We listen, we breathe. We dance, we see. We move, remain still.
Take a moment to listen to yourself with this song. Dance with your eyes closed. Dance, float, sit down. But breathe and listen.
Cover by Drew Graham via Unsplash.
What piece of music would you write for one of your favourite cities and one of your favourite periods of time? That was the assignment.
Well, I had to take some liberties here. A favourite time in a favourite city already sets the tone for a happy and pleasant tune, and I found it very hard not making it too sugary and sweet.
One morning I was listening in the car to “Malagueña Salerosa”, the song played at the end of Tarantino’s “Kill Bill II”. The song is a rock version of a well-known Mexican song, although usually played in a more traditional way. It is played by Chignon, the band formed by Robert Rodriguez. Then this idea came to me. Flip it around. Make it a gritty place, an unforgiving and raw Mexico inhabited by Machetes and Mariachis. It is madness, mayhem, you have no idea what is going to happen between dusk and dawn, but it can only end up bad.
And that is what it became. Not a place that can be listed as a favourite, but definitely a favourite one to write music for.
Enjoy “Día de los Muertos”, the day of the dead.
The cover is by Tony Hernandez via Unsplash.
We’ve been there before. All of us. We talk, we laugh, we dance, we play, eat and drink all night long. But then the moment comes to say goodbye. The bittersweet feeling of letting go comes over us, and before we know we are standing there alone again.
Photo credit: Andressa Voltolini
This week I have been exploring the party music for the pool party in the movie. You can do two things: license music, or create your own. Since we are on a composing exercise, the only way to go is creating my own.
This is harder than expected. I like melodies. I can think of a melody and then play it on an instrument. That decision is very clear for me: the melody line, and which instrument should play it to get the desired effect.
For the party music I wanted a basic house tune. And this definitely is not something I am very good at. You are looking at creating a sparse, repeating set of bars, and add effects, instruments and whatever other elements you can think of to make it sound not boring. At least one thing will not be achieved. It will be either boring, it will have the wrong combination of instruments, or will have too many instruments, sounds and noises included that the actual song will be completely lost.
Here is a minute of what I have so far in its raw, unmixed form:
It is somewhere, but whether it is good or will become something good remains to be seen. It will need a lot of work and listening to other house producers to get some inspiration and a feel of what should and should not be done.
As far as composing for the movie goes: it is completely separate from the movie score itself. It has no relation to the characters or the stories. As a piece of music, it pretty much stands on its own. And in that sense, you might as well pick a piece from any producer and put a new soul in the spotlight.
With that in mind, the party music may not make it on the final album. Do what you are good at, and let others do the rest.
Do what you are good at, and let others do the rest. Share on X
As always, let me know what you think about the piece in the comments.
In week two I have been exploring moods. The first piece is for a melancholic mood that as a theme I can use for different characters and different parts of the movie. Have a listen to the excerpt below, and as with last week’s theme, it is a very rough, unpractised piece that has not been cleaned up or mixed well. Right now, we’re still sketching, creating outlines.
There are several places in the movie where this could be used, such as the long walk home, the cold night at the front door, and the life’s story of one of the male characters.
The other theme I have been exploring is one for the nightmares. First I had a deep bass sound, which got mangled a little, but even with that sonic variation it sounded, well, boring. Lifeless. Not very scary. It needed a pulse, either with negative space (kind of like sucking the sound away), or with the addition of a heartbeat. I can increase the frequency of either the pulse or the gap to simulate the increased heart rate as a result of a rise in adrenaline levels. Have a listen to the theme below, again in its basic, unmixed, unfinished form.
Play around with the EQ to create some sort of “Pwooaaap” sound (you know the one, right?) and add more grit at the end of that “Pwooaaap” and you can intensify the sound and feeling tremendously.
That said, I will be the first to admit that it doesn’t sound that scary, but I want to point out that the impact will be very different when played on a screen together with the picture.
Which brings me to another weak point of this method of learning: you really do not know what the final piece will look, sound, or feel like. You can imagine it, but since it will all be only in your head, you will adapt the image you have up there and there is a good chance you will miss the mark.
Side-stepping a little here: I believe this is a very good example that shows how the actors, the director, the editor, and the composer all put in their bit to create something that is bigger than the four individual bits together. Don’t you agree?
Anyway, I will continue. There will be more next week.