Enviable Appeal Across Generations: Ennio Morricone ( 1928 - 2020)

Italian composer, conductor, orchestrator, and trumpet player passed away on 6 July 2020. He composed over 400 scores for cinema and television as well as over 100 classical works. He won the Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2007. The scores of the hit movie the Good Bad and Ugly (1966) introduced the whistling to the Wild West movies with a tinge of mischief as if to ease the tense situations on the big screen and it ended up being the hallmark of Wild West films. What stood out for me in understanding Ennio’s life of 91 years were a couple of core principles:

1. To be successful in one’s profession across decades and to appeal to different generations of cinema audience one needs to adapt constantly and not be stuck with one’s previous success.
2. Trust in one’s creativity and ability to constantly improvise without too many hang ups or pay too much attention to the chatter in one's mind. Ennio introduced the use of pulse (riffs), human voice and sound effects in background scores - considered unconventional when it started. It made up for small budget films which couldn't afford a full fledged orchestra.
3. Be flexible with the medium you leverage for your skill - does not matter if it is great cinema like “The Untouchables” or the TV series “Marco Polo” - it adds versatility to one’s work. Ennio composed for radio, theatre, movie and also television.
4. As observed in the creative humming, whistling and strange calls in Ennio's work, its good to bring some humour and mischief into work so that you enjoy what you are doing and your audience also appreciates the connect with the output. 
5. To succeed across generations, as an artist, one needs to be passionate about what one does and hence perfect one’s craft with every creation and contribution.
6. Experimentation is key and that calls for keeping an open mind and constantly innovate - whether you use the harmonica, the whistle, the Jew's harp, gunshots, the whip or the distinct guitar notes. 
7. In his own words : “study, discipline and curiosity” are key for a creative genius and he also believed that inspiration does not exist “What exists is an idea, a minimal idea that the composer develops at the desk, and that small idea becomes something important.”