Song Overview And Diegetic Sound Planning:
in post production is is important for me to emphasise it is diegetic music so i need to ensure it is blended with the city ambience. i will then use automation when the main opening no.1 song begins to play slowly push it to be non diegetic music to take centre stage.
This image shows me recording ambiance and traffic noises witch i would have used and manipulated to sound like city traffic.
Music Direction And Tempo:
When writing opening no.1 the director requested that “each step is dictated by the beat of the music”, also known as andante (73_77BPM) so i will fall on the higher end of this spectrum and possible go into double time.
Stylistic Influences And Emotional Tone:
I like the thought of it having a similar rhythm to lollipop by Mika as i like the tempo, swing and up beat emotional feel.
‘funk has at least four identifying characteristics: syncopation, strong downbeats followed by a 16th note groove, seventh chord variants, and grooves driven by the bass guitar.’
This is what will make it fitting for the intro and outro of the film. For inspiration i have been listening to the songs ‘lollipop’ and ‘i wish’. I particularly like these songs because they have a good walking tempo that will match the picture. They also have really happy lyrics and melody’s that will be good for the intro and outro of the film.
Distorting the outro will also create an interesting juxtaposition of happy and sad.
Instruments:
I will strum 16th note funk patterns on guitar and collaborate with a funk bassist to build a bass line with groove and octaves. A strong drummer capable of tight, swung hi-hat patterns and a strong beat is essential to get the sound i want.
The planned instrumentation is as follows:
- Drums: swung, jolly, tight, happy
- Synth: used sparingly at climaxed to increase texture and dynamics at different points of the song
- Bass: octaves, walking, funky
- Guitar: 16th funk
Logic Pro Setup:
To get things started i went onto logic and prepared it to begin the process of producing the songs. To do this i set the project tempo to 114 BPM as i believe this is the best tempo for funk music. I also set the tempo to E minor because this is the emotional pallet i want to work with, i then saved and named the file so i can easily access and find it.
To set up the base of the song i used The AI drummer tool on logic and started adding and manipulating sounds on logic to give me a better idea of exactly what i want for the song before i book a studio. The screen shot below shows how i took a longer bass line and trimmed out the notes that matched the chord progression i like. This will help me later on in the process when giving a bass player a reference on what i would like them to play.
finnaly i recorded guitar and added it in.
This initial plan will work as a reference to people i collaborate with to show them a basic idea of what i would like the final piece to sound like.
The ones below used samples