Alasdair James Dodds, pianist & composer

Who or what are the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?

 Musically I admire Hans Zimmer and Alexis Ffrench, and so naturally their works would influence mine but the most significant influence on my musical life would be my personal circumstances. When I was young and showed an interest in the piano my parents decided to pay for a small number of piano lessons. Frustratingly my dyslexia caused me a lot of issues reading music and playing simultaneously. Not wishing to waste my parents money I refused to take further lessons but undeterred from my pull towards this incredible instrument I negotiated with the head of music to be able to play on the school pianos when they were not in use by others. I developed my hearing, feel and permanent attachment for the piano sound and started creating my own works from the age of 11. 

My favourite piano in the school was a beautiful black Bechstein concert grand piano in the main hall. It had a beautifully soft tone and naturally long sustain which influences my preferred piano sound to this day. Having said that I remember coming away every lunch time with incredibly sore fingers as getting this piano to show its full colour of sound felt like I needed to exchange my fingers for hammers at times. 

Despite taking part in quite a few school concerts and receiving repeated praise and encouragement to go further I was very timid and lacked confidence as a pianist and had to practically be dragged to perform at the school concerts. Preferring to only create my own music rather than play other’s I kept my abilities secret from the next high school I attended at the age of 14.

I maintained owning a professional level instrument once I left school to this day. I started a management career in retail when I was 18 driven by financial independence and sat in this area for 20 years composing all the while exploring different genres. The career being highly stressful my compositions and just tinkering became a permanent emotional outlet and extension of myself all be it a very personal and private activity I kept to myself.

A chance meeting with a film director from the United States in 2017 who over heard my compositions whilst I was listening to them on the London tube lead to some film and tv work and it definitely took some convincing from him to coax me out of my shell too. I genuinely did not feel worthy of such work, I had had no professional training or qualifications, I had not even taken GCSE Music and so was very content remaining behind the scenes for the most part.

Fast forward to now and I am in a place of self acknowledgment and my released works are more a result of improved self confidence and leaving my digital footprint in the sand so to speak. My connection and emotional resonance to my music is unparalleled to anything else in my life and remains the primary driver and influence within it.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far? 

My greatest challenge was getting past myself. My lack of confidence or feeling worthy of being a pianist/ composer stopped me from even exploring the idea for decades. I always had to be dragged through the doors, fortunately opportunity saw fit to find me anyway. I would like to think my music career if you could call it that is in its infancy and so it will be interesting to see where my digital footprints lead.

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working on a commissioned piece? 

My personal experience with commissioned pieces, particularly within the film industry comparatively to private commissions, is there are a lot of predetermined expectations and parameters on the finished sound before your even part of the conversation which was very challenging for me as I tend to feel my way through what approach to sound I feel is right for the scene and could not always follow through in the direction I wanted. The pleasure is getting that emotional story line perfectly succinct. The soundtrack in a film can make or break it and I feel a poor soundtrack can do more damage to the viewers journey than a poorly done scene take. The people you meet are also a pleasure and its great because you never know who your going to meet.

What are the special challenges/pleasures of working with particular musicians, singers, ensembles or orchestras?

I have really enjoyed working with other artists and although not every project bore fruit it was always worth it. As an artist you’re honed to your own perspective lens and often tunnel-visioned as a result, and so working with other artists helps you see and explore new ideas and can be very revitalising to your own works. Working with other artists is like being on a date: it’s helpful and tends to progress well if there is some chemistry/wavelength alignments.

Of which works are you most proud? 

As an artist you’re always trying to move forward so it’s no surprise the piece l am most proud of is my latest release, “Disillusionment”. To me it’s pure and beautiful, representing my concept of success and still causing my eyes to swell and water after the 300th listen. 

It is a reflective and thought-provoking piece influenced by my perception of the world as I see it. Where many perceptions, understandings and illustrations of information within our world are seemingly shrouded in illusion and inaccurate information. The music represents the journey of disillusionment in our lives: the feeling of disappointment that comes when we discover something or someone is not as good, true or valuable as we once believed. It is the loss of illusions or naive trust, often resulting in a more realistic – though sometimes sadder- view of people, situations. or the world. 

