Composing A Theme

Today I composed a short theme made up of a four bar melody.

The piece was composed using logic initially with a single piano track for a melody in C major. I had a rough idea of how I wanted the piece to sound, an isolated innocence that didn't become intrusive but instead whispered an unknown sadness. The piece was written at a slow tempo of 98bpm again as to not seem intrusive or to cause a sense of excitement.

Melody 1

The melody worked with interval jumps within the C major scale. First of all a jump of a major third then in the second bar by a major sixth before the route note dropped by a major second, a major third down from C. 

After I had the initially melody written I began writing rough notes on how I wanted the piece to evolve and jotted down what I was doing as I composed so I could further understand what it was that I was doing.

Written notes early in the process - Keys were changed for final mix

I decided that the second variation of the theme should add a sense of intense, pressure, anxiety and switch from being an isolated unknown character to a mysterious dark streaked character. I started this by incorporating the previous melody into a pizzicato and legato cello section. Instead of leaving this in C major I changed to the relative minor of Am. I then added a new melody based on the previous one using C major again but with accidentals that can be found in C minor along with the C major B natural. The reason for this was to add mystery and intrique as well as to take the home key that could be associated with good and altering it to sound further away from the good natured sound. The decision to strip away the piano was down to wanting the new variation to cut out the feeling of vulnerability and instead added low brass and strings to create the darker feel. The tempo was raised to 130bpm in this section to increase the urgent feel of the piece. 

Melody 2

The final variation was again to turn around the feeling we have for the potential character of the piece. Now the character has been dark, they have pulled through the darkness and deceit to become a new person, one that again feels calm and remorse but is still themselves. For this I used the piano once again but kept the melody playing a major third up from C in E, using both ideas from the first melody and the second to propose the idea that this character has built upon everything they have been before to become a new person. I added strings in this section mimicking melody one in the initial C major to harmonise with the new melody predominantly playing above it. To reinforce the feeling that this new character is a combination of the two pervious themes, the tempo was again reduced to 115bpm, sitting in between the two previous themes.  

Melody 3

Final Logic Session

This theme will be available within my pre-production portfolio