The piece of music we're listening to in the background is the main theme from podcast sitcom Wooden Overcoats. Today, we'll break it down and look at some of the insights into why and how it was made. You're listening to How I Make Music, where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and get into the insights into how it was made. My name is James Whittle, composer, performer and conductor from the UK, and this is How I Make Music. 00:46 About Wooden Overcoats Wooden Overcoats is a podcast sitcom about two rival funeral directors. On the one hand, there's Rudyard and Antigone Funn, siblings who rival themselves at times! And then newcomer to the island Eric Chapman, who has a fantastic presence and everyone falls in love with him. They compete for funeral business and a lot more on the island of Piffling. It's kind of satire comedy of small island and village mentality. But also a very nostalgic and affectionate take on rural living and community. And lots of lovable characters too. 02:15 Leitmotif The Wooden Overcoats Main Theme appears at the beginning and end of every episode. We hear the motifs from the theme throughout the show soundtrack to represent siblings Rudyard and Antigone. I had quite a lot of fun with the little jingle dum-dah-dum. It's often there, even under the surface. You might not always notice it. 02:44 Influence: Trevor Wishart One of the influences on Wooden Overcoats Main Theme is a piece by composer Trevor Wishart called Beach Singularity that was written in 1977. The piece is actually a live performance that takes place on a beach with brass ensembles and electronic recordings all at the same time. Victorian musical songs all combined with brass playing at the same time. Quite a noisy, almost absurd sound, which I love. I was drawing on these leftfield, avant-garde experimental compositions to try and get that sense of the absurd of satire. Of something a bit off kilter. We have in Wishart's piece, even dogs barking! So there's a lot of humor. There's a lot of chaos in this piece. 04:08 Inifluence: ‘Allo! ‘Allo! British sitcom Wooden Overcoats is set on a fictional Channel island. So one of the key musical influences was the theme tune from a British sitcom 'Allo! 'Allo! which is set in France and features lots of very bad accents. Very tongue in cheek, take a listen. The feeding tune has this dadadada rising fifth. Wooden Overcoats does a little quote of that. 04:48 Large melodic jumps The Wooden Overcoats theme moves up and down in quite large jumps. It's that stuff which for me harks back to 1920s operetta, which is very expressive with these big jumps up and down. Here's an example from the 1920s operetta The Student Prince by Sigmund Romberg. Sounds very romantic. I kinda wanted to add a little bit of that kind of nostalgic feel in the tune. 05:44 Live performance recording The Wooden Overcoats main theme was recorded live with a group of four musicians plus a conductor. And part of the challenge for me in writing the soundtrack is to get the most out of the minimal means. So even with just four musicians, how could we have, you know, a bass and some harmony and a melody, and make it all sound engaging? We wanted to work with live musicians, we wanted that raw sound that you get from live instruments. That's really the joy of music making for me is working with other people. It might not be a perfect sound. The drums are quite rough and ready. And that's maybe partly to do with how we recorded it anyway. But for me that makes the piece represent the show better. Because the Funn twins are not the most organized or necessarily straightforward of characters. 06:35 Odd ensemble The ensemble for this piece is not your average, you don't often combine a mandolin, cello, drums and an organ. And I had a lot of fun writing for that combination, that it made sense because we needed an organ to represent the funeral aspects of the show. We wanted a mandolin for the folk part. The cello was added as a sustained counter-melody to the mandolin's theme, and also as a bassline. But it's a bassline that is its own melody and the drums. Of course, we needed something that's that gave the whole piece a bit of pep. You know, I've worked a lot with musicians and it's about trust. And you know, actually because I'm the composer of this music, my job was to bring it to life. 07:22 Concert hall recording experience I was first approached for the show in early 2015 by producers, directors, John Wakefield and Andy Goddard. So I went away and wrote six or seven ideas at the piano and I scored these out. An organ was an obvious choice to be in the peace with the association of churches and funerals. When you walk into the concert hall, you see a large hexagonal space with red chairs and a bright wooden floor. It's a big resonance space with the tall white walls and more. And at the very ends, and the center is the organ. It has this magnificent sound. It's wonderful to play in. And it's also a very bright light space with the wood and the chairs. It's almost cathedral-like. You have a sense of expanse. I think you can hear that in the sound. 08:52 Twisty, crunchy chromatic sound I was experimenting with different options for a very chromatic dense chord that had a twisty sound. A really crunchy sound chords that move outwards and up and down at the same time just by semitones to land on this final chord in the piece which is in a completely different key to everything that's come before for the drums. We ended up with quite a rough and hectic sound. A mandolin plays the lead theme in this piece. A mandolin would have that the lightness and sound is quite a stark contrast to the organ and the drums. 09:57 Ode To Noggins Ode To Noggins is an expansive melodramatic song very sincerely felt, take a listen. In the episode, Noggins has his funeral and it's a celebration by the whole village for this person that nobody seems to know. When I was given the lines for the song I just laughed and laughed because the writer had included all of these uncertainties! You know, "we think this" or "we've been told that you're this". It's unsure of really what it's singing about. It always seems to change track. 10:54 Barbershop music I have a love of barbershop music. I grew up singing in close harmony groups and choirs. And I've always enjoyed the humor, the naivety, the kind of just the effortless, joyful, fun of it. And so I definitely wanted some of that close chords that move very lightly up and down in stepwise motion. It gets quite claustrophobic, sometimes barbershop harmony. SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama Wooden Overcoats https://www.woodenovercoats.com/ Check out other work by James Whittle https://james-whittle.co.uk/ BONUS Visit https://patreon.com/howimakemusic for bonus behind-the-scenes stuff from this episode. MUSIC & SFX CREDITS For a full credit list of music and sound effects from this episode, visit https://howimakemusic.com ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is a sound collage experience where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we challenge composers to break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and get into why and how it was made. Subscribe to How I Make Music https://pod.link/howimakemusic How I Make Music https://howimakemusic.com How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com

