An Introduction to Producing Music (Part 4)

Growing with your Gear

When I first start playing guitar the only way I could tell if a guitar had a good sound was by the way it looked. If a guitar had lots of knobs, pickups, and a cool brand name logo I "knew" that it was a decent sounding guitar. The reason for this is that I hadn't developed an ear to really distinguish the tone quality of different instruments. This is the type of ability that takes years to develop and even many of the world's best guitarists regularly change the setup on their guitar. I've now been playing guitar for over 10 years and depending on the effects setup I still might not be able to distinguish the sound between 2 of my own guitars. Every year around November/December I see dozens of parents spending unholy amounts of money on beginning guitars for their children. What they don't know is that the biggest difference between a 500 dollar guitar and 2,000 dollar guitar is 1500 dollars. Unless you have been playing guitar for several years it is unlikely that you will be able to appreciate the value in the additional 1500 dollars. To an experienced guitarist everything is taken into consideration - the types of pickups, the different knobs, the bridge setup, the width of the neck, the ergonomics of the body, the sound and the overall look. In order to get the most out of your equipment you really need to grow with your gear.

My very first recording setup included windows media recorder and a cheap computer mic. The way I would "multi-track" would be by recording a strumming pattern, putting it on a CD and then with the use of an 1/8 inch Y splitter recording the music from the CD player along with a second guitar part I would play live. It didn't take a musician of any sort of tenure to know that my recordings were far from professional but it was a necessary stepping stone to reaching the point of full-fledged productions. This taught me some of the fundamentals of creating melodies and harmonies as well as some of the very basic theory behind writing for multiple instruments.

Some years down the road I ended up building my own computer and getting some very basic/cheap recording software. The software I used allowed for multi-track recording, mixing, and some basic effects. A friend of mine gave me a drum machine that I could use to create my own drum beats and because I already had 2 guitars and a bass I was proud to say that I had my own "studio". Just hearing my music on a recording was the coolest thing in the world. But there were a lot of things I hadn't planned for. First of all I never felt like my guitar sounded the same way live as it did on the recordings. My drum machine only had 1 snare sound and you could tell it was canned. Also, for some reason there was always a lot of noise (room sound and air) on my guitar/vocal tracks. Something else that I quickly noticed was that most radio productions have much more than just guitar, drums, bass and vocals. One time I tried to reproduce a pop song and because I didn't have access to every instrument in the recording I had to replace every single part with my guitar. At the time I couldn't tell how ridiculous the completed track turned out but I honestly wasn't at the stage where I really could. And it was good for me anyway as it taught me just how much goes into a full-fledged studio production. I can still remember spending 6 hours in one day ripping a drum beat from a song until I had every measure reproduced exactly how it was played in the recording

After my mission I decided I was going to do things right and so I purchased a better sound card, some high end software, a studio microphone and a tube preamp. Overnight the quality of my recordings increased exponentially. My guitars sounded significantly better, I had much better sounding drums, and I was slowly learning how to get rid of the room sound with equalizing and mic positioning. The biggest difference though was that my overall ability now had more room to grow. Now that I had my guitars sounding closer to how I wanted them I began to want more. I wanted strings. Some guy at a music store told me that I could download something called virtual instruments to get the sound of strings and that piece of advice changed everything for me. The first virtual instrument I began using was a piano. This was especially good for me because it required me to click notes on a staff and consequently my music and chord theory expanded. I later implemented a flute, then a cello, then a harp and the next thing I knew I wanted an entire orchestra. Over the next 2 years I stopped producing "songs" and moved on to writing for a full orchestra. Looking back I think to myself that had my father spent $5,000 (and that's just a start) on professional studio equipment now 10 years later I still wouldn't be able to fully appreciate the difference in quality. This is because my musical ability needed to grow before it would require the beauty of a full orchestra. In the very same way, when starting out, musicians have no reason to purchase high end equipment as they likely won't be able to fully use it until they have reached the level that comes only from the grueling hard work of musical production.

