Week 4: January sketching challenge

This update will be my second to last, as my 'January sketching challenge' come slowly to a close.

The pieces I have written this week are:

This one starts of quiet with pizz. strings and flutes on top. It then developes into a little fanfare towards the end.


I think I was inspired by Ennio Morricone's recent score for the Hateful 8 with this one. I also wanted to play around with some string techniques such as glissandi and col legno to create a chilling atmosphere.


I played a round with Waterphone and various pitched percussion elements to create a slightly other-worldly soundscape.


The idea here was to use a large crescendo of dimished chords in horns over a pedal to create a menancing sound. The repetitious timpani beat provides the constant forward movement on a journey into the unknown.

I wanted to represent the passing of time as well as the feeling of laziness. I used the harp to provide the constant 'ticking' (similar to the monotonous timpani of the previous piece) and a melody that stays in one place more or less.


I made use of the alto flute for the melody here as well as stopped horns for the little impetus halfway through.


Another sad piece in which I tried to symbolise the feeling of loss using muted violins in the high register.


So this is actually my final weekly round-up! However, I have still 3 more pieces to compose until the end of the month. I will be back with a final blog entry to hopefully celebrate the successful completion of my challenge!

-PW

Week 3: January sketching challenge

Although, I am more than halfway there with my 'January sketching challenge', I can't say that it is getting any easier!
However, it is a good feeling to have stuck at it thus far and I am confident that I can make it to the end now as the finish line is slowly getting closer.

Anyway here are the pieces of music I have written this week:


Starting with a sad one, just a piano melody with some strings.


This one is the complete opposite. I tried to write theme music that sounds childish in a way using xylophone, piano and clarinet among others.


This one sounds unsettling, I tried to use brass cords together with electric guitar to achieve the effect.
 
This is only the accompaniment of the following piece as I was very busy with other things that day and just ran out of time!


This is effectively part 2. I tried to evoke a pastoral feeling by using a foxtrot rhythm, trombones and solo trumpet.

I have cheated a bit here as this is an arrangement and not a composition of mine. The song is called 'Breakin' the Chainz' by the Swedish rock band Crashdiet. A lot of thought went into this nevertheless, as I had to overcome the obstacles of arranging a rock song for solo piano.


I really wanted to use the electric guitar here to see what kind of atmosphere I could create with a guitar solo. An experiment, however I am quite happy with it.


This concludes the weekly round up of my challenge but I will be back next Friday with seven fresh pieces of music.

-PW

Week 2: January sketching challenge

This is the 2nd update of my 'January sketching challenge' and so far I have managed to compose every day. However, this second week proved to be more demanding than the first probably due to a lack of ideas. I really feel that I am running out of ideas now, as I want to avoid repeating myself. But the fact that I have managed to write, regardless of feeling uninspired, is a good sign and showed me that a lot is possible with a bit of motivation and sheer determination.

Now to the pieces of this week:

A melancholic sounding piece using harp and solo cello. I came up with the idea for the harp first, which then suggested a weighty solo melody on top, to contrast with the delicate harp.


I wanted something heavy and and with a lot of weight to it for this one. Originally I had planned to use electric guitar for the opening bass figure but then decided against it.

Composing waltzes is a bit of a passion of mine! (probably due to Chopin and Brahms)


Waterphone, tremolo strings and the downward shaping piano melody give this one a bit of a spooky and omnious feel. I thought ending it with a big organ chord that slowly fades-in would be nice.


I wanted to create a repetitive feel and use bassoons as I tend to neglect them a bit. The general idea emerged after listening to a Michael Nyman piece.


I had no idea or inspiration what-so-ever before writing this one. That is probably why it is inconspicuously bobbing along with its comical sound.



I don't think this is my best effort. I wanted to capture a slightly more futuristic sound and this is the result!


That is it for week number 2, hopefully I can keep it up like this and write 7 different pieces for the next week. I am nearly halfway there!

-PW

Week 1: January sketching challenge

I thought I would give a short update about my progress on my 'January sketching challenge'. One week in, I feel really good about what I have achieved so far. I have definitely realised that you don't necessarily need inspiration to create music, sometimes just playing around with sounds can lead to an idea and start the compositional process. Many times I had absolutely no idea what to do but in the end I always managed to produce something. I have also improved my speed in writing, at the beginning of the week I would have needed about 3 hours to sketch out an idea, whereas know I only need about 2.
All in all it has been great so far, hopefully I can keep it going for the remaining 3 weeks!

Here are the pieces I have produced so far:


This piece started out by playing around with thirds in flutes and then gradually evolved in orchestration.


The bouncy rhythm of the piano figure was the idea that set the whole piece off. It then evolved with every repeat until culminating with an almost heroic sounding ending. This was fun to do!


