Final Assessment: 'Gimme Shelter'

Here is the trailer music we composed along with the 'Gimme Shelter' trailer that I added on iMovie:

Here is a video of our final live performance for the assessment:

Final Assessment: 'Gimme Shelter' Live Performance

I feel that our final assessed performance for the 'Gimme Shelter' trailer went quite well, as no one messed up, and everyone was in time with one another, and it was a great improvement from our previous performance. I started off playing the ostinato in the beginning, and I kept it in time, making sure that it was easy for anyone to get back in time with it even if they sped up. Seema and Almira played their own melodies quite well, and there were many parts when we played arpeggios, meaning we were putting everything we learnt in our work. I think that our instrumentation was quite good, as none of the instruments quite sounded like another - Almira played the piano, Seema played the xylophone and the bass drum to provide a beat for piece where it required it, and I played the keyboard with it on the Style: #086 setting which provided a nice synthesizer kind of effect to the music. I think that one thing that made our group's trailer quite creative was the fact that we used Marissa's voice in our piece for singing rather than just speaking or voiceover, and actually gave her a melody to sing that fitted in with the trailer and the rest of the music quite well. One of the strong points in our performance was the way we used crescendos toward the middle to build up to a thicker texture where the visuals get quite intense. 'Gimme Shelter' is a story where a young girl is left homeless after her mother is taken away from her, and she is left to live with her (until recently) absentee father, who is quite rich. After living quite poorly for most of her life, she doesn't fit into this new environment, and all the hate for her father, rage and sorrow from being separated fro her mother builds up, making her seem a little crazy on the outside. Our group portrayed this by going a little quieter here, allowing the tension to build up on the screen while Marissa vocalized a few words that went along with the situation: I'm going crazy; Just trying to find my home; Someone help me; NOW. When the girl on screen finally runs away from home, all of the instruments return back playing loudly at around a mezzoforte level of dynamics, showing all the intenseness of the scene, and when it ends with a car crash, we all go quieter again. I think that another strong point in our performance is the ending, where quite a meaningful message is played on the screen, after the protagonist finally finds her home, a place where she is welcomed and is happy, and this is where all of us go silent except for Almira who plays a few slow arpeggios and ends by playing a high-pitched chord to show 'the happy ending'. A few things that also made our music sound better was the reverb effect set on the amplifier for Marissa's voice, making it echo and sound even slightly angelic at places, along with the xylophone which was also hooked up to the same amp, and this made it sound less sharp than xylophone usually do and a lot more soft and echo-ey. Although, this proved as a slight problem when I used the video we recorded of it and went back to iMovie to put the audio on top of the actual 'Gimme Shelter' trailer - the device we used to record the performance didn't pick up the sound well, as the speakers made it too loud on the Mac, making it sound like our music was blaring in places that sounded quite nice in real life. Another small mistake we made was that we forgot to turn off the metronome that we were using on the piano when performing, so that it was just constantly there in the background, making it sound like we were actually out of time whenever there was an accelerando in our piece to match the intenseness of the scene we were playing it to. Since there were a few technical problems with the trailer during our final performance, we had to play without it, meaning that when I put it on top of the trailer, it was slightly sped up, and it was hard to match the audio to the video. Overall though, I think that we did quite a good job, and some of the improvements that we could make next time are to also add a few sound effects from online and play them when needed during the performance, for example we could've played a car crash sound effect when a car crash happened onscreen. Another thing to consider next time would be to add some normal speech when characters are speaking during the trailer as well, to improve the authenticity of the film music we composed. 

'Gimme Shelter' - First Live Performance

(The camera angles may be slightly shaky!), but here is a video of our first live performance for this trailer:

Trailer Music - "Gimme Shelter" First Live Performance

For our final assessment, the class split up into groups of four or into pairs and we were given the task of composing our own music to go over any film trailer of our choice - we could either perform live, or create the soundtrack on Mixcraft and put it on top of the video. My group (Marissa, Seema, Almira and me) decided to perform live with the trailer playing on the screen.