Now as I stated before I use a lot of virtual instruments. Virtual instruments are programs that contain recordings of a particular instrument playing numerous versions of every possible note that the particular instrument can play. I click notes on a staff and the virtual instrument plays it accordingly. Because each note or "sample" has been recorded by a professional instrumentalist people regularly ask me who I got to play the violin in my recordings. (Note that this is completely different from "synthesized" instruments that are digitally created and using loops which are recordings of musical phrases. I write every note of music in my productions) While peering the message boards of the internet I regularly see people posting on the subject of the inability of virtual instruments to sound real. First of all this is completely untrue but secondly what they are forgetting is that no one is going to care whether or not the instrument sounds real or fake if the music isn't worth listening to. Last year I purchased a high quality virtual orchestra library because I was at a point where I was ready for it. I had been using low quality freeware samples for years and I was at the point what I had completely outgrown my tool set. I can honestly say that 2 years ago my musical ability did not deserve high quality instrumentation. There's always something you can do to make your music sound better and since we often assume our music is divinely inspired we tend to look at upgrading our equipment rather than our ability. And to someone who knows what they're doing It's very possible to get a professional sound out of inexpensive equipment. Ever heard of the "touch of the master's hand"? In the hands of the right musician even a cheap guitar can sound excellent. I guarantee you that if you heard Joe Satriani or Steve Vai playing a cheap guitar the last thing you would be thinking about is the price of the instrument.

At this point I consider my level of production to be professional but neither myself nor my musical equipment reached that point overnight. It's taken years to acquire to what I have both physically and musically. When people are first starting out they often ask me what program I use for recording. I have to tell them that I actually use several programs. I have a program that I use for recording and mixing, a program for guitar amps, a program for orchestral instruments, a program for drums, a program for adding effects and a program for mastering tracks. I then ask them what exactly they want to do. If they want a basic recording that they can listen to in their car it can be accomplished with a single program but if they want a full on production they will likely be spending several hundreds of dollars on several different programs as well as several different mics, guitars, audio interfaces etc.

My point in all of this is that there is no reason to invest money into expensive equipment if you can't tell the difference. No one is going to listen to your recording and say "He's obviously playing a Steinway" or "She's obviously playing a Stradivarius". As long as the instrument sounds "good" your listeners will pay more attention to the melody than the instrument. (The exception to this is when someone just has an awful singing voice and no one has the "heart" to tell them to switch hobbies.) Can a guitar from Walmart sound good? Can virtual instruments sound real? It doesn't matter if the music is dull. If you're interested in recording/producing music find a freeware program and see if it does what you want. If you start wanting more than what you have then move on to spending a little cash. But don't depend on your purchasing power to make your music sound good. If your music needs an expensive instrument in order to sound "good" then it probably doesn't sound good at all. Don't miss out on the advantage that comes from growing with your gear.

An Introduction to Producing Music (Part 3)

The Price and the Prize

I used to believe I could change the future with my music. Back when I first started writing songs I believed this as much as I believed anything. I used to think that if only a particular girl could hear my music she would uncover the "real" me and fall hopeless and helpless. My father used to compare me to Edward Leedskalnin, the man who single-handedly created the beautiful rock garden, Coral Castle for a woman who left him on his wedding day. He told me that my songs were similar to the rock garden and our delusions were the same. Unfortunately he was right and following the delusion that I could change the future never granted me satisfaction. This is because my goal was never to create music. It was to win the heart, or better yet, the will, of a girl. Consequently I would feel like a failure.

After a relationship didn't work out I once told a friend I never wanted to get famous for a song written about someone else's wife. He told me that he didn't credit my music to any woman. For years I thought about that concept and it was only until recently that I have come to understand just how true that statement was. It wouldn't matter if I had written a song named after her and written entirely about her the music would still be more of a self-portrait than a portrait, more of an autobiography than a biography.

