This was my first drafts. There were many different melodies that I liked in there but there were so many different melodies and ideas that it started to sound like there was four different compositions being put into one, it just didn’t sound like it was fitting together properly. Also, the recordings were on logic so I used midi keys but I didn’t have a sustain pedal so it lacked a lot of expression and sounded like it was breaking in places that it wasn’t actually supposed to be breaking in. Another issue was timing, it kept dipping in and out of timing because not all of the sections were wrote to 4/4 so it was a little complex to try and record to a click, but if I didn’t record to a click then it’d be harder to add strings to later. So, I needed to fix up the timings, simplify it and just go back to the piano to re-think of how it was actually flowing etc.
In this draft, I decided to try and start adding the strings, however, it didn’t work because I still didn’t fix the fact that there was too many ideas into one composition. Again, I was still on the midi keys which made it a little hard to add expression. On the midi keys, I felt like I had to keep making up new ideas, instead of allowing it to just flow. I just needed to move onto a piano to compose properly and allow it to flow better.
This was one of my first takes on my final recording on a piano. Although the timing dips in and out a few times, it’s a lot better than when I was recording on the midi keys. I found it easier to compose on an actual piano because I could just let it flow a little better instead of feeling like I have to keep creating new sections/ideas. Also, I found it a lot easier to be expressive with an actual piano because I could use dynamics and the sustain pedal, as well as I had a wider range to use on the piano.
Now I have a bases down, I’ve decided that it’s probably better to not add in any strings because then it allows me to develop the piano and allow the piano to take more complex routes, i.e. having more movement in the left hand as well as the right. I also changed some of the structure so it had more of a flow, like I kept it all really low and slowly moved up instead of jumping up. This allows me to add much more expression like with dynamics and range, i.e. I can repeat a section in a higher range and louder before going back low and soft again. Taking away the strings allows me to have the time to develop these instead of worrying about the time I have left to compose the strings too.
I chose to change a little bit of my composition to develop the emotion and expression of the piece. I kept using motifs but then used arpeggios in some, to develop the emotional but also switch it up a little bit, and now, I’m going to work on creating a range of different dynamics. It starts soft, so I feel like it should end soft too but there aren’t many peaks in the composition so they need to be emphasised, like made louder, and then maybe drop right down to being quiet and silent, for expression and emotion.
Live Recording set up:
We started off by lining up the pencil mic’s to cover the whole range of the piano, and making sure they were all at the same level so you didn’t get any unwanted feedback.
Then, we wrapped the wires around the stands and plugged them into the mic’s and then into the audio interface, so we could control the mic’s via buses on Logic from the box.
When setting up the mic’s etc for recording the piano, we had to sort out the different buses because this showed with mic was what are then we could control the sound levels. We linked the mics up form 1-4 of the buses and then we checked the levels of each mic.
We used this audio interface to make the mic’s louder or quieter, by twisting the circle thingy’s, according to the numbers of the buses, which controlled each mic.
This is my final take of the piano, unedited version and uncut. I’m hoping to change some of the velocity of some keys because some were played a lot harsher than I intended them to be because I was playing on a keyboard instead of and actual piano so it had a slightly different feel to it.
Extra progression videos :
These are all the different piano takes I took. As you go through, you can see how different each take sounds and how much I develop it over time.