How I Make Music

#079 Wooden Overcoats - James Whittle - Wooden Overcoats Main Theme

John Bartmann writes and records an original soundtrack each week, then deconstructs it by sharing the separate musical parts, decisions and stories behind how each complete tune was made.

#078 The Museum At Tomorrow - Jeffrey Nils Gardner - Five Twenty-Three AM

The piece of music we're listening to in the background is called Deneer Death Experience. It's an action cue from the sci fi audio drama Entropy, which tells the story of a group of people working to find a new habitable planet. I would describe this cue as an action cue that kind of dips and turns, slows down speeds up. You're listening to How I Make Music, where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and get into why and how it was made. My name is Aaron Weatherford. I'm a composer from Summerville, South Carolina. And this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 1:21 About Entropy The name of this audio drama is Entropy. And it's about a group of people trying to find a new habitable planet. Within that, there is a little bit of conflict between colonies. My favorite character is actually the villain Deneer. His full name is Pron Deneer. The name of the piece that we're going to be breaking down today is called Deneer Death Experience. Very funny. Nobody dies. It's okay. Everything's fine. You'll just have to watch the audio drama ... listen to the audio drama in order to find out what happens. 2:17 Influences One of my main influences is Michael Giacchino. He did Ratatouille and a lot of Pixar movies. The Incredibles, Star Trek scores. And what I really like about him is his sense of storytelling. It's really really cool and the fact that he manages to be both old school and new school at the same time, fresh and new. John Williams style orchestrations, like very golden era silver era mixed with stuff like synths. 3:09 Context of the piece The context of this piece is during when the main character Jan is in the middle of having a conversation with her mother. And it gets very rudely interrupted when the ship blows up, and there's a hole in the ship and they almost fly out and die. And then this whole battle ensues, then Deneer comes in and gives this speech. And then Jan and a couple of other crew members have to escape. Really slow and kind of menacing and has a little bit of kind of these weird orchestrations that can tell you what type of guy Pron Deneer is. Here's what his theme sounds like. More of a motif than a theme because of the fact that it's only a few notes and it's so short, you know. 4:54 Off the tempo grid So the escape stuff, the escape juice, all of a sudden are these kind of magic. Measured trems that start going. And it gets faster and faster and faster. And it builds up and builds up and then stops. That's when the piece finally ends. There's a part in there in the piece where the tempo starts to ramp up here, take a listen. You don't really hear this sound of tempo ramps often in modern film scores. I feel it kind of adds motion and emotion. And it kind of needed that ramp. It's one of those moments where it's like, here goes nothing, and then they blast off. For me, everything is about story and emotion. And a lot of stuff stays the same tempo for a really long time. And it kind of gets it kind of gets boring after a while. Alexander Desplat brings this up a lot, the fact that we're really attached to the grid and we don't like to get away from it. Sometimes I don't do a metronome at all, I just play and whatever happens happens. 6:44 Mother Knows Best So there's actually another piece in the audio drama Entropy called Mother Knows Best. And it's actually the talk that happens right before the battle scene that consists of Deneer Death Experience. And it's just really slow, no tempo, just piano. And it has this little like pad synth under it. And really, that's just those two things. And that kind of made up this little. This motif that I come up with for the relationship between Jan and her mother, they're obviously very close. 