I've never been a fan of the idea that "music is about expression". This is one of those phrases that non-musicians and wannabe musicians love to spout but in my perspective it's simply untrue. Music (or any art form for that matter) is entirely about observation and how and what we choose to observe defines our true persona. The Mona Lisa tells us little of the mysterious woman in the painting compared to the volumes it speaks of Leonardo Da Vinci's genius mind. While the very intricate lines on her face may tell us what she looked like we admire more the masterful skill of the Renaissance's greatest innovator and the time in observation required to notice and recreate such small details. Just the same, perhaps the image of our bodies portrays more of an express image of our Creator than it does of ourselves.

Understanding this, I begin to understand why I never got anywhere writing songs for girls. I was in essence trying to win their hearts by showing them pictures of myself. Maybe that's not the best comparison but I'm right about one thing. I was showing them the "real" me. My signature was all over "their" songs and consequently they were well acquainted with who I was. It wouldn't have mattered if I had saved the world. I wasn't their choice and as far as I was concerned, I had failed.

For virtually every composition I've ever created I paid a very steep price. Almost every piece I ever wrote seemed to be "pressed" out of me from the weight of loneliness and depression. This was my drive, and drive is possibly the most important element in producing quality. Some of my compositions have come quickly but for the most part I've labored for weeks driven by the idea that it was all I could do to change the future. I would ignore friends, skip meals and fall miserably behind in school addicted to this delusion. And this was only part of the price. After producing what I considered to be a musical masterpiece at the expense of my life I still had to live with the fact that my artistic reflection wasn't enough to win the heart of "the girl" and I would be reminded of this every time I heard my work.

But what was my failure? If my success hinged entirely on the will of another then even if I had somehow attained musical perfection it is possible that it still wouldn't be enough. Millions of people rejected Jesus Christ. Does that make him a failure? When I was in high school I auditioned for a magnet school for the arts and was rejected 2 years in a row. At the time I felt like a failure but now, 10 years later, after having written and professionally produced multiple symphonies, rock songs, and themes, I don't know that I have the same feelings. In the event that I go on to produce soundtracks for films, video games and top 40 music it is likely that I would have the opportunity to lecture at a similar school. Given that scenario, who would be the failure, the accomplished composer or the music teacher that rejected him from his program? The answer is neither, provided both of us had become better people.

This is the prize. In every painful battle it appeared I lost, my music improved. It matured. My ethereal reflection improved because I had improved. In some of my darkest hours I crafted some of my brightest compositions and learned skills that would allow my ability to develop further. I don't know that everyone who experiences tragedy can say that. In the evolution of my music I have proof that I am better, stronger and possess a deeper ability to love. When all my past "loves" wake up next to men who never care to paint their portrait with music, pencil or words can I still call myself a failure? Maybe that's all they wanted. Maybe it wasn't I who was wasn't worthy rather the inverse. I don't know, I won't know and it's not for me to know. What I do know is that I am more than I was.

Sometimes I still get delusional. Sometimes I still believe I can change the future with my music. I still fall for the false hope that the prize of some girl can bought with the price of a symphony. There are still days when this idea sinks so deep into my head that I spend hours writing a composition completely convinced that I'll somehow change the future. But music is never the price or the prize. The music we compose is an ethereal reflection of the prize of a better self and an endless reminder of the beautiful price.

An Introduction to Producing Music (Part 2)

Recording, Mixing and Producing

I first got into recording because I spent 2 hundred dollars at a recording studio and had nothing to show for it. One of the things that you learn when you begin recording is just how bad of a musician you are. When you start seeing your audio track on the screen and you see how terribly offbeat you are you wonder how anyone could've ever listened to you play. All of us think our playing is pretty solid until we're humbled by the studio experience. Just the same, singing in the studio was a pretty embarrassing experience as I'm in no way a good singer. After the first hour or so I began to realize that my finished product would consist of me strumming chords, a bass guitar, a drum beat and a pitiful vocal track. If you pay attention to the structure and components of music on the radio you will notice that you don't hear chords being strummed as often as you might think. What you hear are synthy riffs here and there and something ambient (usually strings or a synthesizer) filling in the high and low ends of the musical spectrum. At the end of my recording session I realized that I would get none of this without spending an absurd amount of money and even then I would receive a recording with someone else's riffs making it less and less my song. I paid the producer and told him I didn't even want a finished product. That was when I decided I wanted to build my own setup.

