This is the first idea for a sting that I had, using a synthesizer on Ableton named double take keys. As you can see above, I played C, B, A, going up in pitch each time. It is a very simple, yet effective short piece of music.
This is a sample drum beat from Ableton’s library. It is a hip-hop-esque beat, and I chose this one as it sounds good with the sting and fits with the mysterious vibe of the play.
This is how the drums and the sting fit together on Ableton.
This is another sample drum beat from Ableton’s library. This one is a dance drum beat, however, it still fits with the track but I prefer the sound of the first one.
This was an idea I had to expand upon my original idea. I added two more notes to the sting and shifted it up an octave. This ended up sounding worse as it was overcomplicated. I also added a bass and some strings to it. The bass was a nice touch, however, it wasn’t needed because the original sting is already very low in pitch. The strings didn’t work at all, they sounded very messy and as it was a string sound from Ableton’s library, it didn’t have an authentic sound to it. After efforts to expand upon my original idea, I thought it would be best to stick with what sounds good.
The next part of my project was playing this live along with the play. The way I decided to do this was by using an Ableton Push controller and Ableton’s session view. To do this I had to make the different parts into clips, you can see the session view below.
I made all the ideas for my composition into clips, even if I wasn’t sure about using all of them. To make this performance a bit more interesting, I will use the Push controller to change the effects live.
As you can see at the top of the push controller there are nobs at the top you can twist, these correlate to the effects that are shown on the screen below it. Once I start playing my composition I will be able to change the sound of it as it is playing by using these nobs. Some effects I can change are: filter, LFO rate, attack, release, delay and more.
This is my first attempt at playing this song on a push. Unfortunately, you can’t hear what I’m doing. I was just getting used to triggering the tracks in time whilst also changing the effects. I need to improve on changing the effects as I didn’t do much of it here. I also decided at this point that I was going to stick with my original sting, and use the two drum beats. The reason for this is that I liaised with the L5 performing arts who wrote and acted out the play, and they agreed with me that the first one is a better fit and didn’t need anything more. I decided that the first drum beat is the better sounding one, but to keep it interesting I will use the second one sometimes.
This was a dress rehearsal of the play and I tried out playing my music to it. We liaised before and talked about how my music was going to be played in the transitions between scenes, apart from one which was in-between the scenes as they already chose a song to be played there. I would also be playing my music before it starts, as people walk in and the crew is getting ready, and when it ends. The way I decided to do this was to build up the track myself, so start off with just the sting, quite quiet and low in pitch. Then using the push controller I would make it louder and higher in pitch and add more effects, and after at least 4 bars I triggered the drums in. To fade it out I would keep an eye on the stage to see when they were ready, and the closer it got to them being ready for the next scene, I would take away the drums and make it quieter. This was the general idea, however, I did improvise a lot so every time I played it there were slight variations on it. I would also trigger the other drum beat when I felt like the track was getting tired. I think I did a good job here, but, I need to be smoother with it and add even more variations to keep it interesting for the final performance.
The final performance sadly isn’t much different from the dress rehearsal, as they were on the same day. As it was my second go at it I did improve. I unfortunately messed up a couple times, they weren’t too noticeable but were quite unprofessional. I did a good job with changing the effects, as it did sound interesting and I got a couple different sounds out of one melody. The two different drum beats did sound quite strange in practice, however it did make the performance a bit more interesting. To make this performance more engaging, I should’ve created more than just one piece of music to play along with it. I could’ve created a couple leitmotifs for different scenes and characters. Only having one melody made it feel drained, and by the end of the play, the audience has heard enough of it. I should’ve liaised more with the L5s, and then I would’ve been able to learn more details about the play when making the music. I would’ve known what each scene is about and who is in it, then be able to make more leitmotifs. I think this was a good attempt at making music for a play and playing it live, I think I did a lot with what I had and made the most out of a short bit of music. However, I should’ve made more music to go along with it.
This is the final performance but the camera is on the stage instead of me.