Writing Jingles to Winning Emmy Awards with Composer Brad Hatfield (Part 1)

In this episode, we’re joined by the talented Brad Hatfield - Emmy-winning composer, producer, pianist, educator, and longtime friend! 

We share how our paths first crossed, from a rich history of co-writing with Jeff to the online classrooms of Berklee where he taught David, cementing a lasting impact on both our careers.

With some tips and lessons along the way, Brad walks us through his fascinating musical journey that spans touring the globe with jazz bands, writing jingles in Boston, and teaching Songwriting for Film & TV and Music Supervision at Berklee.

We zoom in on music education, exploring how Brad navigates classrooms of varying student abilities, how technology shapes and sometimes limits our craft, and a funny look at how teaching has evolved since the 1970’s, back when sub-par work left the classroom as a paper airplane out of the window…

Part 2 of this conversation is out now, talking all things music supervision and collaboration! (What Makes A Good Music Supervisor and Why You Shouldn't Write Music With Your Friends)

#composer #musicindustry #filmcomposer #tvcomposer #filmmusic 

Transcript

Jeff (00:00.086)

No one values any expertise anymore, right? So it doesn't you know you can say what you are and everyone's supposed to believe it. 

David

Do you know how old you sound?

Jeff

Yeah, really. I tell you what, man-

Brad (00:10.19)

A lot of Northeastern students and Berklee students that are now, you know, writing for the catalogue and for the show and they're just nailing the hell out of it. Some of them that ten or twelve years ago would go, I'm not gonna change that. Why would I change that? I like it. Now they're like, what do you want me to change? And they got the concept of being a professional in this world where it's not just a one-way street where you do what you want to do and hope people like it.

Jeff (00:48.142)

Welcome to Two Composers, Two Continents. I am Jeff Meegan.

David (00:52.832)

And I'm David Tobin.

Jeff (00:54.424)

This is a podcast about our lives making music together and the people we meet along the way. You can find us at Two Composers Two Continents with the number two on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and all audio podcast platforms. You can sign up for our newsletter and get info on the latest episodes released every second Thursday. Please like and subscribe and feel free to leave a comment as well. David, what do we got today?

David (01:18.764)

We've got a guest and I mean it's a it's a privilege for me. We've got, I mean, the double Emmy winning composer, producer, look at that, he's showing him off. And the one behind Jeff's head. And virtuosic piano player, educator, just all around good guy. This is Brad Hatfield. Yay! Welcome to Brad.

Brad (01:39.226)

It's great to be here. 

David (01:41.206)

Where are you, Brad in the world? Where's home?

Brad

Where are we I am now in Vero Beach, Florida, so just a little north of Miami, after many years in the Boston area, we fled south. So no more commuting to Berklee College of Music and sitting in traffic for an hour and a half. the commute is now about thirty seconds from the bedroom to the studio.

David (02:04.806)

Amen. Yeah, yeah. We've joined that world, right?

Jeff (02:09.804)

We share that. Yeah. That's not a bad place to be.

David (02:12.568)

Well why don't we start I mean you guys have known each other since the late 18th century I think, so why don't we start with where you met, how you met and the contact?

Brad (02:23.424)

One of the catalogues I was writing for Heavy Hitters Music Group, the head of that catalogactually connected me with Jeff because I was writing a lot of music that is a sort of easy listening cocktail jazz stuff that works really well. It's a total evergreen in the sync world. It's a music that has not completely gone out of style for like 70 years. It's kinda nuts how long it's been around. Yeah. And I'm can just bang out melodies and harmonies and in in that style, that's something that I can do pretty easily. I grew up with that kind of stuff and it's just in my DNA. But the publisher connected Jeff and I and I'm pretty sure and I that we had done some instrumental tune and she said, Well can you just send me the track of that? And I've got somebody that can actually sing and write lyrics and take this song to another useful level of having a vocal attached to it. And so that's how we got connected. I think Jeff remembers I just looked it up something, dream a dream, dream this dream. Yeah, that's what I'm what I'm seeing. Yeah. But that says 2006, so I thought we were doing stuff before that-

Jeff (03:48.462)

It was definitely before that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean thank God I mean thank god that happened. meeting you through Heavy Hitters obviously changed my life. So yeah. Tell me, David Tobin and Brad Hatfield, how did you guys connect?

