In the South (ebook score) with Salman Rushdie

eBook Score for Salman Rushdie

Overview

An innovative e-book scoring collaboration with Salman Rushdie.

In 2010 I was approached by a new company calling themselves Booktrack. They introduced me to their idea of creating bespoke musical soundtracks to accompany the experience of reading of e-books. They had worked out a way of software tracking (not exactly, but close enough) the speed of your reading. This allowed for the creation of musical and audio tracks that were aligned closely enough with the rate of reading, to allow the opportunity of reading with a synchronized soundtrack that enhanced the reading experience. Initially they were just interested in hearing my thoughts, which were:

1. Art should drive this enterprise - not commerce. They had a unique opportunity to create a brand new art form; or at least offer a brand new experience of reading.

2. They should focus on great literature and create music and sound design equal to it.

3. Great literature demanded great music. They needed to find composers creatively equal to the depths and substances of the books they were scoring.

4. Where possible, the composer needed to be able to engage with the author and the work should emerge collaboratively.

5. Where possible, a kind of director should be involved to supervise the process and mediate the relationship between author and composer

6. The music should be resourced in a similar way to a film score.

In essence none of these suggestions manifested. The company was firmly fixed on making as much possible from the enterprise and very quickly moved into a model of allowing anyone to upload a score for a book on Amazon etc. Looking at the Booktrack website at the time of writing this (2025) they seem to be a solutions-offering organisation for others to create audio for their books. I see Booktrack as one of the great lost artistic opportunities of the early 21st-century.

But they needed a flagship work to develop interest in their product and, amazingly, they convinced Salman Rushdie to offer up his short Novella "In the South". They also talked me into scoring this. I jumped at the opportunity to collaborate in any way with Salman Rushdie and will always treasure the brief but fascinating email dialogue we had over some months. But looking back I'm embarrassed to have agreed to score this book with no fee. It was obvious to the company that I was in this for the chance to work with Salman, and would do it regardless of fee.

I created what eventually became a monumental orchestral score, with sequenced tablas and sitar. This was recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and there's a SoundCloud link below to a special edit I made, that gives an idea of the journey through the various sections in the story. I'm deeply indebted to The Raga Guide for inspiration. This 4-CD compilation is an introduction to Hindustani ragas, the melodic basis for the classical music of Northern India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.

A second problem I experienced (the first being giving up a big chunk of time for no income), was I didn't really engage with the story. I have deep admiration for Rushdie's work (Fury and The Moor's Last Sigh are incredible), but this novella has a degree of detachment that made it hard to engage with emotionally and artistically.

In the course of this journey though, I met an extraordinary person, Jamie Joseph from Saving the Wild. Amongst many other things Jamie is a wonderful writer and Booktrack had brought her onboard to create content about their new venture. Meeting Jamie, and working with her on this and subsequent projects, was the main reward of the Booktrack undertaking.

A number of other Wellington-based composers became involved in Booktrack scores, creating a number of accompanying soundtracks (even including parts of the Bible). These included veteran film composers Tom McLeod, David Long, Steve Gallagher and others.

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