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#1: Recollection

Our first assessment assigned to us was to create a track based on a Radiohead drum beat. These were the requirements:

  • It has to have at least 2 recorded instruments (including voice)

  • It has to be between 3 minutes and 12 minutes

  • The drum pattern doesn’t have to stay a drum pattern: it could be turned into another instrument

 

Lindsay sent us a website where we could download drum pattern samples from Radiohead songs. I downloaded them and carefully listened to each one. I decided on ‘Ful Stop’ I liked the feel of the drums and thought I could attempt a rock piece. We were encouraged to write something out of our comfort zone, so this was perfect.

 

At the time we got the assessment, I had a holiday booked. I brought my laptop along with me so I could get started on a draft. The first thing I did was put the ‘Ful Stop’ audio file into GarageBand. I started to play around with some different chord progressions and sounds from the library. The first part of the track I completed was the chorus. I then moved on to playing around with some chords for the verse parts. I wanted it to feel more like an instrumental track/backing track for a potential artist to use and create lyrics for. The way I accounted for this was by adding in the 3rd instrument: an electric guitar. Once I was happy with the electric guitar parts, I worked on the drums. Drums are what I knew I needed to spend time on. So I made sure I had plenty of time to create something that easily transitioned into the main drum beat from the Radiohead track I chose. After some time, just seeing what worked and what didn’t, I found I had a draft I was relatively happy with.

 

At an ensemble class on a Friday, I presented my piece and received some feedback. To make it more of a rock feel, bass and potentially another guitar should be added. Another classmate said that maybe a synth would sound nice and some kind of backing vocals. I happily took the feedback and got to work. The first thing I did was add in a bass. I tried a few different ways before I settled on what is on the track currently. Next, I added a strings synth.

 

During project week, I neatened everything up in the program. I also added ‘piano tings’ to the chorus. In the latter of some choruses’, I add an extra layer, an octave lower, to create a fuller sound. I also changed some drum patterns around. I brought this version back to a classmate and they said it sounded better.

 

I wanted to add some more so next I played around with an extra arpeggio synth to fill in some gaps going between parts of the song. Before heading into the bridge part of the track, I added a synth part going one way and then heading out of the bridge I reversed it. Something else I did was add in the main chorus drum pattern myself. I changed the original from 6/4 to 4/4 for my version.

 

At this point, I was very happy with the track and didn’t feel the need to add anything else so I moved on to recording the main piano parts and the piano chorus ‘tings’. I recorded everything myself with my equipment and it went well. After I chopped the audio files and edited them to fit well in the track I worked on some backing vocals. I played the track on repeat and sat at my piano and after a while, I figured out 2 backing vocals - one for the chorus parts and another for the bridge part. I notated them on some staved paper and then did some practice before recording them. After I recorded the main melodies I moved on to recording some harmonies and high parts. After I chopped and edited them to remove any extra noises in the background, I felt like the track was finished.

 

The next part I completed was scoring. This is my first time scoring anything and I was excited about the challenge. The first part I scored was the recorded piano parts, there were 3 different parts in total. This was relatively easy as I already transcribed parts on paper to record it. Next were the 2 synthesisers. I had to swap one around as it wasn’t what I thought it was, so I found a sound that was more matched. I followed the score section in GarageBand to complete this. I had a similar experience as described above for scoring the bass guitar. When it came to scoring the electric guitar, GarageBand had swapped the bass and treble clefs around so I had to write out the bass guitar on Bass Clef on paper. Once I completed that I moved on to drums. I was a bit nervous about this part so I left it as one of the last parts I had to score. I, fortunately, attended a hip-hop class a few weeks before so I had a better understanding of scoring drums. I took my time with this part and it paid off as I successfully scored them. The very last part I scored was the 3 vocal parts: Melody, Harmony, and Falsetto. They were also, like the piano parts, relatively easy to score as I had written them down beforehand when I created the parts. As well as adding in the correct notes, I added in ties, slurs, sharps, naturals and rests. I enjoyed the process of scoring, at times it was a bit tedious but overall it was a great learning experience and I look forward to doing it again.

 

I worked on adding lyrics to the vocals and adding in dynamics, like crescendos and other markings, to that section. I went to each part and added the dynamic markings for the whole score and then went into GarageBand to add the dynamics with automation. I had to make some minor changes to the score but after that was done. The score and dynamics were fully complete.