Brad (04:05.782)

I was his teacher.

David (04:07.758)

I mean, I took a class and this would be 2010 maybe?

Brad (04:15.542)

I mean, you were in one of the earliest classes, because that course launched in 2009, songwriting for Film and TV, a Berklee online course.

David (04:25.856)

So I was working and I was doing bits and bobs and I just wanted to to increase my network and just learn some more stuff. I'm sort of an eternal student and you know what it's like, Jeff. I just, me that’s who I am. So I'd heard good things about this course and so I signed up for this course and thank goodness I did. And Brad was teaching it and I remember doing, I remember doing my first assignment think I was writing something to a like a Mr. Darcy,there was some there was something to do with with people wearing flouncy hats and-

Jeff (05:05.267)

Right up your alley! You must see that all the time.

David

Yeah, it's just what we wear. And I can't remember exactly do you remember, Brad, how it happened that I wheedled my way into asking for a job with you?

Brad (05:19.682)

Yeah, I mean you were among the the first waves of students that I got in that course, like you, were hungry. And I had folks like yourself that already had skills together and the curiosity part of folks like you that drove them to these courses. I wanna say this to anybody that's listening right now. You are always on stage. Somebody is always listening and watching you. And so this is the one thing about teaching, especially an online environment where you've got it's global, it's all age groups and it's also all all different levels of talent, which sometimes proves challenging. But when you got folks in the class that that could really deliver the goods, it raised the level of everybody else in the class. And then of course we we did do some collaboration within the course. So everybody got a good taste of being able to work remotely, taking direction, in my case, you know, teaching or facilitating the course. I was essentially the executive producer of anything that came in. So it's not just a grade. They're getting feedback about, hey, you know, your melody keeps going to tonic. It sounds like the song is ending every four bars. Why don't you think about moving this note up so it creates a little more forward motion? So I'm in there talking music with folks and once again, because of all the different levels of of of students, I couldn't always use words like you're going to tonic. They're going, I have no idea what you're talking about. A diet tonic? 

So with David and several other students that already were schooled musicians, it makes my job a little easier in that way that you have that extra language. You also have folks that come in that don't know an F sharp from a D, doesn't matter. They've got good ears and they take direction and they've got facility on their instrument or they're creative. It's just that in studio situations, those folks are maybe not going to do so well in terms of reading a chart down the first time. So the classroom exposed all these a variety of folks attending the class to see, shoot, I need to get this together now or maybe I don't need to have that skill. I'll rely on somebody else to do it, blah blah blah. So I tried to make it as real life as possible. And David just really ran with it. I know the final project ,which is still that same scene. 

Jeff (08:08.782)

It’s still the same scene?

Brad

I have it with my music supervision class so they can pitch to my music supervision class, to actually get some crosstalk there and hope that each party can help each other out. 

David (08:25.802)

I can't remember why there was a job going for heavy hitters, through heavy hitters, for a pitch for Boardwalk Empire that you couldn't get done for some reason. I don't remember quite how it we even discussed. 

Jeff

I’ll do it! I can do that sir!

David

How dare you, sir? That doesn't sound like me at all!

Brad (08:49.706)

Well, hey, this this is what you do. And the thing is, there's there's there's so many opportunities out there. And you still have to deliver the goods. So when you do get that shot, you really have to go all in. because people not only remember you doing well, they really remember when you don't do well. And they remember the folks that referred them.

It’s a trickle down that you really don't want. So if you're gonna make a recommendation you wanna know that somebody's gonna be able to to to to nail it. And so that that whole world, that the online education thing, which I haven't been teaching for the last two years. I've just been too busy with the the show that I'm doing now and I also just have that ability to say, you know, enough is enough. I've got other things that I want to do and so I've got other people teaching the courses, but you know, ironically, one of my students in a music supervision class was taking the class 'cause the is a music supervisor, RC Cates, who was working on General Hospital. They shook up the production staff, so he was between gigs. He took my class in music supervision. And every time he got on chat, the live class that we did once a week, he's like always so knowledgeable and was of course turning in grade assignments. But one class with the camera on, he's sitting in front of ten Emmys and I'm going, I think I understand why you're so good at this.