7:43 Slap bass orchestration Orchestration is basically the way that you use instruments. There are rules sometimes. Other times, I personally don't care about the rules. There are two things that I use in all of my scores, the electric bass and the kick drum, which would be like a synthetic kick drum. Giacchino, he adopted this technique of using the electric bass as kind of like a hype method. But you hear it in chasing the dragons in Jurassic World. And it's like this slap bass in the background. You're thinking like, what the hell is this? But it makes it so much cooler! It's not used enough. 8:47 Cymbal mistake So 39 seconds into Deneer Death Experience, there is this cymbal thing that happens. Coming in and out, like switching like... It was like I was trying to do two cymbals at once. And I meant to fix it. And I never did. But you may not even notice it. It may just be me. I don't know. 9:23 No narrative mistake Entropy episodes are actually really, really short. They're under 20 minutes each. I really like that. One of the challenges that I had was that I had to start scoring with nothing, no audio, no narration, no anything. I was basically writing a piece of music with nothing attached to it. And I just wrote the music based off of what I knew happened in the script. And that was a very hellish experience. I had no narration I had no audio. It was basically like I was just going in and writing a piece of music to nothing. And that was a that was a big no. That was big challenge. 10:06 Strings and woodwinds I'm really proud of the string runs I usually don't do string runs because I can never get them right. I recently got Cinematic Strings 2. It works beautifully. Here take a listen to this section with the string lines. I'm a really big fan of woodwinds to the point so much so where I used to forget about them and feel bad for it. I try as much as possible to specifically in the near death experience. There's a couple parts where you hear like flutter tongue flutes. I want to show how some of the woodwinds work in this piece. We're gonna go through and we're gonna play them all one by one just to show the different roles that they play. Take a listen. Bass clarinet and bassoon both serve as a sort of kind of color for the for the cellos and the double basses. They add a little bit of color, add a little bit of bite. Clarinets add a little more of a rounder sound to the strings. Flutes add a little bit more of a airy sort of light silky sound to the strings. The oboe is really pretty. I don't use it that often. I just pair it with the flutes whenever I can. But it is a really pretty instrument on its own. The piccolo actually as a very exciting instrument for me just like a burst of like, Ah! It just pierces right through the mix. It's definitely not something you can hide from. Here's some highlights of the brass from the Deneer Death Experience. 12:31 Starcalled So there's another audio drama similar to ours called Starcalled. The music between the two has some similarity in the approach and whatnot. So if you like what you heard today, go check out Starcalled. 12:52 Emotion over everything "Emotion over everything". To me that speaks to how I feel about film scores. If there's no story, there is no score. I'm the type of artist that can't work on something unless I feel something from it. And that's kind of what I mean by "emotion over everything". SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama Entropy https://pod.link/1529499626 Check out other work by Aaron Weatherford https://clyp.it/user/dafd5c0q BONUS MUSIC & SFX CREDITS Michael Giaccino and Jay Bocook - Symphonic Suite from Star Trek Michael Ciaccino - Chasing the Dragons from Jurassic World "Metronome, 168BPM.wav" by InspectorJ (www.jshaw.co.uk) of Freesound.org 

