This week was very successful as I managed to finish the actual score on Sibelius, meaning I have all the time next week to mix the song on Logic and sync it to the video. This week, I added intro and outro, which are about 30 seconds long each, therefore making the whole composition just under four minutes which I am fairly happy with. The intro is just a build-up of the section A chord progression, in which a note from the chord joins in every four bars. For the outro, the strings drop out, leaving this almost empty sounding piano which I think is really effective and stays true to the temp score. The last chord rings out for 2 bars and this gives it more emotion and almost allows the listner to reflect after they’ve heard it.
As well as adding to the overall structure by adding an intro and outro, I also made some well-needed changes to both section A and B which ultimately extended them by around 4 bars each. These changes consist of melody changes to make the composition much more interesting as now I could add harmonies and different rhythms. An example of this is in section B, where everything gradually changes to quaver notes to make the composition exciting and rhythmically complex. I decided to keep the cello part simple the whole way through as I thought with all instruments playing different melodies and rhythms at the same time, it would quickly become too busy. Sometimes, less is more!
After finalising the melodies, rhythm and overall structure, I began on adding articulation and dynamics to the score. This was a slight struggle at first as I didn’t know where to add articulation/dynamics and I felt I was just adding things in for the sake of it. After making some notes on where to add these, I started with a simple crescendo for the intro and added dynamic markings p and mf. I also added staccato notes on the left-hand piano part, a legato marking on the cello, and accents on the first piano chord of every bar to really emphasise the start of the next bar. As well as this, I added a string technique ‘pizzicato’ which means the player plucks the strings instead of using a bow; this changed the whole outlook of the song for me and made the articulation much more effective! For section B, I added a ‘sul tasto’ marking to the viola so the player bows the strings on the fretboard of the instrument, making a much warmer, soft tone. When I want the articulations to drop out, I use the ‘arco’ marking.
An important element of music, especially in compositions like this, is harmony. Even though I added this, I was not perfectly happy with some of the harmonies I used on the strings. They sound good but not exactly how I wanted it to reflect. I think some of the notes in the melody lines in the two violins clash too much which creates a quite unpleasant sound compared to the rest of the composition. I think this is a fairly small problem, however, I could quickly change this on Monday by listening to the two violins together and nothing else and figuring out what notes don’t sound amazing together. After I have done this, I believe it will have an overall positive effect on the whole composition as these clashing notes will now be in greater harmony.
After finalising the actual Sibius score, I need to export the track in the form of a midi file into Logic. Because the overall sound of the midi instruments on Sibelius doesn’t sound great, moving the track to a much more professional DAW will give us access to a plethora of better sounding pianos and strings. As well as this, Logic has a more interactive and significantly better mixing programme. This means we are able to change the volumes and panning of the composition, and we can also add effects like a simple EQ and compressor to make the final work sound much higher quality and professional.
In Sibelius, I feel like I could have added more dynamic changes to the piece. I did add dynamic markings like mf and ff and also crescendos and diminuendos however some of the dynamic changes can be quite dramatic and I believe that these could be massively improved by using more crescendos and diminuendos. If I do not have enough time to change the dynamics on the actual score, I could always use the automation feature on Logic when I export it so I can change the volumes there.
Targets For Next Week
-Proofread through my past evaluations to make sure everything reads correctly and make sure I do my final compositional analysis.
-Use Logic to make the composition sound more professional by mixing it and using the instruments on that software instead of the Sibelius ones.
-Export this final file and sync it to the Temporal Distortion video using the software on our iMac’s.