Jeff (10:27.936)

How strategic on RC’s part!

Brad (10:30.526)

But it was like I would say three months after the course ended, he landed the gig on on the young and the restless, you know, YNR. And because he'd heard a bunch of our music in the course, because I would say, Hey, here's something we wrote for this show and here's how it came about and here's how we handle it. So a lot of, you know, looking behind the curtain to share with folks. So a lot of our material is in there. And Jeff's as well, collabs that we had with Jeff. And he'd heard all that stuff and he goes, there's a venue on the show when they walk into they need that nice refined, you know, background jazz stuff. Would you be interested in, you know, doing things? I'm like, yes. Yeah. So so we just hit it hard and like I said, that was probably maybe nine, ten maybe ten years ago. And

Jeff (11:25.688)

Wow. You know, obviously you've been writing for sync and television for a long time. Yeah. How did you find your way to that to that arena? I mean certainly when you started doing it itwasn't a as big a thing as it is now either.

Brad (11:37.303)

Yeah. Well, there's different levels. Because I mean, I started out, you know, just quick background, you know, five one of five kids, and everybody was told you're playing piano when you're like seventh or whatever. And then in sixth grade or as you're about to enter in seventh, my mother would choose an instrument that you would also add.

So I played piano and then I chose, she chose for me string bass. you know. So early on I started playing, you know, with my brother was two years older than me, he's a drummer, vibrophonist, flute Michael, Michael Hatfield, a big bro. And so he had, you know, bands in the basement doing Hendrix tunes and Credence Clearwater and all that stuff. So that all that music was in the household. My sisters were looking listening to a lot of soul stuff as well as Beatles and what have you. and then there was, you know, Andy Williams and and German polka music occasionally from my mother. A so I was exposed to a lot of different styles of music right in the house. And you know, I got drawn as a as you know, being able to play bass and having a decent ear, but also being able to read. I ended up playing some gigs with some of my teachers at the time and then other cohorts. So what I'm trying to set tee up here is that I just didn't go, hmm, I think I'd like to write for TV. It was all a process and everything that you do gives you more ability to handle strange requests. And you just, you know, you've just got a broader palette to work with. So, even when in junior high I'm playing bass and rock bands mostly. Some keyboards with my brother's band. By high school I was gigging with teachers and whatever else I was

Jeff (13:50.978)

As a bassist?

Brad (13:59.81)

Any keyboard. The deal was, because I didn’t know the tunes as much but I could watch a piano player's left hand or just learn the tunes or whatever. I was more useful as a bass player and less noticeable if I didn't nail it. But you know, through time, I was definitely drawn to more piano stuff. And I guess where I w where I want to go with this is you you start feeling like, I'm a professional, I'm doing this, and my teacher likes what I do and I'm learning how to improvise. I'm writing for a big band when I'm like, fifteen or something, a lab band that we had. By the way, tenor saxophone is up an octave and a step, not an octave and a half step. I will tell you from personal experience-

Jeff (14:40.416)

And stuck with all these years!

David (14:44.174)

Hold on, I just need to make a note of that. Wait a minute.

Brad (14:47.754)

Yes. I've got so many stories of being, you know, humiliating myself just because I wasn't ready for prime time, but I was still you know in there. You were getting there. and and that was like my first sort of experience of getting turned on to some local folks that needed music for this and that. There was some amateur theater group that was doing a musical and my teacher said, I'm not gonna do this, you know, they're amateurs, they're good, but you wannawrite some stuff for them. I'm like, Okay, cool. So I write this stuff and I'm like, this is good, man. Got these tunes and I I go bring into the next meeting and I play for and I'm smiling and they're going, No. That's not what we need at all. 

Jeff

Crushing!

Brad

Best lesson ever. That's not what we need, is is what you need to understand when you're you're writing for somebody else's story or for somebody else's needs.

David (15:54.575)

You want it to be all about you, but unfortunately it isn't.

