Those who listen to XM Radio may have heard Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour. This three-year show explored a ton of Dylan’s favorite music and got rave reviews.

Those who missed it (like me) may enjoy the Theme Time Radio Hour Archive, which hosts most of the music and links to commentary on each track. That should be enough for the next few weeks…

Jeff Buckley died accidentally at exactly the age I am today (via Dead At Your Age, which sounds morbid but is mostly motivating).

Before that, he performed this:

Here’s the Bear McCreary talk at Google that I mentioned earlier. Great stuff.

My favorite thing about working with stock image and music sites is seeing the same photo you used for a project show up in someone else’s work, or hearing the music you’ve repeated endlessly while editing a video project pop up in a commercial on tv.

It’s like being part of a big community of people who recognize each other by little noises and visual hints. Kinda like the Cylon’s music in Battlestar Galactica, I guess.

Just saw a fascinating presentation by Bear McCreary (of Battlestar Galactica fame) at work. Among many interesting stories was his description of how he composed the adaptation of All Along the Watchtower used in one of the show’s most climactic scenes, the piano in the bar.

Apparently the inclusion of the song was director Ronald D. Moore’s idea, and over several seasons it became an increasingly important part of the plot (which I won’t spoil here). But that meant that the musical score for the show was now also something the characters were aware of, so Bear worked with the writers to weave his music into the story. And for the piano scene itself, the writers called him up while he was working on a particularly difficult cue and asked him to describe what it’s like to tease out a piece of music that’s stuck in your head. His responses went almost directly into the script.

I think as media continues to evolve, we’ll see even more examples where connecting music to plot, and to the other aspects of a story, leads to a more interesting and holistic experience. Learning ways to do this is an exciting opportunity for designers from all parts of the spectrum.

The entire presentation was captivating, including a bit where Bear taught the piano theme to someone from the audience, just as was done in the show, and his description of how he sees music while watching a scene (first he sees the overall shape, then starts to fill in the pieces). Hopefully it will be published online for more to see; I’ll link to it if so.