Dara Taylor Puts the Heart in Marvel’s “Ironheart” Score
Dara Taylor is the latest composer to put her musical touches on the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the Disney+ series, Ironheart. The six-episode series follows Riri (Dominique Thorne), an MIT student who has freshly returned to her hometown of Chicago after the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Her return finds her in the middle of a war between technology and magic as she finds herself involved with the mysterious figure known as The Hood (Anthony Ramos).
Taylor sat down with Beyond the Cinerama Dome to discuss the dreamlike way she was added to the MCU, tying Riri’s journey to the existing world of Black Panther, and the art of bucket drumming. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Beyond the Cinerama Dome: You're the first composer I've interviewed whose focus was singing in college. Do you feel like that offers you a different perspective when you're scoring?
Dara Taylor: My main instrument was voice, so one thing I might tend to do more than others is pay a lot of attention to the space between the notes. It’s something that a lot of other instruments can't do as well.
Even in Ironheart, there’s a fair amount of vocal things. Not just sung vocals, but also a lot of vocal effects. That’s what I feel the freest experimenting with as well.
Do you feel like you’re bringing in vocal components to your scores more often than some other composers?
Possibly. It's hard to say. The voice is a powerful instrument, so I'm not the only one who uses parts of it. It's definitely a place my mind will go to pretty quickly, and then I'll see if it fits.
Is there a way to incorporate some vocals in here? And if so, what? What kind?
I've heard that a lot of composers sketch on piano or guitar or something else when they're going through the first run-through of the score. Are you sketching with your voice or are you doing it with an instrument? Have you found something that’s kind of like your go-to to begin the process?
It really depends on the project. I think finding instrumentation is actually one of my first steps in composing, because I feel like it's hard to find the voice of a theme without knowing what that literal voice is. Whether that's a guitar or a piano or something else entirely.
Each instrument evokes different emotions and has different idiomatic ways of playing it. If I'm sketching on the piano or on a guitar, then I might be thinking more clearly at first. If I'm sketching with voice, then I might be thinking more about a melody first.
What I usually do after I have a first glimmer of an idea is I'll just bounce whatever crappy version I have off the director. I'm usually driving somewhere far away all the time because I live in Thousand Oaks and nothing is in Thousand Oaks (laughs).
I'll play it in the car and I'll listen to it, and then I’ll use my watch because I can't record and listen at the same time on the phone. I'll use my watch to sing along with the recording and try to think of other elements to add.
You've done documentary work, features, and animated and live-action shows. Do you feel like your research or preparation process changes based on the genre?
The research process is sort of the same. You're always thinking about whatever the character needs, whether it be a fictional character or not, and just speaking to their needs. Animation is going to be busier than a documentary, and those sorts of genre differences.
Pretty quickly I do have to also take into consideration the genre and just how many wide, sprawling shots I have versus people telling their life story in an interview. I feel very lucky to have worked in so many genres.
Can you talk a little bit about how you got involved with Ironheart and what made you really excited to join the project?
I was approached and I put in a reel of pre-existing music. Then I wrote a demo after reading some of the scripts. It was some thematic, tonal material, and then I did some changes on that.
Then I waited for a while, as one does. Sometimes you're like, oh, well, I guess maybe it didn't come my way. Out of the blue, I got a text message that said, are you ready to join the MCU?
And I'm like, what? It's still very surreal, even though it comes out on June 24th. I’m still in some disbelief.
I would have thought that was a prank or a spam text.
I didn't have the number saved in my phone at first (laughs). I assumed who it was, but I texted someone who would have this number and asked them to double check.
Such a funny way to find out you're joining the MCU!
Yeah, it was right before I was going to start a choir session for another film I was finishing at the time. I got that text about 30 seconds before the first downbeat. I was like, concentrate on what you have to do.
I have no idea how those first few takes landed. I have no recollection of the first hour of that session (laughs).
What was the turnaround like for Ironheart?
I've had so many varying lengths of turnovers. From under two weeks to two years. Ironheart felt like a decent click. It was definitely within the cadence of a TV show, which is a thing that I enjoy, the anxiety of it. You're always onto the next, there's no time to settle.
I do feel like I had enough time, which felt good because that's not always the case. It was full, but it wasn't frantic.
The main character of Ironheart is Riri, who is also in Black Panther. Did you find any ways to incorporate bits of the Black Panther score into yours?
I had a lot of conversations early on with a lot of the creative executives. We all decided that we wanted Riri to have her own character, her own sonic tableau, if you will.
There is one moment that I actually gleaned from the script in the third episode where it says something like, hearkening back to the drums of Wakanda. That’s where I used a little bit of talking drums, which is what Ludwig Göransson uses. But it's like, super processed, you know? I know it's there, but it's a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of moment. It was just fun for me to incorporate a little bit of that.
The two kind of parallel each other in the driving force of percussion. In Wakanda Forever, there are a lot of African drums, talking drums, and the like. In Ironheart, because she’s in Chicago and because she’s a techie and deals a lot with metal, there are a lot of metallic sounds. Also some bucket drumming and things that still have a lot of energy, but the tone of them is different.
I read that you had a blend of synths, trap percussion, and orchestra. I'm very curious how orchestra and bucket drumming can have this balance within the score. Could you talk a little bit about those elements and how they all come together to create Riri's world?
It really kind of depends on where we are in her world. In a heist, it's fun and easy to add in some bucket drums. There's also a moment where it's just bucket drums in episode two. I wait until episode two to bring those in because I feel like she doesn't really find a sense of herself again until Natalie reappears. I wait for that moment for her to remember, like, oh, I can have fun, as begrudgingly as I might want to. It’s like a part of herself that's calling back.
Riri is kind of these two things. She has these big epic moments, but it's always kind of based and grounded in technology. The bucket drums are just a way to add extra scrappiness to it. She's making her suit out of random parts. In one of the teaser videos, you see her use bus parts. She makes her suit out of everything. Bucket drums are exactly that; taking something that's not meant for that and re-utilizing it for a new purpose.
My last question for you, because the show is releasing episodes weekly, without giving spoilers, I know you're under lock and key, is there a section or a part of an episode that you’re really excited for people to hear the score and how it relates to what's happening on screen?
There's the tech side of RiRi and then there's also the kind of dark, atmospheric side of Parker as The Hood. I think The Hood, in particular, the actual piece of fabric, has its own sonic atmosphere, which is kind of teased in the beginning and becomes a lot more full-bodied by the end of the six-episode event.
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