Brad (15:57.89)

Right. No. Yeah. So that's where the craft thing comes in. So by the time I got to Berkeley, I was studying with great people, playing with great folks, had some opportunities to arrange this and that. I got affiliated with a studio in Boston, Soundtrack Studios, which also has aoutfit in New York as well. And there I was doing jingles and corporate video music. 

David (16:26.806)

This is where you started working at Berklee or when you-

Brad (16:30.412)

No, as a student. And then kind of simultaneously I started working at Soundtrack and then started to do some teaching at Berklee. By the way, with no degree, I never graduated.

Jeff (16:45.462)

For shame!

Jeff (16:49.524)

Yes, do they know?

Brad (16:50.868)

My wife did. But yeah. She taught there for 27 years. Yeah, absolutely. So anyway, yeah, later on I ended up teaching there. But I guess you know, the broader point is, especially for your audience, is getting your feet wet and writing and producing music for somebody else's needs, whether they're known or not. So when you're writing for a library or a catalogue, I just need this specific genre. I don't have a scene for you. I don't have a storyline. I don't have a character. I have music that is in this genre that we wanna release a, you know, make a release on back in the day it was a CD. And we need you to write something in that style. So once again, and I'm working away early days of of being able to sequence stuff. I did this crazy African drumming thing where I'm playing two recorders out of the sides of my mouth. And I we had a synclavir, an SSL, I and plus we were running some software on my Mac that was a Mac plus with a meg and a half of RAM.

Jeff (17:58.134)

Nice!

Brad (17:58.412)

There's a reason I don't have any hair for those of you listening. There's no hair here because technology, you know. Because when it didn't work, it was like three hundred fifty dollars an hour of not working. It's clients staring at you.

Jeff (18:14.924)

Well, you know, it's so interesting because we I mean we've all kind of grown up as music producers who produce our own music with the technology, right? I mean, just seeing your logic or whatever performer I know you use, Brad, and and you know, all the different things grow through the years because w I think we were all on literally like the first iteration of these things, right? I don't know, that's just a little sidebar to say how interesting it is our, our time to be just playing this. 

David (18:45.432)

Grow up with it. Yeah. I I remember I had the first version of Logic which back then was called Creator Notator. And it it had a screen on the front that said go to work with a smile on the front page and you couldn't remove it. And it you couldn't see all of your work through this logo thing. And I I don't know. But interestingly, if you look back on it, a lot of the concepts from back then are still in this software. I mean you still had the transport bars and you still had the arranged pages and the other pages. A lot of it's been kept. It's just, you know, been given a spit and polish and, yeah. Different, but yeah.

Jeff (19:28.312)

So was there a moment, Brad, that you thought I mean, obviously you were probably doing lots of stuff at the same time. I'm sure you were you know, I know you were doing stuff for the Boston Pops for years and you were gigging and you were already making a living doing music. Was there a certain point when the sync was enough that you were like, my god, I'm actually I could make a living just from doing this? 

Brad (19:52.878)

I didn't go whole hog into that world because it because it ran in the background. I I was traveling with George Russell's band Mike Matheny, Bob Moses. I was on the jazz scene. Yeah. And we were in Europe and all around the States. And I enjoyed doing that. But it did take me out of the house and it did complicate things, you know, with teaching schedules once I did start teaching. But those early days at Soundtrack with the Aircraft Music Library, those were probably the first bigger placements on Saturday Night Live and some other shows that were like, Whoa, that's some real money. And, you know, back in the day we were paid a s a small fee as a composer. And then also if you're playing on the session, you'd get paid for that per song as well. But they keep, you know, master rights and all the publishing, so I don't have my hands on that. And I've got some jazz things on there that I wish I had back. And I'll share links with you guys later. You might get a kick out of these things, but we were playing some stuff. They wanted some real modern or, you know, post bop stuff that just because nobody else was doing that, you know, for the catalogues. Anyway, those early things, you know, generated some amount of money, but I I was I had my hands full with just a million other things. And I I didn't really wanna just say, Okay, I'm just gonna live in my cave.