#077 Entropy - Aaron Weatherford - Deneer Death Experience

The piece of music we're listening to in the background is called Shaylee meets Black Annis. It's a somber soundtrack which I wrote for the fiction podcast The Hidden People. Today, we'll break it down and get into why and how it was made. You're listening to How I Make Music, where behind the scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition, and give composers a chance to share some of the insights into how it was made. My name is Katharine Seaton. I'm a composer and sound designer from the UK, and this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 01:07 Welcome Welcome back to How I Make Music Episode 76, Shaylee meets Black Annis by me, Katharine Seaton. Thanks for listening in. The Hidden People is a long format audio drama. In this episode, you'll hear me talk about Shaylee and Black Annis. These are two of the characters in the story. I first got involved with Dayton Writers Movement to make The Hidden People when they were looking for somebody to develop a sound world. I am primarily a musician. Sound design is definitely a second string to my bow. 02:11 Female sound design There was a competition a year and a half ago run by an advertising firm who wanted to get more women into sound design. And the prize was a professional development course. On that course, I found out some new techniques and one of them was the use of contact mics on various surfaces. And they showed us how they put a contact mic on one of those big rubber birthing balls. The result was a creaky groan, sort of...I think it's like a tectonic plates moving under the belly of the earth sound. Maybe because they're underground, they can almost hear the earth moving under the soil. And I thought yes, I've not heard anything like it and I thought it was great. When I got home, I started incorporating these techniques into my composition. I used a contact mic on various items to create the sounds in this score. So rubbed my leather handbag and a blown up balloon with wet hands to get some of those creaking noises. I taped a microphone to my throat to get those swallowing sounds. This was about trying to get the earth swallowing Shaylee up. What do you listen to this piece at the end of this episode, see if you can spot some of those strange sound design elements. 03:55 Inside Shaylee Within the series, there's a character called Shaylee. She's a mentally and physically dexterous survivor. Another character, Black Annis, is based on folklore. In the legend, she's a terrifying figure used by parents to scare their children into behaving. When Shaylee meets Black Annis, she's engulfed by a dark cave, as well as her own feelings of fear and sadness. Shaylee Meets Black Annis involves a lot of bringing the sound design in the series into the music itself. And I was able to use the sound design to try and reflect how she's feeling about that space. So it could be the sound in the actual narrative or it could be musical score because there's that blurring of the boundaries there. 05:00 Influences When I got the initial brief that they wanted to incorporate the folk music that comes from the origins of the folklore, this story is based on, I looked into it. As an English person, I'm quite familiar with British folk music, just through living here and knowing that tradition, so that was all already in my sort of inside my ears. And I think in Shaylee's original theme, the fragments of strings that play under the melody might have been inspired by composers like Benjamin Britten in the first part of the 20th century of English music. Take a quick listen. I did spend some time doing the classic music composer thing of going on to YouTube and just finding what looks like authentic performances. And just listening for a bit and getting into that sound world. The Irish folk music there was a lot of sort of social gathering based music going on there. And the Scandinavian music, which is obviously sort of quite fashionable these days, I think as a kind of inspiration for soundtracks. As it happens, I have a Swedish composer friend, Thomas Gyllin, and I sent him the Black Annis tune as it first came out. And he said it sounded like a Swedish song about a troll! Sounds about right. While I was working on Season One of The Hidden People, I was listening to the album Origin of Symmetry by Muse with my children. And I feel like the music in this cue might have been influenced by the way Matthew Bellamy chooses to bridge tracks with guitar feedback and other sounds, which are more noise than music. Listen to this typical transition between two of the tracks on the album. That's where a lot of this came from. 08:06 Aeolian mode There's a scale which in composition theory is called the Aeolian mode is also known as the natural minor scale. Here's how it sounds. So the chord sequences of these two themes - Shaylee's original theme and the Black Annis theme - interact beautifully because of being both based on this Aeolian mode scale. I wonder if it might have been a subconscious process as I tried to evolve a sound world that feels cohesive across a series. Shaylee's theme is throughout the series, her leitmotif if you like as the one that goes along. And in Episode 20 of season one, which is where this has taken form, it's a flashback. So it's the first time Shaylee meets Black Annis because both of their themes are in the Aeolian mode. They were able to combine really effectively actually, on top of each other. So we had the vocals doing Black Annis and we have the viola playing Shaylee's theme. So that's that's how come there are two things going on in one cue here. It's a very complicated story. 