Can you briefly introduce yourself?
I'm Alberta Balsam. I am a producer, live act and DJ and I make IDM with a lot of influences from leftfield techno, electro broken beats and breaks.
Short Scores: Alberta Balsam
In Short Scores, Eye on Sound playfully pushes at the boundaries of film music. We asked a new generation of musicians and composers to create new mini film scores to accompany a short piece of film of their choice from Eye’s collection. Alberta Balsam chose Changing Guard, Berlin (1897).
By Thijs Havens22 December 2022
For Short Scores, Alberta Balsam wrote a new soundtrack for Changing Guard, Berlin (1897), a fragment from Eye's collection.
Why did you choose this specific film fragment?
I found it fascinating how people and carriages move past each other on different layers at different speeds. They become part of a pattern that emphasizes how the people within the groups resemble each other, but also how they differ per layer and how they move past each other. The video, therefore, has a very interesting visual depth.
What inspired you in making this score?
I wanted to emphasize the different layers with their own melody line or percussion. That is why I worked with rhythms that intertwine but also move past each other. To bring back the military element I used drums and synths that resemble a horn.
How did you tackle the project?
I looked for the most obvious rhythmic movement in the video, in this case the beating of the drum, and adjusted the BPM accordingly. Then I started to investigate what worked well musically per layer, and played it at the same time as the video, to stay in the timing of the groups as much as possible.
All Short Scores to date
Every three weeks, we will add a new clip accompanied by fresh new music to the Short Scores collection, which will therefore keep growing.