Peter Smith (composer)
Peter Smith (born November 8, 1975 in Luton in Bedfordshire, England) is a composer and sound designer, probably best known for his solo performances and sound design for sample libraries, TV commercials and films.
Biography
Peter Smith was born in Luton, Bedfordshire and first made music at around the age of five, with an electric organ. During the mid-1980’s, he was accepted into school trombone lessons, but stopped after a few months because he found the instrument too heavy to carry home from school each day. During his early teens, he studied the electric guitar, and at the age of nineteen, he left home and decided to move to central London, where he found work as a session guitarist in various studios and nightclubs, playing music ranging from acoustic jazz, to blues, rock and hip hop. By his early twenties, he decided to move again, this time to the United States, where he taught himself to play drums and piano.
It was during his time in the United States, that Smith was becoming noticed for his obsessive composing and recording schedule, sometimes spending up to 40 hours working in his small studio without a break. He was often asked to restore and enhance audio on short films and documentaries. These small jobs eventually led to scoring short films and commercials (with sound design), of which he received great praise and reputation from independent filmmakers and studios.
Compositional Style
Smith is a very open minded composer, often disregarding traditional composition styles and classical formats. He acknowledges Dimitri Shostakovich as an influence, as well as Frank Zappa, and architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Several commentators have noted his (apparently) irrational techniques of composition, such as composing rhythms on a looping sequencer or drum machine, without listening to the immediate result (which could be considered a form of serialism, even though Smith does not believe in the concept of anything being random). Smith was quoted in a 2006 concert opening, “The only form I follow is the form of nature. Everything else is artificial – when nature speaks, its language is music, and after it has spoken to me, I let it breath and evolve…I try not to force my will on music”. Another example of Smith’s unusual compositional style is his unreleased jazz/rock album entitled “The Magic Chord” (composed in 2004), in which every single bar of music was composed in a different tempo. In fact, throughout the 58 minutes of music, there are over 23,000 tempo changes.
Current Activity
Peter Smith now divides his time between London, Los Angeles and Brussels, working as a freelance composer, sound designer and orchestrator. In the last 3 years, he has scored and licensed music and sound effects for several independent films, released a percussive sample library (for Audiobase), and performed his “Fortune Teller” piano quartets in festivals throughout Europe. He has also written more than 20 albums’ worth of music, the first of which is scheduled to be released in 2008.