[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. The following sports theme songs all have something in common. Thursday Night Football.

[MUSIC - E.S. Posthumus: Thursday Night Football Theme]

Alison Stewart: And there's the PGA Tour.

[MUSIC - E.S. Posthumus: PGA Tour Theme]

Alison Stewart: And, of course, the NFL on CBS.

[MUSIC - E.S. Posthumus: NFL on CBS Theme]

Alison Stewart: That song has been an anthem of so many Sunday mornings over the years, and all three of those themes share the same composer, Helmut VonLichten. VonLichten composed the CBS tune with his brother Franz and has also gone on to compose other themes like The Masters, as well as special remixes for Super Bowls with folks like Jay-Z. To learn more about what it's like to be a composer in this field, we are joined now by Emmy Award-winning composer Helmut VonLichten. Helmut, welcome.

Helmut VonLichten: Thank you, Alison. It's so nice to be here. By the way, I got to get myself one of those swanky umbrellas.

Alison Stewart: Let me see. Look how cute it is. Come on, man. [laughs]

Helmut VonLichten: I love it. I love it. I'm all over it. Wnyc.org, I believe. I make my contribution.

Alison Stewart: You're the best. Listeners, are you a fan of the NFL who recognizes that song? Do you have any questions for the man who composed it, or how does the song influence your level of excitement for a game? Give us a call. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC, or you can reach out to us on social media @AllOfItWNYC. Maybe you're interested in what it's like to be a theme song composer or the process of creating a piece like that.

We can take your questions at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or reach out to us on social media @AllOfItWNYC. We know in our listening area we have a lot of professional musicians who listen, who may have some questions. All right. Helmut, the internet can sometimes lie, so please correct me if I'm wrong on this one. You got a degree at UCLA studying archeology.

Helmut VonLichten: That is correct.

Alison Stewart: How does one go from archeology to being a composer?

Helmut VonLichten: Well, I was influenced early on as a child by music. My mom actually sang on the Lawrence Welk Show years ago when she was a teenager. We had a piano in the house, and I was always into music because of that. I just gravitated towards the piano, but I was a horrible student. I took like five piano lessons and then was self-taught. Generally, people ask me this question about college. I did not study music as a child or in college. I was kind of an archeology-crazy nerd and Raiders of the Lost Ark fan. That's how I selected a degree. At UCLA it was that, but music, it's a self-taught discipline for me.

Alison Stewart: When you say you weren't someone who studied it, was there something about studying-- What was it about studying that didn't click for you?

Helmut VonLichten: It's hard to say. It's wiring, obviously, because the idea of sight reading, reading something, when I read, I feel like I'm doing something visual only, and then to do something with my hands at the same time just didn't make sense. It's like playing basketball and golf at the same time. It didn't make sense to me. I had a wiring issue in seeing the notes on a piece of paper and then getting to my fingers. I was much better hearing something and that translating to my fingers rather than seeing something and it translating. Does that make sense?

Alison Stewart: Yes. Is it still that way for you today?

Helmut VonLichten: It is. Just by necessity in working with orchestras and such, I've had to teach myself the basic fundamentals of orchestration. I know every good boy does fine. If an orchestra player asks me about a note, it takes me a minute, but I can get it. I'm much better if I have a piano by the podium [inaudible 00:04:41] I can pound it out for them. By necessity, I've had to teach myself some fundamentals, but for the most part, I just sit at a piano or a keyboard and compose.

Alison Stewart: When you think back to your earliest influences, what piece of music or what composer really opened the window for you in terms of music?

Helmut VonLichten: It's so cliché, but there's a reason why it's a cliché. A Japanese producer introduced me to Cinema Paradiso when it came out, and I'm sure many of your listeners know that's Ennio Morricone. I think when I saw that film and heard the music, you really sense the power that music can bring to the visual arts, and that probably had the greatest influence on me.

Alison Stewart: When you talk about being self-taught, how did that progress?

Helmut VonLichten: Well, you have a piano in the house, which I always encourage parents to put pianos in the house, real pianos if you have the space, because there's something about having it in the room that draws kids to it. That obviously was the first attraction, just to have something, and then obviously as parents, you have to have the patience to let them pound and make a lot of bad noise until they can figure out something that's pleasing to the ear.

My parents had that patience, and so it was just a process. You'd hear something on the radio and you'd sit down and attempt to emulate it. Really, it's a lot of ear training. There's that whole 10,000 hours. After about 10 years of doing this, you finally learn. You can hear songs on the radio or online and you just fundamentally know what the chords are or what the melody is doing. It's a mystery to me. I don't understand how it works cerebrally, but I just know that it works, and I'm happy that it does.

Alison Stewart: What would you say was your breakthrough, your professional breakthrough, the job or the gig or the moment that really changed things?

Helmut VonLichten: My brother and I made a record in 2001. We started a band called E.S. Posthumous, and we had this concept of fusing orchestra, rock band, choir, electronics, and world percussion. We just wanted to make the most-- It wasn't called this at the time, but it ended up being called this just epic music. The breakthrough came when we made this record, and up to that point, we really hadn't heard anything like it.

