“Composing the way I do is a very labor-intensive thing, because I don’t have synthesizers and computers and so on,” Williams said. “I’m doing it all by hand — which is a medieval practice, to say the least.”
Keane refers to drawing as “seismographs of my soul. It registers emotions that you are drawing. And certainly John is doing that as he’s writing out the score.”
Williams wrote and recorded the short score — his first for traditional animation — as “a gift” for Bryant in March, taking a two-week break from work on the forthcoming Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Dear Basketball is part elegy, part love letter, and Williams composed a bittersweet melody that swiftly runs through a range of emotions.