Trigger Warning: This Blog post talks about Suicidal Ideation and Panic Attacks in detail. Please feel free to skip.
This week has been a rollercoaster of emotions. The last track was about suicidal ideation and the longing for death. I wanted this piece to sound chaotic and all over the place. This is the reason for the arpeggiator on the Double Bass to give it a driven, frantic, underlying sound.
I stated last week I was still playing around with the violin. I used a section sample which gives it the feel of second violins. I decided against the tremolo sound on the violin as it clouded up the composition with all the other. This was crucial as it is the only static instrument. It ties all the other instruments together as not all of the instruments play the chordal notes.
The leitmotif is played by the combination of the double bass, violincello and viola. I used a pizzicato sample as it wanted it to be extremely staccato and it portrays a more frantic emotion. I have colour coded the leitmotif to show the different parts below. The double bass plays the tonic of the leitmotif (dark blue). The second is played by the violincello throughout the entire piece (light green) however, for the first and last four bars of the piece it plays the ending of leitmotif. The viola plays the end of the leitmotif (purple). I chose to spread the leitmotif across the different instruments because it reflects the segmentation of the main character. The character feels like she is in pieces, so her leitmotif is in pieces.
This is also reflected in the ‘Dies Irae’ which I separated by sections. Each section is two to three bars and I left a gap of two bars between the segments. I chose the piccolo for this as it shows innocence in the sound. I also preferred it to the concerto flute as it can sound too metallic. This is why I prefer the wooden flute of Irish and Traditional Indian music as it has more warmth in the timbre.
The vocal recordings won’t be mixed in until later. I know that the recordings are very sibilant. I will edit these this week and chose the best takes. They will eventually be mixed in as thoughts with reverb and panning across the soundscape.
The third track will be about the panic attacks and flashbacks of the abuse as a child. There will be recordings of words spoken during the abuse in the piece. This will also be the first piece to have percussion to show the panic of the events. This will be in the middle of the piece which will be reflected in the violin. I have also chosen a synth to play the chord progression. It has a long sustain and reverb and compressor to control it. This helps create a dark ambience to the piece whilst it being in a major key. I have it set to tonicize to the original key F flat major in the flashback referencing back to Celebration which also uses this technique.
Another event that happened this week was a live sound class. There were a few small things that I pointed out which was that the PA’s NL cables need to be figure-eight rolled to avoid creating electromagnets. The other small thing was labelling cables. I always write the input and instrument on the label on both ends of the cable. There were two main issues throughout the session. The first was during line check. Line check is done on a small condenser which requires 48V. I was running the monitor console and had directed Thomas who was patching into the stage splitter. I had instructed to patch in then I would turn on 48V and that he was not to patch out until I had turned 48V off. Another member Reuben had come over and tried to tell Thomas what to do after 48V had been turned on. This led to them trying to pull out the cable causing a large popping sound. This caused me to freak out and triggered a panic attack and made me extremely angry due to the lack of respect of directions. I walked out and calmed myself down before confronting the issue knowing that anger never leads to anything good. This fail in communication was due to lack of experience and confidence in this area of audio. The other situation was that reverb is post. We were trying to place reverb into the wedges and forgot that we had not placed our post faders at unity as we were mixing in our sends. Overall, this session was good practice in setting up and packing down the system again. I also have made a Input List and Stage Plot with Kram, Alec and Thomas which can be accessed at the link below.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PIQilmDmgOzzzuHIEfPi-XHaxMjv5G8tCpQdUhGHf1I/edit?usp=sharing
This week has been interesting. I’m glad that I am now over the halfway point with my composing. Ariel is also getting closer to completing the artwork which is looking amazing. The further I get in this piece the happier I get with the EP.
Σχόλια