We went up to Seattle and recorded with the Seattle choir and the Seattle Symphony and hired the best musicians in LA, rock musicians, and we put the record out. This was early on in the internet, and record deals still mattered to get exposure. It was really hard to get exposure, but we put the record out and somehow people found it. I think the big break that we first got was the initial remake of Spider-Man. They used it in the trailer.

Then subsequently, a lot of the sports networks found the music because, again, it lends itself to sports because it's so aggressive, it's high testosterone, it's sort of very edgy. The big break came based upon CBS Sports hearing that record, using it for a couple of programming instances, and then they called me and said, "Hey, we want a new football theme. Would you be interested in writing it?" Of course, we said yes, and that became what is known now as the NFL on CBS.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Helmut VonLichten. He's the Emmy Award-winning composer. We're talking about his career until now and his various compositions, specifically the sports-related ones. Is there anything different about trying to create a sports-related theme as opposed to other work that you do?

Helmut VonLichten: Absolutely, because a sports theme-- If you're scoring a film or a TV series, you're watching a scene and it's much more nuanced. You've got dialogue, you've got body language that you're-- and you're [unintelligible 00:09:57] a scene. It starts simple and it may evolve and might become more dramatic. With the sports theme, it's a lot like a logo, like a visual logo like McDonald's. When you see the golden arches, you go, "Hey, McDonald's." You don't need a minute to figure out it's the McDonald's logo, you just know it.

That really was the end game with the NFL on CBS and all subsequent sports themes was, within a second to two seconds, people have to know it's the NFL on CBS without question. The challenge is, within one to two seconds, you can only articulate maybe 6 to 10 notes. If you think about how many different versions there are of the six different notes, obviously, there are quite a few, but to come up with something unique and memorable, that's a little tough.

To draw the comparison, when you're writing a song, it's three minutes. When you're writing a scene or scoring a scene in a film, it can be two to four minutes, but this, I've got two to five seconds to make a statement. That process is considerably different than the others.

Alison Stewart: I want to play the full theme. Before we play it, what is something you'd like people to listen for? Is it a moment or a choice you made, or a part that you went back and forth on?

Helmut VonLichten: I think it's just those first five seconds. See, when I write, because I'm not a pen and paper guy, I don't hear it in my head necessarily. It's very visceral. It's like a kid with a hammer and pounding blocks. When I load an instrument, I'm loading an instrument that's going to inspire me, that's going to give me that visceral sense. If you hear from the top, you'll hear big brass.

They're actually French horns, and that's what I use to compose with for this song. I sit down with French horns and write the melody. It takes a while to come up with the right thing, but that's what I would point out, would be listen to the brass, listen to these first five seconds because that's the hook.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to the CBS NFL theme.

[MUSIC - E.S. Posthumus: NFL on CBS Theme]

Alison Stewart: You know what I love about that? It's got a groove.

Helmut VonLichten: What?

Alison Stewart: It's got a groove.

Helmut VonLichten: Well, I'm not going to--

Alison Stewart: It's not just the big [unintelligible 00:13:29], the groove sustains you. It keeps you going. It keeps one going, I think.

Helmut VonLichten: Yes. Well, that was part of the point too, it was to get a groove in there for sure.

Alison Stewart: I love some of the-- It's been viewed 3 million times on YouTube, and some of the comments include, "Goosebumps every time." "When I get married, this is the song I'm going to come out to."

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: That is one of my favorites. Another moment, I mentioned this in the intro so I want to make sure we get to it, you worked with Jay-Z. How did you first connect with Jay-Z? What was the project?

Helmut VonLichten: The project was a Super Bowl on CBS. Basically, the goal was to come up with a song that we could open the Super Bowl with. At the time, Run This Town was a big hit, and so we thought, well, that's a perfect lyric, but what we wanted to do was somehow mash up the NFL on CBS theme with Run This Town. What I did is I got the single and embedded on top of it a new orchestration that would work. I came up with a proof of concept, a demo if you will.

Then I ran that by CBS and they loved it. Then, of course, the goal was to get the permission from Rihanna and Jay-Z and everyone involved. It was just a matter of getting agents, managers and getting publishers. At some point, we got lucky and got it into the hands of Jay. He loved it and we went from there. We ended up shooting a video in New York, and it was incredible.

If you listen to the Run This Town/Posthumus Zone, which is the formal name of the NFL on CBS theme, you'll see that it doesn't resemble the radio version very much other than the vocals and the rap. What I was able to do was get stems of the vocals and then build my orchestra around that.

Alison Stewart: My guest has been Helmut VonLichten, Emmy Award-winning composer. Thank you so much for walking us through your work. It was fascinating.

Helmut VonLichten: You're welcome. It was a pleasure being here.

Alison Stewart: Let's go out on that Run This Town remix.

[MUSIC - Jay-Z, Rihanna & E.S. Posthumus: Run This Town/Posthumus Zone]

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