The dissonant chords in the piano was the starting point here, the cello and violin melodies respectively then just emerged out of the synth/piano accompaniment.


The idea for using marimba came after I heard a piece for marimba on the radio that day and I thought to myself 'that's a nice a sound I'd love to write something like this', which is exactly what I have done later that day :)


I always liked the sound of vibraphone in combination with harp. Add a bit of high strings to it and you have a suspenseful sounding cue.


A woodwind solo over strings always sounds nice in my opinion. I think I had a pretty clear idea what I wanted to do before I started composing this one, which is actually quite contrary to the most of the other pieces!


I wanted to make use of low rumbling woodwinds here, combined with twinkling glockenspiel makes it sound a bit eerie I think.

That is my quick rundown of all 7 pieces for week 1. I hope you have enjoyed this and I will be back with another update next Friday for the 2nd week of my 'January sketching challenge'.

-PW

January sketching challenge!

With the beginning of pretty much every new year, most people think about resolutions, things to improve from the previous year(s). I am no exception to this and hence came up with my resolution, which is to compose more music and to do this more regularly. Therefore, I have decided, somewhat ambitiously, to sketch a new piece of music every day, which will then be uploaded to the public as evidence. After each week, I will give a blog post as an update and perhaps write something about the music too.
The only rule I have set myself is that the pieces should be at least about 1 minute in length, but apart from that it could be anything! I do this entirely for myself, however it would be nice if people would give feedback and perhaps even follow this challenge along.

Now enough said, lets start with today's piece!

End of year update + youtube channel

This will be my final blog post of 2015 - this year has been by far my most productive ever. I have learned more (mostly the hard way) than ever before but feel that there is still so much to learn that I am already looking forward to the next year! I hope for a very productive 2016 indeed, with many more projects to work on and to ultimately improve and becoming a better composer.

At this point I would like to point you in the direction of my youtube channel, which has a small compilation of my compositions from this year. For example: 



Finally, I wish everyone a happy new year and many great things to come!

-PW

Compositional process: 'Dreaming'

With 'Dreaming', I tried to evoke a dream-like quality for this track, not unlike something Thomas Newman would do. To achieve the effect, it was important to understand the 'ingredients' first: how to use the appropriate harmony, texture and tone colour.

1.) Harmony: The whole piece is build around harmony that 'hangs in the air'. In other words, I used fragmentary chords.
The first chord in bar 1 could be a C7, however the crucial 3rd is missing. Instead the 4th (F) and is part of the chord. To add to the confusion, the G falls to Eb, which would suggest Cm7. The next chord could be described as C6/9 but once again the describing interval (3rd) is missing, instead we have the 4th, 6th, 9th and 11th (4th). The next chord would probably be a Abadd2 over a C pedal. But once again, no 3rd (excluding the pedal C) but a 4th. The last chord of the phrase has the 3rd omitted as well.
The point is, that by leaving out the crucial interval in defining a chord (3rd) and using extensions instead, a somehow incomplete sounding chord is created that seems to be almost 'empty'. Also note that the left hand moves in clinically 5ths, providing the movement, whereas the right hand provides the emotion with extensions and suspensions.
2.) Texture: The overall texture is very light. I didn't want it to be too heavy and dense, otherwise I would have lost the 'floating' feel I was after. Piano, synths and strings is all that was needed.
3.) Tone colour: It was important to use a solo instrument for the main focus of the piece to create a feeling of loneliness but also to make the listening experience more direct. The piano was chosen because of the percussive nature of the instrument, being played two octaves higher than middle c, it creates almost a 'cold' and distant sound.
I used a synth pad underneath to bind things together. I tried using strings at first, however I felt that they would not communicate the 'etheral' feel as well as electronic sounds could.
The strings entering a bit later were chosen to get a bit of 'warmth' back into the piece.

Work flow:

My ideas usually come by just doodling/improvising at the piano. However, this piece was preconceived and I had to 'find' it on the instrument. This process involved a lot of trial and error but eventually I came up with a sketch:

early sketch

Next up was creating an orchestral sketch, done in Sibelius (note the violins still providing the pad in the beginning):

Sibelius sketch

The resulting audio mockup sounded like this:



After coming up with a basic orchestration, I imported the Sibelius midi into my sequencer and started creating the mockup proper. I like to keep things clear in Cubase, using colours and (especially important for me) tempo, time signature and marker tracks. As you can see, I didn't use a whole lot of tracks as I usually try to keep things as simple as possible.

Cubase project

Resulting mockup after mixing and tweaking:



Finally, mastering, where I only tried to 'pump up' the volume a bit to keep it competitive in terms of loudness.

Final piece:



I hope you found my way of working on this track interesting. Do feel free to provide feedback and comments!

-PW