Sound of Summer

Sound of The Summer

BRIEF:

Produce a one minute sound piece that is your ‘Sound of the Summer’. (you may employ the help of others if needed)

Produce in a suitable format to play at the first session.

Consider: Atmospheric sounds, language, musical genres, folk songs, soundscapes, background sounds, mechanical sounds, location sounds, spoken word, manifestos & sound effects, please document what, when, & where the piece was recorded.

APPROACH:

I wanted to create a music lead sound piece that summed up my summer, I wanted the piece to have a melodic narrative and show the passing of time and the change in mood and spirit. I also wanted to include some found sound into the piece to add underlying texture and moments of interest, I was also wanting to experiment with creating a drum beat or pattern using samples recorded from sounds made from my desk, where I have spent much of the summer working.

RESEARCH:

I really like composers such as Ludovico Einaudi and the cinematic composer Hans Zimmer.

Ludovico Einaudi has a collection of recordings called ‘Seven Days Walking’ where each day is split into different moods or moments, all of these instrumental pieces are played predominantly on the piano. I Really like how expressive his playing is and feel that piano can be used as a great storyteller more so than many other instruments. Einaudi also released a collection of pieces on the record ‘12 Songs From Home’ where the production is not as high as these songs have been recorded in his home during lockdown. This “lo-fi” production really creates a sense of place.

Hans Zimmer is responsible for the soundtrack of the film Interstellar, it contains beautiful textures for strings and organs as well as delicate melodic patterns played on the piano. The patterns are often repeated and with the films focus on the different passings of time, with the pieces in this soundtrack really reflecting that to great effect. The pieces also create great emotional atmosphere through the use of texture but also the chord progressions and cadences generate a “coming home” resolution.

Both of these composers’ work are about story telling through piano movements.

PROCESS:

At first I wanted to make something that was a little more light hearted, something that had a summer feel but was nice and positive. I had been listening to Mac DeMarco and was playing around with chord shapes until I came across something interesting. I put together a simple beat and recorded the piano progression and a couple of extra melodies to go with it and thought that it was done. However, upon revisiting the piece I didn’t think it represented the amount of change that has happened over the summer and didn’t really tell any story so I scrapped it and started again

The concept was to have something that built up as the piece progressed from being simple and in a minor key to something more layered and major. The idea was to start with a basic melody to signify coming back to the UK into the depths of the first lockdown, with not being able to see anyone or do anything, I wanted the melody to be sombre and repetitive. Then as the piece progressed I wanted it to modulate to a major key to signify that things were getting better, then I would add more layers as a device to show that I have been getting busier as the summer went on, getting ready for uni and being able to see people. Finally I wanted the piece to still contain minor key elements to signify that the pandemic was not over so not everything was fine.

I thought that an arpeggiated pattern would give a nice amount of repetition to signify the passing of time, I chose E Minor as my key and started by playing a simple chord arpeggiated, then after a certain number of bars I would change one note of the progression to start to push it into a major key. The progression modulates into an F Major finishing with a return back to the notes of the E Minor chord which were used at the beginning of the piece.

I then worked on some extra melodies that would be played to give more interest to the piece but also be a part that does not change throughout. I brought in some more solid A Minor chords near the end of the piece over parts that were very close in pitch to the main melody to signify the business of the end of summer. I used a simple whole tone progression when the melody had moved to F Major using some organ and string sounds along with some bass to give new textures to the piece, used in homage to Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar piece ‘Day One’. Finally to add more texture to the piece I played the chords of the main melody on the electric guitar.

I recorded the sounds of me traveling on the train to Bristol from Bridgwater as this was something that I had done a lot over the summer. I added them to my track but mixed it to become more of an indistinct texture under the whole piece. On the first move to the F major key I added a recording of the Starlings that would be eating berries outside my window and finally sampled the sound of me slamming the desk draw and tapping on my desk lamp which became the basis for my kick and snare drums and my high hats.

When it came to mixing I wanted to approach it in the same lo-fi way as the Einaudi album ‘12 Songs From Home’ so I removed a lot of hight frequency information and added distortion and tape wobble to help bring all the parts together.

Sheet music for main melody