Context
For this section of our unit, we got given a compilation video that we had to put music to that would be played at an awards ceremony, this composition could be in any style we wanted and we didn’t have to meet any demands from the clients apart from that it needed to be at least 2 minutes 30 seconds long.
Research
One song that I used for research was Ben Howard’s version of call me maybe. I used this song because it shows how different you can make a song with different arrangement techniques and musical appropriation. This was an interesting song to analyse because he took quite a simple pop song and completely changed the instrumentation and rhythms. So much so that if he had changed the lyrics you wouldn’t be able to tell it came from call me maybe. This showed me how simple it is to borrow an already existing idea and alter it to make it your own.
Another song that I used for research was winter winds by Mumford & sons. I used this song because it has little instrumentation complexities and technical complexities. Because of this I could easily understand what was happening in the song, such as the fact that it had a thumping rhythm that you could easily dance to, yet it uses folk instruments and techniques.
Practical skills
For my awards ceremony I went for a funk and rock inspired piece. I started with a driving rock drum beat at 140 bpm that was relatively simple but had some odd bass drums that would add variety to the rhythm. Now that I had my drum beat I needed to add melody and a bass line to it. I decided to have my song in the key of C major and chose the chords I, IV, iv, V after thinking they sounded good whilst messing around with ideas on the keyboard. These chords were C major, F major, A minor, G major. I now had a chord progression that I could base my composition on. I put a chugging guitar over my drumbeat playing a C power chord playing quavers. Then I added a bass line that was again playing a C but with different rhythms to the guitar. This was how my piece would start. In the next section, I changed the drumbeat to half time to give it a lazier feel and introduce the new arpegiated C chord bass line. I also added a fuzzy synth that was playing the 4 bar chord progression. The section after this everything drops out because there was a shot in the video that I wanted to emphasise. All the instruments dropped out and a string section was the only thing playing. It was playing the same chord progression but one chord every two bars, this made it more free feeling and flowing. Also, instead of playing chords, it just played octaves, then octaves with 5ths. This gave more dynamic and textural contrast to the piece. I slowly crescendoed the half time drumbeat back into the piece, as well as the arpegiated bass line and synth chord progression. The next section was the same as the first, but then has a key change going from C major to D major. This was effective because it gave more variety to the song and stopped it from sounding too similar. For the ending, I had all of the instruments crescendo for one bar and then all end on the I chord which was D major.
Evaluation
Overall I thought that my piece sounded good and fit the video well. I had certain section changes that fit in with the video changes that highlighted different sections. Musically it was diverse and had some interesting concepts such as the drum fills I used and the ways I faded instruments in and out.
However, my music was not the length of the entire video, which meant that it could not be played at the awards ceremony. Also, I could’ve used the instruments equaliser better. For example, I thought that the bass drum sound I used sounded a bit hollow and not very substantial. I could’ve used the equaliser to make the bass drum have more punch and generally sound better. Those are some things that I will keep in mind for next time I have to compose a piece of music.