The writing process for this project was different to much of my standard compositional method where I would normally sit down with an idea for a melody or sound that I would work on and develop over time. For this project, I looked at everything as an almost equation, beginning with playing with which key signature would best suit this before working melody ideas from the ground up, playing around with the film excerpt on loop, trying to figure out a melody that suited the atmosphere of the shot and that I believed summed up the character and his state of mind.
I composed the piece on a macbook pro using Logic Pro. My two monitor setup allowed me to view the arranger window on my laptop whilst playing the video, midi notes and mixer on my second, larger monitor. The full piece was composed using an oxygen midi keyboard. Using two monitors gave great control with synchronising the music that I was writing and each cue to the areas of film that they were to be implemented to. This is the first piece of music that I have gone out of my way to type up rough cue sheets of where I wanted each cue to begin and end and any points that I believed that music to change with camera shots etc. to enhance the visual. Cue sheets are an ideal asset for this reason. Even if they are not followed to the exact frame or second, they give a complete insight into where every sound should be placed and directions for how that piece of music should sound, it makes synchronising audio ten times easier in post production.
The music was composed in B minor. Originally I began composing the piece in C minor but felt that the key did not feel 'tragic' and 'dark' enough so transposed my ideas down to B minor, a key that I had previously read up on to be the 'key of dispair' and seemed to suit the melody that I was writing and the character that I could see on screen. Once I had the initial melody written
I began to look at how I may manipulate this character through music. I already had a rough story written out for him, in excerpt one he was to be a man struggling to deal with the loss of a loved one, he begins out as an emotional wreck, plagued by his sadness with the only method of dealing with his loss being to run away from the life that he knew. As he finds himself alone in a hotel room he completely breaks down, loses himself and ultimately loses control of his sanity before entering an almost trance-like state where he contemplates taking his own life to cope with his feelings and to save others hurt as he has become a loose cannon that is capable of doing anything.
I found that keeping a pad and paper beside my workstation to be the best method of getting to grips with why and what I was doing and to document both the potential work that I could do aswell as the work that I did by documenting chords, scales, use of instrumentation and effects.
I enjoy starting any composition with a single piano, whether the melody written on piano stays on that instrument is a different matter but as a fundamental start, I find it easier to hear the melody, where it can go and where the harmonies lie in the piano tone. For this piece I had no reason to stray away from the piano, once reverb was added, the piano took on a life of its own, in capturing the lonely, depressed character within the spacial dimensions of a single delicately played instrument.
I enjoyed adding the melodic minor scale to the minor scale used. One of my main goals was to not just make the music turn atonal or suddenly shift away from the tonal centre in a fashion that did not really make any logical sense but wanted to begin turning the audiences expectations for the music gradually over time. The melodic minor scale provided the perfect bridge point between the minor scale and chromatic notes, it allowed for two extra accidentals to add a disconcerting feel to an established theme whilst gradually pulling away from that tonal centre.
Using a combination of sampled instruments using Native instruments Kontakt, along with Logic's own sampled instruments with added effects provided by space designer reverb and t-racks audio plugins suite, I managed to not only create natural, real sounding instruments but also managed to give instruments their own character and space in the mix. Utilising effects such as equalisation and reverb not just to add colour to an instrument but to allow that instrument to breathe in the mix, providing space where the instrument may be differentiated when sitting in harmony with multiple other instruments.
I believe this project came quite naturally to me. I've been used to composing to screen and to briefs for a while now and love that I had the creative ability and allowance to write in any style of music but also had to follow to certain rules, the music must be simple enough for an audience to relate to, it must stand for this characters state of mind and it must be manipulated but not have no relevance to its established state. Do I think that this method of composition is better or worse than being left to my own devices and write whatever I want? Well I believe both have their advantages and disadvantages. If I were to have written anything that I wanted then just put it to this piece of film then it would not have captured the same characteristics that the end piece did, it would not have become the character that I watched on constant rotation whilst writing. Writing in this fashion allowed my creativity to flow whilst confining me to a length, style idea that made the writing coherent and made sense.
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