Q&A - Music Composer David Carbonara
David Carbonara, whose film credits include The Guru and Spanking the Monkey talks with AMCtv.com about the challenges and rewards of composing a Mad Men score.
Q: What were you going for when you were writing the music to Mad Men?
A: Matt Weiner gave me the script when he wrote it like seven or eight years ago. And he said, "If I get to do this show, I want you to compose it," so I got to live with the pilot for a long time. After the show got picked up, we had to score the pilot, which is very different than the rest of the series -- we had an opportunity to do a little bit more fun music. The second show, "Ladies Room," is where I developed a score sound for the show. The episode was all about Betty's problems. so the strings and the woodwinds, that started with Betty. I wanted to score the season like a film, where I score characters and themes develop.
Q: How much instruction does Matt give you?
A: He always thinks I know what he wants. He'll say, "You know exactly what I want!" What a position to be put in. I'm like, "I don't really know, Matt." But you know, what I love is when he doesn't like something, he won't tell me how to fix it. The hardest thing is when producers tell you how to fix music. They're micro-managing and then it comes out all cut up and backwards. Matt just says, "Try something else." And I do try something else and most of the time it's completely different. And that's very freeing because everything is opened up.
Q: Who is your favorite character to score for?
A: I like when Don and Roger are together. I do this jazz waltz thing with the vibes a few times in the show. There's also a Joan and Peggy cue that I use throughout the series. In the first season, for example, the last episode when Joan takes Peggy to her new office has the same music that's played when she shows her around in the pilot, with slightly different instrumentation.
Q: The theme to Mad Men is an instrumental version of a song by RJD2. Are you ever tempted to riff on that in the score?
A: No. I use a lot of strings, but I don't have the opportunity to use such a heavy beat. My music I think stays out of the way. I don't jump picture -- picture tends to lead first and then music follows, which I think is the right way to do things. You're more in sync with the audience, the way the audience feels. If you're on top of it you're telling the audience how to feel, but if you wait for the moment to unravel, it will reveal itself and then the score comes in at that exact moment it should.
I just learned so much by just reading this article! Thank you for your insight and knowledge you shared. When I worked on the "Benefactor" episode as background, I was telling my hairstylist how I loved this show. When she asked me why, I answered, it's because as an actor, studying a show that's done to near perfection teaches me so much and I have learned a lot and you've contributed. Thank you.
Sounds very difficult to score a TV show. I looooooove the music on Mad Men so I think Mr. Carbonara knows what he's doing!
I love how this program is scored. I still have a few of the LP's my parents had on the hi-fi back in 1960 when I was Sally Draper's age. They favored Latin music (Perez Prado, Havana 3 AM, Humberto Texeira, and of course plenty of cha cha), lots of polka (my mother and her sisters were Polish), old jazz 78's, etc. Italian pop tunes like "Nil Blu di Pinto di Blu" by Domenico Modugno from 1957 and "Ba-Ba-Baciami Piccina" by Alberto Rabagliati would be filtered in through a more Americanized translation via Rosemary Clooney and the McGuire Sisters. Much of what we hear on Mad Men is of the genre I would call "Champagne Music"--not necessarily Lawrence Welk, but a hipper east coast version of it, featuring Vic Damone, late '50's Sinatra, Ella, Sarah Vaughn, etc. Lush strings, swinging arrangements. I have to remind myself that Don Draper was born in 1924. He was commuter cool. Thanks David for hitting the right chord.
Mr. Carbonara,
I was just watching Episode 6, "Maidenform" and the begining sequence of the country club scene as the golfer swings his club with the brown plaid pants, you played the exact same music that begins one of my songs, "Caress Me". Where did you find this? I feel ripped off. Could you tell me what you were playing? It's exactly as my song!! That I have copyrighted. What do I do?