Final Project and Blog Post #6

Before you listen to my magnum opus, let me give you a bit of background on how the piece was conceived and created.

After an entirely unsuccessful first day working on my final project, I realized I lacked a certain direction. Though I knew (roughly) the genre and desired sound of my final project, I had no vision or inspiration - which was troubling, and made it nearly impossible to create a four-minute-long track. I would lay down a drum beat, delete it, lay down a synth lead, delete it; this process was repeated over and over, with no success. When I left the lab that evening, I felt dejected. But on the way home, I heard in the air the catalyst for my project: a church's belltower ringing hymns into the night.

At this point, you might be ask the (logical) question, "how did hymns inspire your final project?" In return, I would be obliged to reply, "hymns, are my final project."

Before I describe the creative process, listen first to "electrichymnal."




With this (divine?) inspiration in hand, I sat again to craft my final project. I searched the internet for .midi representations of hymns, and played myself the ones I couldn't find, or whose recordings I was unhappy with (often, the way the chords were played into the midi files made it difficult to isolate the melody - in this case, it was easier to simply play it myself from a 1982 hymnal).

(*A Brief Aside: I picked only hymns I with a) a relatively simple melody and b) which I considered "staple" hymns, which would be readily identifiable in an unaltered state. I began with 6 or 7 I considered eligible, and after working with them within my piece, I narrowed it down to 3 that "worked." (The key of each piece had to be doctored, but otherwise these three had the simplest, easiest melodies.) You may recognize them as 711: Seek Ye First, 586: The Doxology (Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow, and 154: All Glory, Laud, and Honor).

With these basic melodic lines in hand, I then began to build my song. I opted for my first hymn (711) to be played on a Moog Synth, and layered on effects (reverb, directional mixing) until it had a spacey sort of sound. I then added a drumbeat and subsynth bass line to fill out the soundscape for the intro portion. I automated a gradual build in volume, and then introduced a track I built in Reason, which was to serve as layer of harmony. I had a significant amount of difficulty "slaving" Reason to Logic, and so (though it finally worked on a Thor track at the end), I chose at this stage to "Export as Audio File," and then work with it in Logic as audio. Because I already had the track as I wanted it, this wasn't a terrible compromise. In fact, it allowed me to edit it in SPEAR, which I wouldn't have otherwise been able to do as a .midi track. Editing it in SPEAR, i deleted some of the upper frequencies, where it would have otherwise collided with the melody.

Moving onward, I built this portion in volume and layers, adding various instruments echoing the melody line at various intervals, until I felt it had climaxed. At this point, I boosted the chorus effect on the Strobe Pad and raised its volume, so that after cutting out it would continue to sound. I added a building drumroll (to make that, I slowed the tempo way down - 30bpm - and played it on a pad), and then built the volume until it cut.

When the sound cuts, the dancing sound of the Strobe Pad, where I added that effect, lingers - tying the piece into the next section.

Throughout the rest of the song, I modulate bass lines, melodies (using the other two hymns) and drum beats. The song gradually builds again, but never cuts completely as it did at 0:43. It stays relatively etheric, which I felt was in keeping with the nature of the melodies (hymns). As the piece finishes, you are left with the initial melody (in actuality, it is often performed as a round - which was perfect for this piece, and one of the reasons I chose that hymn specifically), as the rest of the instruments fade out or drop off.

As a whole, I attempted to construct the piece roughly within the confines of the "trance" genre. It has the usual characteristics: 140bpm, fairly simple basslines, four-on-the-floor type drumbeats. Yet, purposely, it lacks the sort of soaring melodic lines/vocals typical to trance - the melodies are hymns, after all, and that's not how they're meant to sound. Though I experimented with their placement an octave or two higher, eventually I decided that C2/C3 was about the right place for them - and I double at octaves on different instruments occasionally (fading one in and out to change the color of the sound). Of the tempo, I wanted to ensure it was quicky enough that the hymns' melodies achieved a new life - this trance tempo is significantly faster than, (at least in my experience), these lines are typically played, and they have a very different character at this tempo.

Overall, I was happy with how this piece turned out. It was very fun to work on a sort of "themed" composition, and working the various hymns together was fun, though getting them to sound "electronic" was relatively difficult, and required a lot of effects work - there's something very "hymn-y about hymns, and I didn't want that to overwhelm the piece." The final mixing/mastering process was very new, but after working with compression on the melodies as well as the overall piece, I felt as though I could better position the sound of the melody within the overall body of sound, almost as to give it a distinct position or direction.

This class has been hugely rewarding, and I will miss it horribly next year. Many thanks for a great semester, and hope you enjoy this project as much as I have!