I built my own computer and got a watered down version of some recording/mixing software. A friend of mine gave me a cheap soundcard and another friend gave me a drum machine. Both of these were must have's. After getting through all the conflicts with my soundcard I was able to actually record. Since I'm not a drummer I decided I would try to "rip" drum beats from songs to figure out what was going on. I listened to the song "I'll be coming home next year" by the Foo Fighters over and over again so I could reproduce every single beat. Doing that helped me learn how drum beats are or at least should be created and got me comfortable creating my own. What I would do then is plug the drum machine into the computer and push record. This is key because you MUST have a constant in your recording and that constant should always be the drum/percussion track. From here I would move on to recording a guitar track with the drum beat as my metronome. Then I would record the lead and bass guitars followed by the vocals. Now this alone can give you a "band sound" but it is lightyears behind of the "produced/professional" sound. Again, MOST radio quality productions have much more than a 4 piece band but it is entirely possible to achieve a professional sound with a small setup.

Assuming you're at this point there are a few things you should know before you even consider stepping into the world of production and they all have to do with mixing. Something that you will learn early on (and you may already know this) is that instrument placement is key in having a decent sounding recording. If you listen to any quality recording you will notice different instruments coming out of different headphones. If you have 5.1 channel surround sound you can notice the placement even more. If all the sounds are coming from the same direction it is very hard to distinguish the different instruments. Most mixing programs allow you to decide how far to the right or the left you want the different instruments to sit in the recording. Producers refer to this as "panning". For starters, the vocal track is the most important part of the mix (it's the melody after all) and you almost always want to put it in the center. (Vocal harmony tracks can be slightly panned to either the left or the right) All other instruments should be placed in positions to compliment the lead vocals, not to crowd them out. As a general rule of thumb you are usually safe "panning" the rhythm guitar to the left and the lead guitar to the right or vice versa. The bass guitar goes right in the center or slightly off. You can get away with this because it's vibrating at such a lower frequency that it doesn't crowd out the vocals. The drums are a different story altogether. If you listen to your favorite rock band you'll usually notice that the bass, snare, high hat, toms etc are coming out of different speakers though they are usually closer to the center than the guitars. The good news is that if you're using a drum simulator chances are it's already been professionally panned. If you want to go the route of recording drums then expect to spend as much on microphones as you did on your drumset. The panning should be similar to where it would sit on a stage.

Something just as important as mixing but on the same topic of "crowding out the space" is the actual composition of the music you compose. I'm going to refer to this as complimentary composing. I was recording a friend one day who had written 3 guitar riffs to be played simultaneously. Writing for 3 guitars is perfectly fine. Where he screwed up was in the fact that they were all in the same musical range. Consequently, no amount of panning would allow the music to be "interpreted" or "deciphered" clearly. Make your lead guitar riffs either much higher or using a drastically different meter than that of the strumming guitar. Meter refers to the timing of the musical line. If you have 4 notes in your riff you can play them all as quarter notes (just count 1-4) or you can add half notes and eight notes to resonate for the split second in the music where the other instruments are silent and waiting for their next pulse. Orchestral composers have known this for hundreds of years which is why they regularly give drastically different metered parts to different instruments.

Just as important as panning and good complimentary composing is equalizing. On an electric guitar you have a tone knob and on your amp you will usually have treble, bass, and mid knobs. In the same way that having all the instruments in the center and writing music all in the same range and meter crowds out the space having the instruments equalized the same way can destroy a recording. If you're using virtual instruments then you're usually safe as they have already been professionally equalized but when recording you almost always have to equalize every instrument. A friend of mine once told me that it's always better to subtract sound than it is to boost. This is good advice because boosting adds something that wasn't there before introducing something foreign whereas subtracting only allows a better perspective of the natural. I usually find that since the rhythm guitar has such a full sound it is often necessary to slightly decrease the mids or the lows. Depending on how many notes you are playing at a time on the lead guitar you can usually get away with beefy pronounced lows. Every recording is different so equalizing is definitely something that you usually have to handle differently case by case.