 

The next week, I downloaded Logic Pro, so I transferred the program into the new DAW. I changed the EQ levels slightly and changed the instrument sounds, as I had more selection on Logic Pro. I added in panning automation which was lots of fun. I have sounds at certain points travelling from one speaker to the other and swapping over with instruments. I also changed the drum patterns. Once I changed the drum section, I made the changes in the main score. I also changed the harmony voice to suit male vocals.

 

I went back into Logic and after changing some vocals, recorded them and started the mixing process. I already completed the mixing for the instruments, so instead focused on first mixing the vocals and then I added in panning and volume automation. I then finally added a limiter to the main track so there was no peaking.

 

 

As a listening experience headphones or 2 speakers are needed as I have automated panning. In some sections, the panning travels from one speaker to the other speaker. I made a decision to use panning to create the lead in’s and lead out’s to certain sections. For example, I have the synth panning going towards the section and then panning going the opposite way to lead out of the section. Recollection is a composition designed to be given to an artist to add lyrics. This is why I have backing vocals added in. It is supposed to evoke a nostalgic feeling.

 

That is the full process of ‘Recollection’. Even though it was a struggle at first, I learnt so much along the way thanks to my tutors and friends. Overall I am very happy with this piece.

#2: Night in the Sky

The second assessed track for my composition class was classified as a ‘sound object track’. In this track, we had to have 10 different sound clips arranged in no particular order. They had to bounce from one sound to the next and the sound had to generally be short. We could layer sounds too. I didn’t know exactly what the overall sound expected was so I just simply found 10 sounds and didn’t think much about where they went, they just went from one to the next and had layers here and there. The sounds I found were as followed:

  • Air Conditioner

  • Camera Shutter Click

  • Lasers

  • Lightsaber

  • Playful R2-D2

  • Standard R2-D2

  • NASA Space Launch

  • Star Trek Bridge

  • Tie Fighter

  • Tie Fighter Comms

 

After downloading them, I added the audio files in GarageBand and chopped and edited the sounds individually. I broke down each sound so I had little clips I just moved around. In the end, I used most of the little clips I created.

 

Once my draft was completed, I presented it in class and got some feedback. Some feedback and suggestions I received were to play around with silence and no silence, use a panning feature, space more sounds out, and add in some reverb. The first change I made was adding in more Tie Fighter Comm sounds, this added a kind of beat to the track to follow since it doesn’t have a tune. Next, I played with the panning and did different planning percentages for most individual tracks. I moved on to automation and added different volume levels for each track. I played the track as I moved the lines around so I could hear what different levels sounded like.

 

I downloaded Logic Pro and put the track into the DAW. Some changes I made were adding panning automation and then adding a limiter on the master track. Other than that, there were no other changes.

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For the scoring process, I used MuseScore4 and added in piano parts and then changed the names to ‘lasers’, ‘lightsaber’, etc. I then allocated 1 note for each part; for example ‘lightsaber’ is the E note. I went back and forth between MuseScore4 and LogicPro until the scoring process was finalised.

 

Before I scored the composition through MuseScore, I attempted to use the program Audacity. I played around with the program for a while but ultimately it didn’t work well for me.

 

The listening experience of the piece is in the name: ‘Night in the Sky’. All the sounds represent what’s going on in the sky at night in another world. I used sounds from pop culture (Star Wars, Star Track) to extend the listening journey.

 

The whole process of creating this composition was interesting, and even though the concept confused me at the very beginning, I am quite happy with how it all turned out. I learnt many new skills along the way around topics like scoring and LogicPro.

 

This composition was featured in the Shock of the New concert on the 28th of April 2023.

#3: for resolution

For one of my final assessment tracks, we had to create a 2-minute composition only using rhythm. My first thought when this idea was introduced was I wanted to create an orchestral piece that was in a time signature I haven’t written a lot in. I chose to create something in 6/8 time signature originally. The first draft of the piece was done in Logic Pro. Before this, I did some research on typical orchestral percussion. Some percussion instruments I found and wanted to use were the concert bass drum, timpani, tenor drum, piccolo drum, cymbals and temple blocks. Some ideas mentioned in class that I wanted to incorporate were polyrhythms: a process where you use contrasting rhythms, metric canon: phasing out tempos, syncopation, and a process where notes get slightly shifted until they match again.

