This track started off with the kick and snare meshing up to create a school marching band vibe. The initial thought process was to build up the energy of the beat in order to take off fast into a somber mood. I have always been a fan of DJ Premier and the RZA. They have a way of layering their beats and using synths heavily to create a new sound. I was aiming to create a movie score from the 90’s. The scene in my head started off in a high school football game with flashbacks to struggled living. It was designed to build up to a heroic moment on the field to show growth from the earlier parts of the film. I myself rap over instrumentals of all kinds and could easily see myself writing that same scene down on this beat with the first part of composition being used for verses 1 and 2 and the second part of the composition on verse 3. 

    I maintained a 4/ 4 meter throughout the entire composition with a kick on the drop measure. I placed a quarter note kick on the down beat with a half note snare on the back beat. The third measure got 4 quarter note kicks ending with a quarter note snare and the second back beat. I kept the drums the same the entire 16 bars, on the following 16 bars I added an extra 8th note on the kick and there was some kick added into the first back beat and some 8th note snares added in the 3rd measure of the bar to blend in with the 4 quarter note kicks. I used a 90 bpm tempo to add depth. The Hi Hats are in 8th note format hitting on every other 8th for measures 1 & 3.  I complimented to hit of the snare with my own synth created snare and a rim shot. The bass line of this piece was created using a Finger style Bass.  I did the kick trick by copying the kick track onto the bass track so they hit at the same time. I believe the plucking sound of the bass gives the rhythm the added depth necessary to mesh with the harmony. On the second 16s, I accentuated my bass by adding a self created bass pad.

        My harmony track was in the key of Am. My chord progression started with Am on to Dm followed by F and G. I used the ES1 plug in and tweaked the Pure Synth setting to give a soft church organ feel to the composition. This gave me the vibe of a soft, longing piece. This is my first time working with notes and chords of any sort. Chord progressions were never in my radar as I listened to music before and understanding the textbook aspect is different than applying it. I am still very much experimenting with sounds and harmony so I didn’t use any specific technique other than experimental. The second part of the composition took me far out of my comfort zone. I used 6 different chords in Am with both suspended chords in the A scale. The Harmony Chords in the second  16s are as follows  Am, C , Em , F , Dm , Am , Asus2 , Asus4. I repeated that chord progression to complete the 16 bars, which allowed me to really get creative with the melody. In my melody which I also used a synth for, I used the Amped Synth Lead which uses the sculpture synth. I was looking for a sad electric guitar feel to add to the melody and contrast with upbeat of the drums. The approach was structured with following the chord progressions bar by bar, I used an arch style melody to get the range of the scale. The composition is 4 bars looped to the first 16 bars. The following sixteen bars also follows an arch melody for 8 bars looped once. I created both melody structures by copying the harmony tracks onto the melody and dissecting the parts into an arch. 

    On tracks 97 and 99 respectively I used an ES1 synthesizer to create a snare and a bass pad. I used the material from class to get a refresher on creating both those sounds. I didn’t feel that the snare I was using popped enough and it needed more dimension. The reason I chose to create a bass pad instead of a plucking sound was to give reverb to my existing bass track, I copied the bass track groove and pasted it onto the synth. I used my mic and interface set up to record a bag of 500 pieces puzzle. I shook the bag in front of the mic from about 3 ft away. With plug ins, I was able to recreate a gun cock and shot sound. I then had my wife record “fly with me” into the mic so I could use on the 24th bar of the composition. My audio tracks are 102 and 103 in logic. I also recorded  “fly away” and uploaded that recording into the sampler. It uploaded in root chord C and I found Am to add to the track. The sound is helium sounding but I feel it gave a solid contrast to the mood of the piece. I had to bip the sample in order to hear it for some reason and it ended up as track 104 in logic. 

    My drums needed an extra level to them in my opinion. I created bus 18 and  and ran an EQ, compressor, and reverb combo to fatten up the sound of the drums. On each of my audio tracks I added a time based delay. On “fly away” it was a tape delay and on the puzzle pieces it was an echo. The change was minimal but with the added reverb to the tracks it gave them both a smoother sound.  Using Synths has turned out to be really fun but the sounds are loud and overpowering. I had to take the mixer tracks down to -9db for both the melody and bass pad and -20 for the harmony. Even so I needed to boost the drum tracks to +3db so they wouldn’t be drowned out. The overall mix doesn’t go above -4.5db which I feel gives it a decent amount of head room to master it.