In the area of effects you will usually find that less is more. When people are new to recording they will usually add all kinds of reverb to their instruments and vocals. (I know I sure did.) This is because adding reverb DOES make a lot of things sound better. The problem with adding reverb is that it takes away much of the natural tone and fills a lot of the space with the decay of the sound. If you're going to use reverb turn the decay down as far as possible. You'll notice most radio recordings have very little reverb. This is because there are better and more effective ways to increase the quality of the tracks. Creating a chorus effect can drastically thicken the sound of a guitar. You can do this a couple of ways. You clone the track and slightly drag the clone a few miliseconds before or after it's twin begins. You can re-record the part to have an even more dynamic clone. Lastly, you can simply add a chorus effect. (I prefer the first method.) When using a chorus effect you either want it obvious or not obvious at all and you definitely want to pan the cloned track to the other side.

Well there you have it. While cool effects and synthesizers can certainly add flavor to a production it is very possible to get producer level quality with just a 5 piece band. If all else fails and you still don't like the sound you're getting don't be so cocky that you rule out re-writing some of the music. There have been many times when I spent hours tweaking volume levels, effects, and equalization values yeilding no satisfaction only to find that simply re-writing a guitar part fixed the problem.

An Introduction to Producing Music (Part 1)

The Composition Process

A rather frustrating question I am regularly asked is "What program do you use to write music?" I usually respond to this question by saying "my head". There is no computer program that I know of that can "write" good music for you. There is no light that goes from red to green depending on whether or not I've written quality. The truth is my computer is simply a tool. And this is not the only misconception about music composition. Are you ready to have your beliefs challenged? Are you ready to call me a heretic? I don't believe in "talent". Right, I know, it's extreme and I'm nuts for saying something so ignorant. Let me tell you something though. One of the most annoying compliments I have ever received is, "Wow, you are so talented!" I usually receive this compliment after I've worked on a project for an absurd amount of hours depriving myself of sleep and a couple of meals here and there. Don't deprive someone of the glory of hard work by brushing it off as simply "talent". Reportedly it took Leonardo Da Vinci 10+ years to paint the Mona Lisa. It took Beethoven 20+ years to write his 9th symphony. There are few examples of overnight excellence in masterpieces such as these. I have found that a desire for excellence coupled with hard work is the commonality in all successful or "talented" artists.

I've often wandered how professors of music teach composition. I believe if I were in that position I would require all of my students to write an essay explaining why they liked their favorite composition. This would not be a graded assignment but I would expect extreme levels of detail. Telling me that "The melody is catchy" isn't enough. I would want to know why the student thinks it's catchy. It is impossible to write good music without knowing what makes music good. I can tell you from personal study the reason why I like the music of my favorite composer. To me it's as if in his music he always shows you a better path than what you expected. Many composers will take their melodies in turns you wouldn't expect but in his music you always acknowledge his "deviations" as the better way. Also, there is no measure of music that he treats lightly as he rarely reuses accompaniment lines. It's as if he cares for every measure too much to copy and paste piano riffs. There are no right answers as to what makes music "good" but there are more specific answers that deepen our understanding. Don't waste your time reading someone else's commentary on a symphony. Chances are you'll be "learning" from someone who has never written a quality composition. Write your own commentary or at least analyze it enough so that you could. The purpose of the analysis is to better understand what makes music good so that you can implement these principles. All good composers are students of good music. And let me just add that if you don't listen to good music you're wasting your time with the analysis.

A friend of mine once told me that you shouldn't force a song. I have to say that while I'm incline to disagree, his counsel doesn't go without merit. I think one of the biggest reasons people write "bad" music or music that is not enjoyable is due to the fact that in their haste to get their one prize riff or melody line heard they rush through the composition process and settle for mediocrity everywhere else in the piece. There are so many times while listening to a song I couldn't help but think, "If only he spent a few more days he could've come up with something better". I would suspect though that the reason the artist didn't spend a few more days is because he/she doubted that's all it would take. The truth is, there are ways to get the music flowing.

