4 Part Music Blog

He may have been known as the King of Pop, but recent evidence has suggested that Michael Jackson was working on several instrumental and classical music compositions shortly before he died.

US composer David Michael Frank , who worked with Jackson on a TV tribute to Sammy Davis Jr in 1989, claims he had met with the star a few months ago to discuss helping him with the orchestral arrangements of two new classical compositions he was working on.

Michael Jackson

Jackson, who once told German magazine Bunte that he didn’t really like pop music and would much rather listen to classical music, ‘impressed’ Frank with his knowledge of classical music.  “For one of [the pieces], he had a whole section of it done in his head,” Frank told Billboard Magazine. “He had not recorded it. He hummed it to me as I sat at the keyboard in his pool house and we figured out the chords – I guess this recording I made is the only copy that exists of this music.”

That was the last time the composer saw Jackson, although the star called Frank few weeks ago about the progress on the arrangements and working on more instrumental music – including a jazz piece.

“I hope one day his family will decide to record this music as a tribute and show the world the depth of his artistry,” said Frank.

Jackson’s death from cardiac arrest at the age of 50 stunned his fans across the world and sent some of his biggest hits back to the top of pop music charts. His single ‘Man in the Mirror’ skyrocketed to number one in the UK’s Big Top 40 singles chart , over 20 years after it was first released, thanks to an unprecedented number of downloads and radio airplay.

I’m currently working on a commission to write some music for a training company to be used with some training CD’s and during various training sessions.  Now of course technically you could just use any piece of music for this. Or could you? Of course most music nowadays is subject to copyright so if you are proposing to use something in the public domain you can’t just play your favourite tune without first checking you have the necessary permission. Otherwise it could all turn nasty!

This is where our composition services can help. As a professional composer I can write music in a variety of different styles to meet a variety of different needs, whether its for a training CD, an introduction to a podcast or even music for the TV or films.  The main benefit of such music is it is written specifically for the customer and in the majority of cases it will never be used for anything else.

Yes, I admit there are plenty of online places now where you can buy “royalty free music”. But this isn’t quite the same as often these short clips are available to multiple customers and as such you do not have anything unique for your business or presentation.  Of course sometimes a short clip is all that’s needed and we do also offer such things to multiple clients but this is something which needs to be made clear at the outset. If you want something unique then make sure that’s what you have asked for and it is agreed with the composer!

I will shortly be publishing more examples of compositions on the website and I’d welcome some feedback.  In the meantime there’s music to be written!