When I first started on this composition, I began by creating a simple bass drum and snare beat, where the bass drum plays every beat, and the snare plays on every second beat. This gave me something to base my compositions tempo on. After I found a suitable tempo, I fleshed out the drum part by adding in some faster hi – hat parts in between the bass drum and a crash cymbal for transitions between sections.
I then continued to make a bass part, I did this because I felt it was easier to make a bass part than any other part as the bass and drums are always very closely linked. I ended up making a kind of walking bass line using an odd sound. I decided to use a studio straight jazz bass sound, as I felt it fitted my ideas for my composition more. This bass part also gave me a chord structure to bass my first section off.
I then continued to create an opening melody, using a grand piano sound. I did this by taking the chord structure I created with the bass part and arpeggiating the chords. All the chords were arpeggiated, apart from the second one which was just a broken chord. I did this because I intended it to be solo in the intro and outro and I wanted it to fill out the space a bit more.
After this I created an all broken chord version of the arpeggiated piano part I just made, I did thisto make more space for the bass, and other parts as well.
After this, I felt that I should make a few adjustments to the drum beat and I added a few more snares in.
I moved on, after this, to create another bass part that wasn’t as low as the original bass part. I decided to use a staccato full string ensemble sound and just hit the route note on every half beat as i felt this fleshed out the sound of my composition a bit more.
After finishing the first section, I moved on to creating new parts for each instrument / sound. The first step in doing this, for me, was to create a new drum beat. I eventually made one with the bass drum on every beat, the hi hat on every half beat, and snares accenting and varying the pattern a bit.
After this, I made a repeating, arpeggiated piano part that would fade in, instead of creating a new chord structure, I did this because I felt it changed the sound of my piece in a more suitable way than a new chord structure.
This also led me on to create new bass parts. This is where I began to create a new chord structure for my second section. I essentially dropped out the jazz bass a little, and brought in the full string ensemble a bit more by making the jazz bass play less notes that were more sustained, and making the full string ensemble play fifth notes as well as route notes.
After this i had the piano part play broken chord following the chord structure for a while and then, just to make my composition a bit more interesting, a had the piano play 5 beat long bars with a repeating arpeggio that with a little melody. I used this to allow the second section to transfer more easily into the first section again.
After this, all that was left to do was arrange my sections to the video, and so I watched the video and moved the sections to suit the videos dynamics. I then took the intro and essentially reversed it to pull out as the outro and I made a small melody with a broken chord at the end to finish off my piece with a nice, upbeat tone.
Finally, I did a final mix on the whole composition and I adjusted all the automation until I was happy with how it sounded and I was happy that it worked well synced with the video.