When I was creating this piece, titled "Different Pages", I was hoping to capture a feeling of drama, dissonance, and a quickly changing mood. The first portion of the piece was inspired stylistically with a combination of early 2000's pop and music from Latin America. The second half of the piece was inspired by a classic Synth Pop feel, with a

When I was creating this piece, titled "Different Pages", I was hoping to capture a feeling of drama, dissonance, and a quickly changing mood. The first portion of the piece was inspired stylistically with a combination of early 2000's pop and music from Latin America. The second half of the piece was inspired by a classic Synth Pop feel, with a melody you can't help but hum along to. The transition from the Em key seamlessly into G major after the first 16 bars makes the piece feel as if it would fit well within an overture or an outro for a modern-day musical. "Different Pages" would also fit well within a video game during a change in scenery or environment.

This piece has a Tempo of 125 bpm and utilizes common time from start to finish. I chose to utilize primarily acoustic instruments within this piece to breathe a little bit of life into the song and to make it feel more human, while conveying human emotions without words. I used an electronic bass sound for the bassline that I created myself using the Sculpture Synth option. During the first 16 bars, the percussive section is pretty simple, with a few changes in rhythm every four bars. This portion of the piece has a more somber, frustrated, or confused feeling, and keeping it simple felt right- I let the melody lead on this section. While the tempo of the project is the same as we shift to the second section of the piece, it is more upbeat with added hits to the Open-Hi Hat and Crash Cymbals that complement the spaces left in the Melody of the track.

“Different Pages” begins in the key of E minor, and utilizes the following chords in order during the first 16 bars of the piece:

Em Em D D Am Am B7 B7

Em Em D D Am Am B7 B7

Em Em D D Am Am B7 B7

Em Em D D Am Am B7

For this progression I repeated each chord once before moving on to the next and utilized a different voicing of the chord to help create a feeling of constant movement underneath the music. The chords change with the Bassline and Kick during this section. The melody during this section uses alternating rising and falling melody patterns with a call and response feel to it- in the same way someone may experience quickly changing emotions.

After the first 16 bars, the piece slips into the key of G major, which is the relative major key to E minor. After the last B7 chord, we move to a C chord that sets up the chord progression for the rest of the piece. The chord progression for the second half of the song is as follows:

C G Em D

C G Em D

C G Em D

C G Em D

I chose to move into G major and utilize a common chord progression that is often associated with feel good pop music to help evoke a feeling of comfort and familiarity. The melody of this section uses a combination of a motifs, interval melody, and variations throughout as if it were a melody that I was singing to a chorus of a song. I wanted this section of the song to feel grounded yet upbeat. The harmony chords ring out only once per bar and are held for longer while the melody dances around quickly above it.

Initially, I wrote the melody for the first half of the song with the intention that it would be carried out by a string instrument, such as the violin, viola, or cello. After a large portion of the piece was created, I felt as if there was still something missing. The melody did not stand out as much as I wanted it to. I decided to create a guitar-like synth sound to replace orchestral strings, but after creating my Original Guitar Synth, I decided to see what it would sound like if I layered the two and panned them slightly to opposite ears. All that was left was to drop the Violin melody an octave and I had the perfect melody sound combination.

Recording the audio portion for this track was truly a challenge for me. I attempted humming, vocal scatting, clapping, and banging some metal together, but nothing felt or sounded quite right within the piece. This section was a feat of trial and error- and pure luck. I happened to make a “Ch” sound while I was trying to clear my head and brainstorm new ideas, which lead to me recording and using this as a percussive sound throughout the track. I created the synth for the bassline using the ES M (Monophonic Synth) plugin. I adjusted the dials for this track by ear and found it was not difficult to create a buzzy synth bass that fit into the key after only a few minutes. I spent far more time creating the guitar-like synth that one of the melody tracks resides in. To create this synth, I used the Sculptor (Modeling Synth) Plug-in. This plug-in is very involved and what started as “a little bit of trial and error”, quickly turned in to me losing a synth sound I was fond of because I was not sure what changes I had made. The next attempt I had at creating this synth sound went more smoothly- I moved slowly through the sections thinking about the qualities of the sound I wanted to make. Slowly but surely, I made my way to very guitar-like synth. I toyed with the filters, different settings on the delay, Body EQ, waveform types, gate options, where the pickups sat, the material of the sound, and so much more for at least 25 minutes or so until finding a sound that hit the sweet spot. While it was challenging to put together, I was able to create just the sound I was looking for. For the sampler tracks, I decided to make different vowel sounds into the microphone and say/sing short words like “wow”, “dance”, and “ahhh”. In a similar fashion to recording the previous audio track, I decided to make a slightly percussive “bah” sound with pitch and see if I liked how it sounded. I further played within the settings of the Quick Sampler, and then quickly created a short moving part from my voice sample. It worked out perfectly on the first try, so I created something similar for the second half of the piece as well. When mixing these tracks, I found I needed the sampler to be quieter in the second half because the notes were higher and louder. I added a track stack for the Original Sampler “Bah” sound track so that I could mix the first and second half of the piece differently.

I added EQ to the Vocal “Ch” track to help confine and shape the audio to sound more percussive and crisper. In addition to this, I utilized EQ and Compression on the Original Guitar Synth Melody track. I added compression because I could not get the volume levels of the synth correct without it clipping or being too quiet to hear. The compression helped to even out the sound a bit, and the EQ helped lock in the rest of what the Synth sound was missing after creation. Using EQ in this way helped me to be able to create a more realistic and warm guitar sound.

Lastly, the two time-based effects I used were on the Vocal “Ch” track. I added the chorus effect to create a fuller sound, and added an echo that sounds a bit like a paper is being slid across a desk. Ultimately, all of the effects and processing done throughout this project came together like pieces of a puzzle. To mix the project, I started with turning the volume on all of the tracks down and turned them up one by one. It was important to take consideration of how all of the sounds sit together, and I added some panning on to the percussive sounds, including the Vocal “Ch” track, as well as to the Melody tracks.

Together, the mix of the piece helps to tell a story and convey feelings without using words. This project has left me feeling inspired to try things I would not have thought to do before, and to potentially create something larger from the two different sections of the piece.