Dan Alvarez profile picture

Dan Alvarez

danalvarezmusic

About Me

I try to do too many things in the audio/music world, like composing, arranging, orchestrating, producing, engineering, mixing, keyboard playing, and yelling at the equipment when it doesn't work right :)Mostly what I do these days is compose music for television and film. If you've seen the TV show "Unsolved Mysteries" or played the SIMS II video game you've probably heard my music.

My Interests

Anything related to music and audio. Shall we discuss Microphone Preamps? Sample Rate Conversion? Digital Synthesis? The harmonic progressions of Brahms? Also -- Hiking, Reading, Rollerblading, Psychology/Neuroscience, Movies, Sailing. I love the ocean. Oh yeah... I speak a little Polish so if anyone wants to help keep me in practice, say czesc. And go Niners!

I'd like to meet:

1. Creative, talented film directors in need of musical underscore.2. Steve Jobs so I can tell him to fix his broken crap :-)

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Music:

Yellowjackets, Dixie Dregs, Mike Stern, Flim and the BBs, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Earth Wind & Fire, Scritti Politti, The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, Boston, Aerosmith, The Who, Third Eye Blind, Portishead, Coldplay, Sting, Queen, Alanis Morissette, Porcupine Tree, 70's Genesis, '70s Elton John, '70s Stevie Wonder, Yes, ELP, Shawn Lane, Counting Crows, Peter Gabriel, Deep Forest, Toto, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Thomas Newman, Alan Sylvestri, Michael Convertino, Bernard Hermann, Dannny Elfman, Mark Mothersbaugh, Bach, Dvorak, Mozart, Schubert, Berlioz, Chopin, Medelssohn. Faure, Smetana, Debussy, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Janacek, Granados, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Jascha Heifeitz, Beethoven, Art Tatum, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Maynard Ferguson, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans

Movies:

Jacob's Ladder, Blade Runner, Shawshank Redemption, Hotel Rwanda, Crash, Schindler's List, The Sixth Sense, The Matrix, Fight Club

Television:

These days not too much...mostly Discovery Channel and History Channel. I have a weird obsession wth cataclysmic disasters. You can't go wrong with old episodes of the Twilight Zone or the Sopranos.Craig Ferguson, South Park, or Monty Python if I want some levity.

Books:

Anything by Stephen King, Poe, Ramachandran, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley. I love books about the brain, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology. George Carlin's book "Napalm and Silly Putty" had me laughing uncontrollably for hours. And though comic strips isn't a category here, I must mention Bizarro and Pearls before Swine, both of which crack me up.

Heroes:

I'm not a big believer in heroes. Too many people are put up on these pedestals. But anyone who has displayed courage in the face of great adversity, sacrificed to help a fellow human being, or has taken on personal risk in order to do the right thing, is a hero in my book.One of my biggest heroes is my buddy Jason Becker, who I work with frequently. He is both monstrously talented, and a constant reminder of what being human is about. Go check out his myspace.

My Blog

Happy November

Just wanted to say thanks to all of you who have written, especially all of Jason's fans. I do read all your comments and messages. And my apologies for not writing back. At some point I will try. I'm...
Posted by Dan Alvarez on Sun, 05 Nov 2006 03:02:00 PST

Birthday

Ok, yesterday was my birthday, though it was primarily celebrated on Saturday by way of my buddy Jonathon and I making asses out of ourseves playing several games of pool at Thalassa's in Berkeley, re...
Posted by Dan Alvarez on Mon, 26 Jun 2006 01:47:00 PST