Now I'm going to go discuss a trick I've learned over the years to help extract music from the universe. Chances are you'll find this idea rudimentary. Just know that this is a trick that I've used to compose rock songs as well as symphonies. The most important thing you can do is to create an environment conducive to creativity. This has nothing to do with finding the right room in your house. This is about traveling to a specific musical habitat and retrieving a new specimen. For me it is very difficult to just imagine melodies. Though I have done this on several occasions more often than not the melodies have come to me while listening to a progression of chords or arpeggios. A good place to start is to take a simple 4 chord progression and strum or arpeggiate them. Turn on a tape recorder and record your simple pattern a few times. Now use your instrument to play different notes in the key. In a matter of minutes you will likely find something you can work with. The type of musical line you come up with will be directly related to the chords you are playing and the meter at which you are playing them. If it takes more than a few minutes, keep at it. Don't give up and don't depend on "talent" to save you. Allow the music to write itself. You will cherish your finished product infinitely more after you have slaved over it than you would if it came to you instantly. In the end you may even modify or discard the chord progression but keep the melody. This is similar to how in the story of stone soup the stone wasn't actually necessary for the soup. It was simply a tool to get it started. And be original. If you think you've heard it before then try to create something you haven't.

The most important part of any composition is the melody. Something that I find very discouraging is that the fact that more and more film scores are moving away from having a theme to a score full of embellishments and accompaniment lines. I once asked my step mother to listen to something that I had written only for her to reply "That's great but now try humming it". Her criticism was harsh but very much warranted. In a lot of modern pop we aren't even graced with a hummable melody until the chorus of the song. Now this is just a matter of preference but I think a good composition has both an enjoyable and a memorable melody throughout the entire piece. Compared to creating a catchy riff, creating a memorable melody is difficult. My definition of a riff is a short melody that doesn't usually last for more than a measure or two. The "true melody" is more of a theme that takes up several measures. It can be short or long, fast or slow, legato or stacatto but your main goals should be enjoyable and memorable. In my opinion, John Williams is a master of crafting memorable melodies. Listen to the theme of Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Superman, Jurassic Park or E.T. All of these are almost instantly memorable and enjoyable. This is the effect all composers should shoot for and this is EXACTLY why I suggest frequent in depth analysis of good music.

The master chorale conductor Robert Shaw is reported to have said that you never sing two notes in sequence the same. Eventually your melody will repeat but that doesn't mean it goes without variance. After you have a melody line try to envision where you want the music to build. No matter what, don't allow your arrangement to stay the same, not in notation or in dynamics. You can get away with this if you're strumming a guitar but even then variety is still the spice of life. If you want to intensify a melody you can create chords with the strings by putting the cellos and basses on the root of the chord, the violas on the root an octave up, the 2nd violins on the 3rd and the 1st violins on the fifth. Play these in stacatto on every beat for an easy build. For a dramatic finish you can put the violins above the staff repeatedly descending a 4 note chord in 16th notes. Use the brass to get the biggest sound possible at the most dramatic moment. If you want the music to calm down try a woodwind on the melody with only a harp or strings section accompanying. If you're writing pop/rock the same principles apply only you will likely use different instrumentation. Allow your music to evolve. Add lead riffs, add strings, add a synthesizer, add harmony, add more cymbals to the drums, change the melody or vary the meter of the strum. If you can't come up with a lead riff to accompany the vocals then try playing the vocal melody on the lead guitar in unison with the vocals. Whatever happens, DON'T FORCE THE LISTENER TO SIT THROUGH THE SAME MONOTONOUS CHORD PROGRESSION.

The last thing that I want to address is one of my biggest pet peeves in recording other musicians. I call it "Inspired by God" syndrome. So many people think that their music can never be changed. Don't fall into that category. Leonardo Da Vinci once said "Art is never finished, it is only abandoned". You're not perfect and neither is your music, ever. Occasionally I will record someone who is too terrified to change their music. Apparently they seem to think that it was inspired and to change it would be blasphemy. This so ridiculous it's not even funny. Love your art enough to cut it back if need be. Don't be afraid of options.

