Searching for Higher Ground

Ever since I started composing I always wanted to write a piece of music that would illustrate in the minds of the listener an intense battle. Towards the end of my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints while riding in the backseat of a truck I hummed a melody to myself that began the creation of the piece entitled "Searching for Higher Ground". After I came home I always had in the back of my head a desire to write my "battle song" but I was very afraid of doing so as I could tell it would be a long and hard task. With faster paced music it's often necessary to write more than you would in a slower song in order to fill any decent amount of time. I decided to start very slow, and so on my way home from work I would try to hum out a melody that I thought would be good to start the piece of music. The result was the opening line played by a chinese flute known as a "Dizi" (00.07). Later I added a piano line behind it to add a little more sauce. I had planned on the opening melody being rather short as it would only be an introduction to the actual piece. Since this was an intense battle I could also hear an electric guitar striking chords along with a drummer hitting the crash. To lead into the first part of the song, I heard in my head an arpeggio going backwards except for a few notes that would increase in pitch rather than decrease (00.14). To allow the lead into the song to build up I had the drums start hitting the crash and then go to a roll. At this point I was clueless where I would go next so I went ahead and put in two parts that I wanted to eventually be implemented into the music. This is when I finally got the chance to put that melody from my mission onto sheet music. I also put down a guitar solo that I could hear fitting into the song. I also recorded the guitar solo as a piano and when I couldn't decide which I liked more I decided to keep them both almost as "dueling instruments" (00.57). When I went back to where I left off I felt a little bit more confident and so I decided to experiment putting down a track of an electric guitar strumming some power chords (00.18). Since it's a sin to strum power chords the same way through an entire a piece of music (provided you aren't playing punk music which is a sin in itself) I decided to have the guitar cut back (00.22). I then added strings to give it a symphonic rock sound. This ended up being another situation where I decided I liked the string part so much that I wanted it to take away the melody. After listening to this a few times I made the good mistake of accidently leaving on one of the guitar tracks on which ended up cutting into the end of the melody. This gave me the idea that maybe halfway through the melody there would be a ridiculously fast guitar solo to add some serious intensity to the fight (00.21). I think that guitar riff alone is what really makes this piece music. The second time through the power chord progression I varied the melody on the strings and the guitar solo (00.28). I then decided it was time to take this piece through clouds of beauty by bringing the dizi back embellished by some fast muted strumming and a piano that dances from right to left speaker (00.32). After repeating this part twice I decided to revert to the main line with the guitar solo halfway through. This was the perfect spot for the dueling piano and guitar and then all that was left was to add that melody I had hummed in the backseat of a truck 3 years earlier. The first time that line is played I wanted the guitar playing it to be completely alone and so I added a sound of wind blowing to give a real solo flight feel. The second time I reintroduced all of the instruments except for the dizi and had the guitar play the melody with thirds. At this point the song was practically finished except that it was incredibly short. To fix this I extended the introduction by not bringing in the dizi until after the guitar, drums and piano had set the stage. The name "Searching for Higher Ground" comes from the idea of trying to get the upper hand on your opponent.
When I first started working on it I asked one of my roommates for his opinion. He told me that it sounded ok except that the instrument quality made it sound like it was from a video game. It was a point I had already acknowledged but I was pretty ticked hearing it second hand. My roommate was going on vacation that week and so I made a goal to completely finish the composition by the time he had returned. I actually finished it the day before he came back. I was pretty thrilled when he said he didn't even recognize that it was the same piece.