David (21:25.878)

So there was never a point where you seriously considered just saying I'm just gonna do this?

Brad (21:30.644)

Not until I think COVID hit. I pulled the plug on teaching at Berklee. That was the I was teaching in the songwriting department at that point. And so whatever that was-

David (21:44.342)

2020? 

Brad

Spring. So, half of that semester we moved on to online, which I was super comfortable with because I've been doing it for years. And then after that semester I said, you know, I'm gonnastay south for the next and we ended up buying a place and I I didn't move here to play. We do a few concerts a year and they're always very involved and it's a lot of prep. We've got one coming up in March. And Gaye, Gaye is playing saxophone on these things and we put some pretty challenging stuff together. But players in the immediate area are few and far between. So you gotta kinda get folks from Orlando or whatever. I had no real interest in playing live, but since Gaye is chasing the the sax thing and she's sounding great, you know, I'm like, I will play for you. And she's so musical, you know. So that's some-

Jeff (22:39.758)

She’s unbelievable. We're gonna have Gaye, we're gonna invite her on to do her own podcast 'cause w all the people I've collaborated with, which is a lot, Gaye has the most unique musical point of view I've ever experienced. Yeah. It's just I'm curious to talk.

David (22:58.286)

It's so weird because I feel like I know Gaye 'cause I've heard so much stuff, but we've never spoken. And never met. I mean, you and I have never been in a room together, so it's kindaweird after fifteen, twenty, whatever years. But yeah. So it'll be fascinating to talk to Gaye. 

I'd like to ask you a question about education, just in terms of from your perspective, where did your passion for I'm gonna be an educator, where did that come from? Was this drummed into you or this was just something you found or-

Brad (23:28.036)

Yeah, it's it's I mean if you, Berklee is its own thing. And when I was a student there in you know 73, 74, , and then again later in 78, 79, it's a community. And so it's almost like you, you're working with everybody, you know they're teaching. I'm busy and nobody asked me, but then when they did ask me I said yes and I started teaching there, and I’d you know, I just wanna do a good job at whatever it is that I'm doing. And once you get into that space, especially if you have control over the material, which I've been at Northeastern University, I've started so many, music licensing, music supervision, I had control of the songwriting class and I could put all those things together. So I'd have all these different students. So I taught, you know, at Berklee initially I was in the piano department. and that's one level of teaching. It's a one on one deal or a couple of labs that I that I ran that were more electronic. But you get yourself into a situation where you can teach what you really can do. And you're not just teaching somebody's syllabus that's been there for twenty years, history of of ofwhatever. You know, just reciting the same stuff over and over again. In our world, everything changes so rapidly, especially the licensing and publishing worlds. And ownership and streaming and media types and blah blah blah. So I mean it was engaging. I learned a lot from the other students. I had to challenge myself to get updated on certain things. But at the bottom of it all, I just wanted to see the students do well and just hopefully work with them later, which I do. I have a lot of students, former students, a lot of Northeastern students and Berklee students, that are now, you know, writing for the catalogue and for the show and they're just nailing the hell out of it. Some of them that ten or twelve years ago would go, I'm not gonna change that. Why would I change that? I like it. Now they're like, what do you want me to change? They got they got the concept of, you know, being a professional in this world where it's not just a one way street where you do what you want to do and hope people like it. So I was just blessed, David, that I could teach something that I was actually doing, you know, simultaneously while teaching. I actually had a student in North Eastern and a student said, I I see you working, you know, between classes. You're always over there writing something or you're in your office doing stuff.

She goes, is there ever a time where you're standing in front of the class going, I could be making a hell of a lot more money? And I said, Yes. I said, especially today, because there's a pitch I'm trying to do. And I I mean it's like it's gonna pay, you know, like probably a quarter of what I'm gonna earn this semester, if I get it.

David (26:33.71)

Just from at least one gig, yeah.

Brad (26:38.402)

Plus. you know, the downstream reusage of whatever it is that I spend that. Well this is what I do now. You know, when we play, I'm paying folks for rehearsals, I'm you know I'm funding a lot of of things. So I lose money every time I go out and play now. Whereas before-

David (27:00.504)

You were you were making it. Did you at the end times of when you were teaching back there then, compared to fifteen, twenty years before, did you see a seed change in the way students would approach what they were doing or their understanding of an industry? Was it different?