Over the years I've known several artists who were very mediocre and you know why? It's because they don't erase and start over enough. They settle for mediocre lines instead of drawing and erasing until they get it just right. Consequently, they develop a knack for mediocrity. At this rate they will never develop habits of good drawing. Don't expect to get through a good composition without an eraser. I said at the beginning that hard work and a desire for excellence are commonalities in all successful or "talented" artists. This is true in drawing, painting, sculpting, dancing, writing, acting, photography and cinematography. Then why not music?

Beautiful Village

Quite some time ago, I woke up one morning thinking about this beautiful girl that I had recently gotten to know and I couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to wake up next to my future wife for the first time after we had gotten married. In my mind I had painted this scene of waking up before her and pulling the covers over her shoulders. I could then envision her waking up to an empty bed with a trail of flowers leading to a dinning room table with breakfast on it, covered of course. On her empty plate was a folded note that read "Good Morning Beautiful". That morning I decided that it had been a few months since I had written anything new and so I decided I would work on something. I started with my guitar and created the accompaniment that is played by a harp in the recording. The harp was obviously lonely and so I added a few piano lines. I was nervous about creating a melody and so to stall I wrote a part for a string section to embellish the accompaniment. After listening to it a few times I decided that I like the string part so much that I felt it should take the role of the melody. For whatever reason I had this desire to have this piece capture the sound of home and so to create the feel of wooden floors I added a bass drum at the close of the main line (00.29). After the beginning part repeated I obviously had to allow the music to flow into something. This part really wrote itself as I couldn't imagine the piece going anywhere else. Before it was finished I could almost hear the piano echoing with slight variation the melody to add an almost dream-like feel to the composition (00.46). For the final part of the melody (01.19) I started with the relative minor of the key in which I was playing and started again with my guitar to pick out a very basic accompaniment. I then added the piano and all that was left was creating the final melody. Since I had already created an accompaniment I just listened to the music until I could hear in my head what I felt the melody was meant to be. I didn't want the sound to become bland so instead of putting strings on the melody I added a brass section (01.30). Since I wanted the final melody line to repeat I needed to add something to make it different from the first time it was played. To accomplish this I brought the strings and the bass drum back into the picture. For the second time the beginning melody is played (02.26) I decided to make it a little more powerful by putting the brass section in unison with the strings. I at the very end the brass section drops out to make for a delicate end (02.45). I originally entitled this piece "Waking up to the Sun" but later found the title "Waking up
Next to You" more appropriate.

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.

Wilderness

The piece entitled "Wilderness" is another one of those pieces that I somehow just woke up and wrote. While I was in the shower I heard in my head 2 arpeggios that seemed to compliment eachother. (For those of you that don't know, an arpeggio is like a walk up or down a chord.) As soon as I got out of the shower I picked up my guitar and played each line twice. Immediately I started up my computer and wrote out the musical notation. I sensed the song would have a fantasy feel to it. I assigned a harp to the walks and then I decided to add a pulsating cello to give the piece an intense throb. I then picked out the melody on my guitar and assigned a "Bottle Blow" to be the instrument of choice as it seemed to have a very ancient sound to it (00.16). The piece needed percussion and so I used a wood block frequently knocking on the off-beats to add to the ancient rustic sound. I then decided to change the tone of the piece from what I felt was a dark sound to a much lighter more delicate tone (00.32) by playing an arpeggio of the relative major. I put the cello on the melody which wrote itself pretty easily and then picked out on my guitar another melody to put on top of it. I then allowed the cello to drift into the background (00.48) while still playing it's part as I introduced the new melody which was played by a chinese flute called an "Erhu". It was then easy to hear how the melody was supposed to end. I wanted to convey an almost lonely feel to the end as the piece would drift back into the darker sound and so I dropped the strings and wood block. Then I repeated everything that I already had, the result being the piece entitled "Wilderness". The entire piece I think I wrote in 2 days.