09:44 Classical vocalist I was a classical singer before I got into the creative stuff. And I put some vocals on this track. It's a very different game to singing quietly and with a slight rough edge from singing in a large space and using your voice to project into the acoustic. That was a learning curve for me. So the vocals are doubled and panned, and I believe there's some ping pong delay. So actually, I noticed it's not completely in tune! But I was kind of going through a rough feel. I sing them through twice and I deliberately pan them apart and didn't try to harmonize them too much. And I always like the feel like there are two ladies sort of walking along next to Shaylee whispering nasty stuff in her ear, you know, like, you're gonna die. I like it to feel real. I really detest vocal, particularly choir libraries. Actually, I've never found one that I like, because I just think vocals have to be real. 11:20 Iron Claw fingernails The script for Black Annis specified that her fingernails are made of iron, and she's called Iron Claw sometimes. And so I recorded those metal taps initially for foley and I wanted to record them spatially. I went inside a good cupboard for recording. And I tried various sounds - nails on bricks was one example. I recorded them in stereo, but somehow you do get sort of height and depth information from the acoustics. So when I put them into the music and started adding things like delays, you've got these really interesting spatial characteristics, which I think added something good to the music. And they're also some clicking and ratcheting sounds which I used children's toys to make. The scoop from a toy digger and the whirring sound is the wheel of a toy truck. And I was trying to evoke the idea that they're under the ground and under Black Annis's power, and there are roots from trees growing down and encroaching into Shaylee's space. And so the whole of this episode is underscored based on one rhythm, and that is the rhythm of Shaylee's piano figuration in her original theme in some guys or other, it literally appears in every second in this scene that with a mostly appears on tribal percussion with an iron drum, and this is to represent Black Annis. And that ancient scary mood that comes through in this scene. 13:29 Omnisphere Omnisphere is a software synth with a lot of power and capability to be creative, because it uses organic sound as well as synthesis to create the sounds in there. I used Omnisphere a lot in creating this cue. It's such a wonderful tool and one of the sounds we hear in the music is a patch that I made of a rough patch based on the rubbing a glass and producing that ring. Here take a listen. 14:04 Mixing process Part of mixing involves selecting where sounds will fall in the stereo field left right or center. Only the viola melody and the iron drum are dead center in mono as they most closely represent Shaylee's core feelings sadness and fear. I feel like it cuts through like a sort of knife. And it sort of almost draws together all the other elements kind of like it sucks it in to its gravity well. I mixed this cue specifically to get that engulfing feeling which meant I had to rely a lot on heavy reverb. 15:01 Challenges There were some challenges in making this whole episode. When you've got a long dialogue, it's really could be quite difficult to get the energy pacing, right and underscoring without overwhelming the dialogue and providing more of a backdrop, which is able just to morph. But I feel like in audio drama, every sound you hear is more relevant than it would be in a visual medium, because it could skew the visual picture that the audience is getting. So that was a challenge. 15:38 And the biggest challenge of all was when I had a disk failure halfway through making this episode, and discovered that the cloud backup that I thought was running was not, and we had to retrieve the data. And it was not that relaxing. So always check your backups are running, folks. That's about it for this week's episode. We'll listen to the full track in a moment. But before we do that, thank you for listening to How I Make Music. catch new episodes every Wednesday on Spotify, Apple, or wherever else. We've been listening to music featured in the audio drama called The Hidden People. To hear the full story or to check out my other compositions, follow the links in the show notes. Visit HowIMakeMusic.com for bonus behind the scenes stuff related to this episode. How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann. For audio experiences that keep people listening, contact John Bartmann via the show notes. And now here's Shaylee Meets Black Annis, a dark, sound design-rich folk influenced piece of underscore in its entirety. My name is Katharine Seaton, and thank you for listening to How I Make Music. We'll catch you next week. SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama The Hidden People https://hiddenpeoplepodcast.com/ Check out other work by Katharine Seaton https://katharineseaton.com/ BONUS Listen to the full suite of music from this episode by Katharine Seaton https://soundcloud.com/katie-seaton-565873597/episode-20-blood-on-my-hands MUSIC & SFX CREDITS Benjamin Britten - Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes Reeltime - The Trucks of Bohermore Muse - Hyper Music Muse - Plug-In Baby ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and investigate the insights into how it was made. Subscribe to How I Make Music https://pod.link/1460793686 How I Make Music https://howimakemusic.com Contact How I Make Music https://johnbartmann.com/contact How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com

