That's it; I want to go fast, I don't want to be hunting. I want to know what I got and where to find it.

Ever encounter any problems with the library?
I think I found maybe a couple of glitches in a bass loop, which they quickly sent me a patch for, and even that was smooth.

Did the strings work well for you after that?
The bottom line was I worked on this thing for about three weeks nonstop cranking out version after version and the stuff never failed me so I was sold on the string library at that point.

You also use strings for other applications besides movie and television scores. When you play live shows with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops, you use strings to fill out the sound of live players?
Yeah, my gig is playing string parts to reinforce the string players that are there that sometime get blasted off. I've done gigs with the Pointer Sisters, David Lee Roth and Cydni Lauper. Even though you've got all those string players, when you've got a loud band in front its just bleeding into the overhead mics. So I'm kind of the man behind the curtain reinforcing those string parts.

You played with Bono at Symphony Hall in Boston, what was that like?
Bono man, that was cool when he walked onto the stage, we were just doing a rhythm section in rehearsal. I was literally trapped by my keyboards and the piano and I said, "I'm sorry I can't come out I'm trapped by my cage." He goes, "I carry my cage with me," and I went, "You're deep man, you're deep."

And Aretha?
Well, I worked twice with her and once was in Symphony Hall. She comes in with a music director and a small rhythm section and these guys are killer, I mean they're the best of the best. So they come in and then they hire out horns, strings and extra percussion like timpani and so fourth. They're so loose it's unbelievable. The music director goes to the timpani guy, "Timpani, gimme a roll!" and the band goes, "What note?" - "Any note!" and we hit and then we're on playing the show. Aretha, she is the Queen of Soul man, she rocked the place.

Any advice for the young folks just breaking into the biz ?
"Get your ass kicked. There's nothing like getting in there and getting over your head especially with people that are way better than you. Because if you don't you're gonna keep missing opportunities to grow and force yourself to go up to the next level.