The other piece is “Ballerina – Finding Love” as this was a project I wanted to take beyond sound alone: to do a music video, tell a story using no words and use just music and muted people on the screen like in the old black and white films. The project presented many challenges to overcome and new experiences and so am proud of the result.

How would you characterise your compositional language?

I would say a blend of romantic impressionism if I had to give it a label. For me my music is emotionally reflective whether that be one to one feelings or of more overarching sentiments in my life, and I explore the full spectrum of emotion through the instrumentation at my disposal.

How do you work?

When commissioned I am more structured and ideally go through a list of questions and approaches with the client to help focus the direction. Afterwords I typically do about 30 seconds of composition and create 2 to 3 approaches and then submit to the client for affirmation of a final direction/ feel of the music.

I always start with a piano and once I get to a certain point I assess instrumentation options.

Compositions for myself are wholly different. It’s exceedingly rare I would sit down with the aim to do a composition for my self. Most commonly I would be tinkering, exploring on a piano (my favourite instrument and sound) hitting wrong notes finding different movements and I will happen upon something that moves me. Sometimes they get developed, sometimes they don’t and sometimes I hit dead ends. I would say I have over 100 unfinished works. Whether they will ever be finished or worth finishing is another question and one I can not answer.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

I think if you have been able to evoke imagery, feelings or thought in a listener as a musician you’re successful. To go deeper and specifically as a composer having the freedom of feeling you can compose a piece and take the composition where it feels right to the creator unhindered by expectations, money or any other external factors. To then take that creation public and say this is me, then I think this would illustrate success in freedom of expression. I think a lot of composers and musicians are influenced more by what they think others want to hear rather than what they want to do. I also feel that some composers feel the need to make compositions technically difficult or out do some one else in their complexity. Just because you can does not mean you should.

What advice would you give to young/aspiring composers?

From a personal development point of view, be brave, be you. Do not feel you have to be different or unorthodox and there is nothing wrong with being predictable or conforming either… Just be authentic.

From a career point of view – something I really should re-engage in – network, network, network. If people don’t know you exist, they can’t choose to work with you.

What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music’s audiences? 

I have to be honest, I am not sure what else can be done or in its entirety what is being done at present. My perception is the types of music and the blurring of their boundaries is a consistently expanding phenomenon. Whether this is good or bad for classical music, time will tell but I feel there is a timeless sophistication, beauty and grandeur within a broad scope of classical music that is not matched by other genres. 

What’s the one thing in the music industry we’re not talking about but you think we should be?

I cannot say I have my finger on the pulse here so my commentary may be mute. However I think that visualisation software like SeeMusic (using it on a video release of Disillusionment on my VEVO channel) is an interesting and engaging piece of software and see it both as something to attract audiences as well as an additional teaching tool for pianists and another way of creating advocates of your compositions. So we should be talking about how to grow and enable this for schools, teachers and audience engagement.

I’ve also come across fears that AI will/is replacing musicians and although I think the curators of some music who rely heavily upon fixed loops and predictable chord changes would likely be at risk. I do not feel threatened in the slightest. AI appears to draw upon what’s already been created to mimic new creations, it does not have emotional connection as to which note or chord should be next, where the dips and turns in an emotional story should go. AI cannot feel the music. So I think we should be talking about how AI will help artists stand out in contrast not how it may be replacing them.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

I suspect that this is a continuously evolving milestone as well as being uniquely individual.  For me there are four aspects that combine to full-fill my concept of this at present.

First, a sense of self achievement measured by myself, and for me it is creating music or Engineering a LEGO build, being a father, a person who inspires, moves and engages other people. So I suppose you could say my sense of achievement comes from having a positive impact on other people both inside and outside my life. I have been fortunate to feel I have had many achievements in my life in a variety of different fields.

Secondly, continuous variety in my life. I think seeking out and engaging in variety in our lives not only brings colour into it and grows us as individuals but helps us appreciate the good things we do have in our lives which I feel is a very important part of finding and feeling happiness.

Thirdly, a good/healthy balance of time, time for things you need to do, time for things you want to do and a little bit of time left over to waste, to be productive, what ever you choose to do with it.

Lastly, a special person in your life to share the good, the bad, the ups and downs with.