For our very first live performance on it, the one we did to get feedback and improve before the final, we actually started off quite well - everything went according to plan, and I played the ostinato with the right timing. However, when it started reaching the middle, the whole group started to lose timing a little and I accidentally played the wrong note at one point. For our final, we need to improve by:

• Practicing enough times that we get the timing correct - all drum beats, all shakes of the shaker should be on the right time
• Our singer could probably practice so that her breathing technique is proper, and so that she has enough air to sustain a note, as she kind of wavers off in some places
• I need to remember my parts properly so that I don't play the wrong note at times, and I need to play the ostinato (G, Eb, C, D) for the correct amount of beats so that even if the rest of the group is slightly out of time, they can adjust to this and play correctly again

Twilight: Breaking dawn Pt. 2 - "Bella Wakes Up"

This is the music we produced for a short clip from 'Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 2'

Horror/Romance Film Music Piece

Our task this lesson was to create a very short, quick piece of music to go over a 30-second clip from any movie we wanted - it could be either romantic or of the horror genre. We learnt a technique to change even the simplest, happiest melodies into something darker - and that was by making slight changes to the chords you were playing. For example, a C Major arpeggio (aka broken chord - C, E, G) would be quite an upbeat tune, whereas if you took it and played a C Minor arpeggio (C, Eb, G), the chord would sound more sinister and add a more suspenseful edge to the piece of music. You can easily remember the difference between a minor chord and a major chord by the amount of piano keys between each note of the chord on a piano, including the note itself in the count:

• In a major chord, the difference between the first note and the second is 5 notes, and then between the second and the third is 4 (including the note of the chord itself and semitones). For example, in a C Major chord, there's five notes between C and E (C, Db, D, Eb, E), then 4 between E and G (E, F, Gb, G) 
• A minor chord is vice versa, there is four then five notes in difference between the first and second, then second and third notes of the chord. For example, in a C Minor chord, there's four notes between C and Eb (C, Db, D, Eb) and then five between Eb and G (Eb, E, F, Gb, G)

For this task, me and my partner opted to use the darker, more horror side that we learnt for film music in our piece, but at the same time not make it too eerie.  The only instrument we used was a keyboard, with the Arpeggio setting - 'Style: 095', which allowed us to have a constant arpeggio played in the background while I played a melody - my partner took control of switching the broken chords in the background to go along with the tune. This was what we composed:

Melody:      G Bb D F ; E Dd D Bb ; G - - C ; C Bb A G ; (G) - - - ; - - - - ; G

    Arpeggio:       Gm              Gm             E             F             Gm      Gm  (Gm)         

The piece starts off in a G Minor arpeggio with a simple but eerie tune, and then, when it lands on G the arpeggio changes to E major, getting a little bit more cheerful, this pattern continuing on with the F Major arpeggio, where the melody slowly comes back down to lower notes, getting eerier, and then the arpeggio switches back to G Minor when the tune lands on the last note, G. For a while, the texture is quite thin as nothing is played except for the arpeggio, which serves as a steady ostinato in the background, and then after two repetitions of the broken chord the piece ends with one final note (G)  - we added this bit in because it would add to the value of the music as a 'horror' piece, coming in at the end when the audience doesn't suspect, when the people listening think it is over - it stops the whole thing from getting too boring. 

After we recorded the music, I went back and I decided to add a video to the music from what I thought would suit it well. Using 'iMovie', I downloaded different parts of a short clip from the movie 'Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 2' and rearranged them so it went along with the music - I chose this particular movie as it is well known for being a romance but at the same time can also be considered horror, therefore meeting the specifications of our task. The clip I chose was of when Bella, the protagonist is in a deep sleep, but it is clear that something is wrong with her - the fact that the movie is supernatural meant that I could use our short music piece over this video, as it sounds almost peaceful, but in a way that the melody was slightly mystical and eerie. Then, at the end, I used a part of the clip where Bella opens here eyes - as a vampire. I tried to time this so that the final note of 'G' was when she opened her eyes to reveal crimson, bloodred irises. I also added a few subtle sound effects at the beginning and end of the video to sustain the suspense. 

I think one of the better parts of our piece was the ending, as it is unexpected, and helps make it more of a 'horror' piece, although I think it could've been improved where instrumentation or texture is concerned, as the final note doesn't provide as much of a scare when being played on a keyboard - I could've either changed the instrument to a more sinister sounding one, or even just changed the notes I was playing by building the volume up to a crescendo and then pressing two G Minor chords at the same time - one low-pitched, one high on the keyboard to make it more of a "grand" finale to the piece. Other areas for improvement are sound quality of the recording (it could've been more clear) and the piece could've also been slightly longer - something to be considered the next time we do this task.                     