Brad (27:16.952)

Well, it's not only that, it's just about what you could do in the classroom. Right. Because I mean, Berklee, 1970’s, you turn in an assignment that the teacher didn't like, they would literally make a paper airplane out of it, go over and open the window to Mass Avenue and just out the window and go. Or they would say, go up to the board, I want you to work on something. Okay, what am I doing? Right. Do you want fries with that? Because that's what you're gonna be doing if you keep handing work like that. 

David

I love it!

Brad

So that we can't do anymore. Those were the early days and those teachers and my brother taught there before I did. you know, he he didn't graduate either, and but he was teaching there and I think he was making maybe seven dollars an hour and he was teaching almost a forty hour week. It was like insane. Plus he was playing gigs and you know, doing sound stuff.

So when it went union and now there was, you know, better money, but then also it's like, hey, you gotta be responsible, you just can't go out on the road and send in s who who knows or try to make up all your classes in the last week. So so there's that side of it in terms of what the faculty what their viewpoint was. But what I see now with the students, when I first started teaching, obviously there wasn't all the technology social media stuff. There wasn't, do you know that I have four million, you know, shares of my stream or whatever? Which is now that's a badge of honour. And don't I look fantastic? is a thing that, you know, people might have a a look or a vibe, you know, in the early days, but you didn't have this other thing that you could just do on your own.

You had to go out there and earn everything and earn the respect. You had to get out there and play or and sing or write and you had to nail it and then you the your world would expand from there. You know, back in those days the the big bands like Buddy Rich's band and Maynard Ferguson and then the Dorsey brands that were more, you know, older things. But it wasn't unusual for students to get onto one of those bands and off they went. But the students now, a lot of them just don't know. Because they have not been in a situation where they didn't have complete control over doing whatever they wanted to do. And Berklee is a college of music. You need to be tested. You need to have these hard skills. You need to get through ear training. I mean you have to do this. It's not just you sound fantastic but you can't read or you can read your tail off but your feel is completely lacking. If you go to a college or a university that well in this case it's more of a conservatory, you know, approach at Berklee, you know, you've gotta get your skills together and you gotta keep working and you gottaknow what you don't know. And you can't buttress it all up by, but all these people like me.

Jeff (30:25.634)

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean no one values any expertise anymore, right? So it doesn't you know you can say what you are and everyone's supposed to believe it. 

David

Do you know how old we sound right now?

Jeff

Yeah, really. I tell you what, man.

David (30:37.72)

Kids today! I don't know whether I told you that, Brad, but I went to Berklee in 1992, 93. I was a student, went through all of the like you say, the ear training classes and the the scoring classes, did film scoring there and but this was just as they were about to bring in there were computers but not as we know it, in the computer lab and it was vaguely running something, but we didn't dare touch it. We were still cutting tape and you know, doing this stuff, but yeah.

Brad (31:09.59)

So you had Don Wilkins or Michael Rendish?

David (31:12.918)

Michael Rendish, yeah. Yeah yeah, and and online as well, I think I did did some stuff, but so I guess we would have been there at the same time really.

Brad (31:20.75)

Well, I was tea I think I was teaching at that time by the early nineties. I was teaching in the piano department. And when I was there, I had an ARP Odyssey and 2600, you know, where you gotta take the cables and so my my knowledge of electronic music was based on, you know, the analog stuff. If you wanna get some vibrato, you better put an LFO in there, you know, and know how to adjust it and do it on the fly. I mean, I used with my ARP Odyssey I'd be singing, playing organ with one hand and in my left hand I'm, you know, changing the cutoffs and you know, we did have somebody on the switchboard that got us a lot of gigs. When we were students, he worked a switchboard, every call that came in for a gig, he would just take it and-

Jeff (32:14.648)

We interrupt this podcast in order to turn it into two parts. If you've reached your stop on the train or the grocery store, get out and do whatever you gotta do. You can catch up on our conversation with Brad Hatfield in part two!