"Sweeping Sword-and-Sandals Theme"
After having composed two songs for Soundscapes already, I decided that consistency really is a virtue and that I should try and compose a third piece of music. However, not merely content to rest on my laurels, I decided to challenge myself and try to learn a more advanced program, that being Logic Pro. I had just recently discovered what exactly Logic Pro was after having heard about it at least a 1,000 times throughout the semester. Once I got to playing with it, I was infinitely disappointed that I had not tried it sooner. The synthesizers were exponentially better than those in GarageBand and the orchestral instruments actually sounded like the real thing! This sent me into quite a tizzy and I set off on fulfilling a childhood dream of mine of one day being a composer. Obviously, that is not where I ended up taking my life, but it's fun to exorcise some of those ideas and pretend to be a composer at least for a little while.
The first step was getting to know the program. It had enough similarities with GarageBand that I felt reasonably comfortable getting started, and while I may not by an advanced user by any stretch of the imagination, I feel like I knew enough to actually compose a piece of music in the program. Since the program offered many more possibilities as far as the kind of music one could compose, I decided to try and make a really sweeping, epic sounding sword-and-sandals theme. This is a genre that is near and dear to my heart as well as a genre conducive to musical swells, and believe me when I say I'm a sucker for swells. I'm also a sucker for strings. I don't know why, but the sound of finely tuned celli and violins playing with one another is like the most beautiful noise in the world to me. This piece is very string heavy and hopefully shows my fondness for strings (in a good way).
Above is the beginning movement in the piece. That's what they call the different sections of a musical composition, right? Anyway, I've been listening to a guy recently called DM Stith. His music incorporates the piano in a lot of really bizarre and creative ways and his music is very dischordant or just seems like he is always playing sharp notes. I don't know really how to describe it, but I wanted to try something like it for the beginning of my piece. I wanted to write something kind of creepy and unsettling, something that was a big departure from everything I had made up to this point. I also started experimenting with the timing and velocity of my notes to try and make the music sound more like it had been played by an actual musician as opposed to a computer. More and more, I'm finding way to make it sound more authentic, but I still have a long way to go in that department.
This middle section is my absolute favorite portion of this song and I've included a picture of it in actual sheet music because I wanted the notes of multiple instruments to be visible (and it looks way cool). It's the last piece of music I wrote for it and I think it's by far the best. There's something about this swell that just gets me, gives me goosebumps, sends chills down my spine. It reminds me of the love theme in Braveheart, which is a score very close to my heart. I listened to it over and over as a kid, and while I wasn't trying to emulate it, to feel the same distinctive emotions and sound coming from what I had written was beyond exciting and invigorating. I started with the cello part and created a very epic sound. After that, I moved up in the string section to the violins and wrote what I like to call the "lead guitar" part of the music. To me that's what the violin is. When the violin soars, you soar. It leads this section of the piece and I'm really happy with their sound. Next came the bass strings, which I never try to complicate too much. Lastly, came the brass section. I've tried to incorporate a full brass section in my swells because it seems to add so much weight when it works. I'm not sure how affective this brass section is, as compared to the brass section at the end of the song, but I think it adds a little bit, at least.
And here is the sweeping finale to my piece. I start it off with one violin and cello, as well as a flute piece leading the music. Then I bring in the full brass section. I think this section is my strongest brass section. It seems to compliment the strings really well. I tend to start with the trombones, then move to the French Horn and lastly the Tuba. I just realized that this method mimics the way I write the string section too. I wonder what that says about me? Anyway, to really lift this swell as high as it could go, I climax it with a choir section. I tried the choir synthesizers on a whim and was astonished at how beautiful and surprisingly realistic they are. The choir section plays the song into the final notes which I use to bring almost every section back into - brass, choir and strings. I think the final note really leaves a powerful feeling when you hear it.
Well, that wraps up my final project. I'm very proud of it and I think it achieves virtually everything I set out to do. The best part is, I'm still working on it, trying to improve it and play with it. I've been addicted to Logic Pro lately. It has become my chief avenue of expression and I couldn't be more satisfied. In the end, Soundscapes has been an awesome outlet for my artistic expression and this song epitomizes just how far I've come since the beginning of the semester, when I barely knew how to use GarageBand. For that, I cannot thank my Sandy, Joe, Dustin and my terrific classmates. I hope what I wrote moved you in some way, no matter how small, but if not, no big deal because I had a blast making it all.
Now, without further bullshit, I present my Soundscapes Final Project - "Sweeping Sword-and-Sandals Theme" by Kurt Falkenhagen. Enjoy!