Among the music I had composed before, I have explored songs, game background music, and theme music, and the overall duration of the music was basically around 3 to 5 minutes. When I saw the assignment, a 15-minute music project was something I had never attempted before. Just in terms of duration, this was a huge challenge for me. For traditional music composition, this is a very normal thing. Due to the development of modern music, many musicians want to showcase the most brilliant parts of their music within 3 to 5 minutes. Nowadays, many people also prefer shorter-duration music, as they want to find their favorite music in the shortest time possible. This has led to many people losing patience and interest in listening to longer-duration music. This might be caused by various societal factors. Of course, this is also one of the reasons why I didn’t try long-form music composition before enrolling. I have confidence in my creative abilities, but when facing unfamiliar fields, I still have some concerns in my heart. I didn’t know what my 15-minute piece would be like, or how to choose the direction and style of the music. So before starting the creation, I didn’t rush to open the project and create tracks. Instead, I first conceived the framework of the entire piece. At first, I also thought about taking a “lazy” approach: long stretches of repetition, like loop music. But in the end, I chose to complete it bit by bit and look for new breakthroughs or inspiration during the creative process.
This piece of mine is based on modal music and uses the Dorian mode. Originally, I intended to create a musical piece depicting a medieval fantasy world with the medieval style that comes with the Dorian mode, like Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” series. I still remember the novelty and shock I felt when I first saw this series of films. A complete and vast Middle-earth fantasy world appeared before me. I learned about races like orcs, elves, and dwarves for the first time, which I had never heard of before. But later I changed my mind because it would be relatively simple to create a piece of music in the style of a medieval fantasy world this way. So, to challenge myself, I decided to create a piece of music that is different from this style. This piece of music is roughly divided into two major sections. The last section adds new harmonies and changes the harmonic rhythm on the basis of the harmony of the previous section, making the two major sections both similar and yet developing differently. And different orchestration, timbres, and modulations are used to change the color of the music.
The music begins with a string ensemble playing in a pad-like manner, using the chords Cm7 and F. The modulation is adjusted to control the rise and fall of the entire string section. I first let the strings fade in slowly and then gradually weaken. A brief harp glissando is used as an embellishment. The woodwind section plays long, linear melodies against the backdrop of the string harmony, starting with a single line and then changing to a two-part texture, with the melodic color changing accordingly. After playing for eight measures, the same harmony continues, but at this point, new elements need to be added. So, I composed the snare drum in a rhythm like a marching band’s step, interspersing it with synth Arps to add some spatial depth. The synth bass plays the root notes of the chords, and I added Kickstart, surging forward in a quarter note rhythm.
After completing 16 bars, the strings switch to staccato playing, contrasting with the legato playing before. The harmony remains the same, but the chord tones are arpeggiated to form a distinct melody, and with the staccato technique, it becomes more rhythmic. The trumpet plays a modal melody, and then the drums, piano, and bass suddenly join in, propelling the music into a brief climax, which is also a small design of mine, creating an illusion of development. Immediately after, the drum set continues to play, and the piano plays chords in a sixteenth-note rhythm pattern, sometimes rapidly ascending and sometimes descending in intervals, presenting a grand and expansive feeling. The bass groove intensifies, also maintaining the sixteenth-note rhythm pattern, based on the C and G notes, creating a clear riff that drives the entire music forward. At this point, the trumpet and tenor sax play the main melody, and reverb is added to these two instruments to create a sense of space.
After playing sixteen bars, a new chord, B-flat, was added, and the chord progression became C-B-flat-F. I changed the harmonic rhythm through anticipation, advancing the rhythms of the B-flat and F chords. In contrast to the previous downbeat, the Synth ARP played sixteenth-note rhythms to provide rhythmic support. Although there was no obvious melodic line in this section, there was a weak melodic line formed by the top notes of the piano chords. This allowed the melodic sense of this section to rest, which also highlights the importance of pauses in music to avoid auditory fatigue.
Next, the music comes to a distinct section. At the beginning, only the piano plays Am-D, and the music has shifted to the A Dorian mode. Modulation is a technique I often use to change the listening experience when creating music. In the second eight bars of the piano’s playing, the woodwinds enter. Later, the piano uses an eighth-note rhythm and plays chords in a block style. The string section returns to the pad style of the beginning to lay down the harmony. The bass changes to a quarter-note rhythm in the first eight bars, continuously playing the root note of the chord. In the second eight bars, it plays the root note on the first beat of each measure, followed by a sustained note and then a clear melodic line in the high register. The drum rhythm slows down to a half-time feel, and the position of the snare drum changes from the second and fourth beats of each measure to the third beat. The overall listening experience slows down by half. When writing the drum part, I added some ghost note techniques to increase the rhythmic details of the drum section and make it sound as if a real person is playing. I also introduced an instrument that had not appeared before: a distorted electric guitar. It plays chords in