 

This was the layout of the first draft:

  • Bars 1-8: Introduction to the piece (gradual build-up)

  • Bars 8-16: Adding in new instruments

  • Bars 17-24: Taiko drum section

  • Bars 25-32: Dramatic height of the piece

  • Bars 33-48: Polyrhythm section

  • Bars: 49-56: Simplifying instruments

  • Bars 57-72: Rhythmic technique

  • Bars 73-81: Outro to the piece

Below is a copy of my first draft.

 

Ultimately I wasn’t happy with the overall outcome so I decided to try a different compositional technique. During the June-July break, I worked a lot on rhythms and understanding them and wanted to put my practice into actual work. So I worked directly from MuseScore4 and notated rhythms as I went along. I kept most of the original instruments. In the second draft, I had 10 percussion parts but the final cut went down to 8 as I was able to put some parts together. The final instruments I used were Bass Drum, Bongos, Snare Drum, Toms, Cymbal, Tam-Tam, Castanets and Claves. I changed the time signature to 6/4 as at the time I was watching Doctor Who and wanted to write something in the same time signature as its theme song composed by Murray Gold. I came to a point halfway through the piece where I wanted a change and I knew I wanted to keep the same rhythmic technique I used in the first draft. I drafted up something and then changed the time signature again after the section. Before I move on, I would like to add that I did originally have trouble understanding how to use the concept but after some feedback from Lindsay and classmates, I came to an understanding and was able to notate it correctly. The final 4/4 section is the outro and I wanted to leave the piece with a bang. I added in points where I slowed down and then a tutti section where everyone comes together for the final rhythms.

 

When I first received feedback, it mostly had to do with the layout of the score. That was an easy fix. The next set of feedback was dynamics and expression markings, they correlate with the feel of the song. How I want the song to be understood is like a battle. I drew inspiration from the new Disney Plus show ‘Ahsoka’. The very beginning of the show starts off with a percussion ensemble playing spontaneously, and almost randomly. It sounds like a war cry and you can feel the anticipation. I used contrasting rhythms and polyrhythms to create this feeling in my piece. Each section should feel like a different part of the battle.

 

Below is a copy of the score for 'for resolution'.

I worked hard on this piece and considering I struggled with writing rhythms and understanding them at the start of the year, I am proud of this piece. It was a unique experience writing where I learnt more about composing techniques and theory skills.

#4: Jazz Arrangement

One of our assessment pieces for the final semester this year was to write a jazz arrangement for a 3 piece band. Before I started this assessment piece, I had in mind to write for a jazz quartet that consisted of a piano, drum set, saxophone and double bass. I had to cut out a part for the assessment so I decided to remove the saxophone. Once that decision was made, I had to pick a song to turn into a jazz arrangement. After some research on 70’s music, I decided on ‘Livin’ Thing’ by Electric Light Orchestra. I could imagine a stripped-back version with a swing beat to it, so that’s what I did.

 

The first step of the arrangement was finding a score to follow so I could get a general idea of the chords and melody. I sat down, observed the score and discovered it only has 3 parts: introduction, verse and chorus. I started to transcribe my arrangement starting with the piano part, I changed the triad chords to 7th chords to give a jazzy feel. I wrote in the chords and the rhythms, I also wrote the chord names above the stave. Next, I notated the melody for the double bass. Then I looked at the drum set rhythm, wrote it into the score and added in repeat bars where needed. The last part of the draft was adding a vocal line and lyrics. In regards to the layout, I wanted it to look like a jazz standard. I set the verse as ‘A’ and the chorus as ‘B’; the introduction stayed as ‘intro’.

 

I brought this forward in class and from there I added in slash notation, fixed up a few notation issues and changed the double bass rhythm, as well as adding further dynamics to the arrangement. I changed the layout a bit so that there was some direction as to how the song should be performed.

 

Originally I wanted it to be more open-ended in regards to the performance of the song. But after some consideration, I decided that having a little direction would be better. There is still room for ad-lib which is what I intended originally. I want this to be a fun performance for those playing so I haven’t notated solos. The piano is completely ad-lib accompaniment.

 

Learning how to write an arrangement has been a good journey and I’ve enjoyed learning lots of techniques for arranging a jazz piece.

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