The 'Sacrifice' Scene

This is our video piece for the 'sacrifice' scene from the movie King Kong 

Music for King Kong

The class split up into separate groups after watching part of the 'sacrifice' scene in the movie King Kong to compose our own film music. Some of the instruments we used to create our piece were the xylophone, glockenspiel, piano, a 'cabassa' shaker and an animal skin drum.
 Our original piece of music started off at a thin texture with the glockenspiel, then slowly built up, adding to the texture, dynamics and pitch with more instruments joining in, then slowly fading out again at the end. Although, when recording, the role of the drums wasn't decided enough, and so the beat was uneven and unsteady, therefore confusing the whole group. The fact  that the recording device picked up the sounds of other groups practicing their music in the background too loudly was also something that messed up our entire piece.
So, what we did to solve this problem was that we would re-record our piece later on - however, since the rest of the group were happy with what we already had, me and my partner Almira decided to record the different parts of the instruments on the software 'Mixcraft' and used the skills we learnt for this program last year to layer the different instrument tracks into one piece. We kept the same ostinato as last time (A, E, A, D) and added chords to it as well. We also had a drone in the background of the note A using a bass guitar as the instrument. We used the same technique as last time, where the piece starts with a thin texture, with just the xylophone playing the ostinato and then the bass guitar drones joined in along with the piano chords consecutively. Since we were only two people working on the project and we had very limited time to complete the piece, we decided to leave out the complicated parts of the drum and the shaker, and kept the instrumentation simple and quick.
When playing it back, I feel that one of our strong points was that the ostinato we played had a haunted kind of feel to it, and therefore fit well with the fact that there was a horror component to the film, although we could have improved if there were drums, as this would go well with the whole 'sacrifice' part of the scene, and it would have been more like a tribal kind of horror rather than what I feel is now a melancholy kind of horror. I think that if maybe the video had been slower, it would have suited the video better - although, the music does fit better than expected beforehand!  I also felt that the whole thing sounded very rushed, and had a very abrupt ending so we could have extended the piece a bit longer, although we ran out of time before we could improve while making the actual recording - in conclusion, the lesson I have to learn from this is: time management is CRUCIAL!

Introduction to Film Music

So far this term in Music, our class has focused on how film music and theme songs are composed. We started off by learning the various components of music along with a few key terms:

• Dynamics - how loud or soft a piece of music is, and to describe it getting gradually louder, we use the italian term 'crescendo', and to describe it getting gradually softer, we use either 'decrescendo' or 'minnuendo'. The softest a piece of music can be is 'pianissimo' and the loudest is 'fortissimo'
• Tempo - the tempo of a piece of music is its speed, how slow or fast it it is. To describe something that increases in tempo, we use the term 'accelerando'.
• Texture - the texture of a piece of music is basically how many sounds you hear at once - if there is only one sound or instrument playing, it is described as a 'thin' texture, while if the music is very concentrated and has many sounds going on at once, (for example: an orchestra), we say that it has a 'thick' texture.
• Instrumentation - this is actually a very simple term, it is basically what instrument(s) you hear playing in the song.
• Pitch - how high or low a note or set of notes is in the music you hear, you can use this to help describe a song's instrumentation. For example, if the music is very low pitched, then it probably means that the instruments used were bass instruments.

We also learnt some terminology that helped describe the actual tune of the music playing, like:

• Ostinato - a simple, repetitive usually four-note tun that plays in the background all the way throughout the piece. It plays a huge role in setting the tone of the song and also helps maintain the beat 
• Drone - a drone is a bass note that is also played repetitively in the background, with the notes long and dragged out. It helps make sure that the rest of the piece is played in the correct scale. Since most drones are very low-pitched, they add a dark and haunted effect to the song by underlying the music

After we learnt all of this, we used our new knowledge to help us analyse and produce film music. As a class, we watched a scene from the movie King Kong - our task was to create a short piece of backing music to play over the video on mute. We all took different instruments and successfully created appropriate music for the film by starting of with a thin texture at a low pitch and building it up, also raising the dynamics in a crescendo and accelerating the tempo as well. We then gradually faded everything out towards the end of the clip, and kept the whole thing moderately low pitched to add to the eerie effect of the scene at hand. After that, it was time to compose our own music...