an arpeggiated style, and the addition of the electric guitar brings a fresh feeling to the music. Its distorted sound and arpeggiated style of playing give a sense of fragmentation. At this point, the overall feeling of the music is like a spy thriller, with a theme like that of 007 music, and the tonality becomes darker. After two eight-bar sections, the drum rhythm pattern changes to a backbeat, and the listening speed feels faster than before. The bass continues to play a quarter-note rhythm, and the wind section repeats a melodic motif based on the notes B-A-C. The rhythm appears an eighth note earlier, making the wind section’s rhythm different. The addition of the wind sound again drives the development of this section, giving a feeling like an army advancing in a TV drama and blowing the horn. The string section uses the staccato technique to play the same notes as the wind section, but the rhythm is offset, creating a call-and-response effect. Two different instrument groups playing the same main melody is also to strengthen the listening experience of the main melody and enhance its memorability. Another string section uses the legato technique to play its harmony, and the CC1 expression is used to make the sound gradually increase and then decrease, creating a sense of undulation. Although it is not very obvious in the music because I have lowered its volume, it has already played a role in creating undulation in the music. At this point, the electric guitar’s playing becomes more compact according to the development of the music’s mood, mainly using eighth notes, arpeggiating chords and playing the chord notes from bottom to top in a relatively regular manner. The pan of the electric guitar is placed hard right to avoid clashing with the instruments playing the main melody. Its dense rhythm makes the distortion of the electric guitar more intense, supplementing the low-frequency deficiency of the wind and string sections. In this section, a delay-effected electric piano is also added. In the first eight bars, it plays single notes, offsetting the string and brass sections. In the second eight bars, the electric piano plays richer harmonies and plays a very clear melodic line in an arpeggiated style. At this point, the brass section has stopped playing, and only the string section is still playing the same melody as before, while the piano has also taken a break. This is to relieve the tense listening experience and lay the groundwork for the subsequent changes in the music. At this point, the drum section makes a slight change from the previous backbeat rhythm pattern, with the kick drum now on all beats instead of just the first and third beats. There is also a small rhythmic accent change every eight bars, and the bass changes from the previous repetitive single root note playing to a more bass-line-oriented playing mode. To make up for the lack of melodic sense at this point, in the last eight bars, the root note playing becomes the main part, but the first note does not appear on the first beat of each bar, but on the offbeat of the first beat. At 7:41, the drum group disappears, and only the snare drum plays the rhythm part. The electric piano plays the chords in an arpeggiated way, and at this time, the saxophone plays the main melody, sometimes playing fast ascending notes and sometimes playing long notes slowly, weaving through the music. I also increased the reverb send for the saxophone and added a delay effect, making the spatial sense of the saxophone stronger and the sound more distant, which greatly relieves the previous mood and brings a very comfortable feeling. After the saxophone finishes playing, the trumpet takes over, which is done to switch different timbres and avoid auditory fatigue, constantly stimulating the audience’s enthusiasm. The trumpet playing forms a sharp contrast with the saxophone. If the sound of the saxophone is sensual and psychedelic, then the sound of the trumpet is brilliant and noble. After the trumpet finishes playing, the same main melody is given to the harp to play, first in a low octave and then in a high octave.
After the harp performance ended, the music paused for a few seconds and then moved on to a new section. Both the rhythm and the timbre were in sharp contrast to the previous part. I increased the tempo of the music at this point, changing it from the original 93 to 110 BPM. This made the entire piece more lively and bouncy. I used a pluck sound at this time, repeatedly playing the chord progression of Am7-D-C-D and maintaining a sixteenth-note rhythm to make the sound more rhythmic. After playing for four measures, the kick drum appeared, playing on all four beats of each measure. Every eight measures, new instruments were added. The approach in this section was to continuously build up the foundation, like adding layers. I used different electronic drum sounds, partly to explore various sounds and partly to create a layering effect of timbres. Therefore, I spent a considerable amount of time selecting the drum kit sounds. I believe that timbre is extremely important, sometimes even the most crucial part of music. I encountered such a problem in my previous compositions. At first, I thought it was due to the notes and rhythms I used but eventually found out that it was actually the timbre that didn’t fit. This made me realize how crucial it is to choose the right timbre before creating.
电子鼓音色的连续叠加主要体现在对一些有趣音色的选择上。我将这些类似打击乐的音色放在较弱的节拍上，并保持十六分音符的节奏。小军鼓出现在第二拍和第四拍，不同的小军鼓音色叠加在一起，使小军鼓的音色更加饱满。对于踩镲，我没有采用传统的非常规整的节奏，而是让它偶尔在弱拍和强拍之间交替，并与底鼓、小军鼓以及其他打击乐和特效音色相结合，创造出一种摇摆感十足的节奏。当然，一开始我也是按照非常传统的方式来编排鼓组，但我发现整个鼓组的节奏过于僵硬。因此，我改变了方法，参考了一些音乐的节奏来创作现在的鼓组。至于贝斯，我选择了一种深沉柔和的合成器贝斯音色，并添加了Kickstart插件，使贝斯的节奏与底鼓的节奏完美契合，将两者完全融合，为整首音乐提供扎实的低频。插件带来的侧链压缩赋予了贝斯一种呼吸感。此时，主旋律由主音演奏，随后合成器琶音奏出新的旋律。与主音相比，合成器琶音更具科幻和宇宙感。接着，通过声音的变化：节奏组逐渐消失又重新出现；合成器贝斯短暂地停顿后再次出现。这种手法在我之前的作品中经常使用，因为我的节奏、贝斯和其他乐器会循环播放，但持续重复会变得非常单调。因此，我使用这种方法让节奏、贝斯和其他乐器短暂地停顿，营造出起伏的氛围，不断吸引听众的注意力。之后，合成器琶音和主音叠加在一起，将音乐推向一个小高潮。然后，音乐回归稳定状态，没有明显的主旋律。在乐曲结尾，我加入了一个新的主旋律，演奏的是小号在8分20秒处所奏旋律的展开部分。音符大致相同，但节奏略有变化。这样做是为了增强乐曲的记忆性，这段旋律会一直演奏到乐曲结束。之后，我将音乐速度调回最初的93 BPM，并在重复乐曲开头部分的同时进行一些细微的调整。
通过创作这首15分钟的音乐作品，我对音乐有了新的理解，拓宽了我的创作思路，也获得了更多音乐灵感。在未来的音乐创作中，我将拥有更多选择。在创作过程中，我遇到了各种各样的困难和挑战，这些都激发了我的音乐潜能，也让我受益匪浅。对我而言，这是一次宝贵的经历。
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