#076 The Hidden People - Katharine Seaton - Shaylee Meets Black Annis

The piece of music we’re listening to in the background is called Unsealed. It's the mysterious title theme for season three of the audio drama The White Vault. Today, we'll break it down and look at some of the insights into why and how it was made. You're listening to How I Make Music, where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song soundtrack or composition and get into why and how it was made. My name is Brandon Boone. I'm a composer from Cincinnati, and this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 01:17 Intro I used to have a cello that I rented for like a year for some projects and people would see it in my room like oh, you play cello. I'm like, no, I just use it. I just use a cello. I don't play it. I took lessons with the strictest teacher from Russia who had like the old school like slap on the wrist if you do it wrong. 02:13 Two versions So today we're looking at two versions of the song unsealed from the white vault. There is the first version that was used in season one and two and then the second version and season three and four. For season one, we were going for a more isolated cold feeling in Antarctica with these researchers. Whereas in season three and four, we wanted to do something more South American and so we started to introduce more instruments from that region. 03:13 Influences What's most noticeable about the theme song is that heartbeat that's throughout the whole piece. We drew on that from Ennio Morricone’s title track for The Thing. Here's how that sounds. This desolate, lonely research facility. So I kind of tried to start with that heartbeat feeling and glass sounds, sounding as cold as possible. While still having a melody to it. That simplicity kind of lends to being kind of memorable and you recognize it when you hear it. Separating our found footage story is a documentarian who's compiling it together. As she speaks, we have the drone from unsealed playing underneath, to glue the production together. 05:00 A 40-person choir The expression on my face when Travis called me he's like, how do you feel about writing for a 40 person choir? And I'm just like, yeah, I'll figure it We'll figure that out! We worked with a friend - Steven Melin - quite a bit on this piece. Travis mentioned that there was a choir. And so I wrote the choir piece on my computer and then sent the score to him. 05:32 Remote recording Steven did the orchestration for the choir. He's very much a classical musician. So you can't just write notes on a paper, there's actually a lot that goes into it. And the directing session also was quite terrifying because I was suddenly directing a choir for the first time in my life. And it was quite the experience at four in the morning. They’re in Hungary. They have a unique Skype-like service that has zero latency, perfect audibility of exactly what your wave will sound like, in real time. It's both exhilarating and terrifying. With 40 people, you've got a split of gender, and you've got a split of alto, soprano, etc. We had different variations of the arrangements. So we've got one where it's just the women doing the higher end voices, whereas there are a lot of rest notes for the lower end. So there are a lot of variations within the choir. 06:54 South American version For season three and four, we wanted to do something more South American, and so we started to introduce more instruments from that region. What you're hearing right now is a live guitar played by Steven Melin for a track. Hearing the scrapes and taps and breath of an actual guitar is something that's very difficult to fake. Even with high quality samples. There's also an ocarina , which is a small handheld wind instrument. You're probably familiar with it if you've played Zelda. There’s some really cool percussion. There is some brass and an actual flute. Breathy and emotive. We have two approaches to the strings, one that we considered more tense and another set that we considered more scary. Brendan also snuck in a number of really cool synthetic layers like this one. We wanted to add some sort of creepy pitch shifting notes as well. As the note is held, the pitch will shift and that's what you're hearing now. This one is the kalimba instrument, which resembles a thumb piano. This is played by Steven Melin. 09:09 Compliments You know, it went from just me working on this thing on a computer to 40 person choir to Steven playing these instruments. When I tour with the No Sleep podcast, five times a show people will come up and complement either The White Vault or Vast Horizon so I’m very happy with both of those. 09:31 Accolades The White Vault has won one our second Webby honoree for music this year - 2020 - for the songs you've heard, as well as our musical episode. We've actually been collaborating for a number of years on a couple of different projects such as Liberty Tales From The Tower, Vast Horizon and Dark Dice. Here's another piece of music that Stephen and I worked on with the Budapest scoring choir called Weaver Of Fate for our podcast, Dark Dice, which Brandon Boone is also a part of. SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama The White Vault https://thewhitevault.com/ Check out other work by Brandon Boone http://bbcomposer.com/ Check out other work by Travis Vengroff https://travisvengroff.com/ Check out other work by Steven Melin https://www.stevenmelin.com/ BONUS MUSIC & SFX CREDITS Ennio Morricone - Title Theme from ‘The Thing’ Jeffreys2 - Wind_Heulen_Wind Howling_.mp3 Grez1 - Scream14.mp3 ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and investigate the insights into how it was made. Subscribe to How I Make Music https://pod.link/1460793686 How I Make Music https://howimakemusic.com Contact How I Make Music https://johnbartmann.com/contact How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com

#075 Unsealed from The White Vault by Brandon Boone and Travis Vengroff

The piece of music we’re listening to in the background is called Within Gravity. It's a relationship theme for Quill and Mandry, two characters in the hopepunk sci-fi audio drama This Planet Needs A Name. Today, we’ll break it down and look at some of the insights into why and how it was made. My name is Trace Callahan. I'm a composer from Florida in the United States, and this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 01:39 Evolving The piece Within Gravity begins in one of the prologue episodes for the show and evolves into its full form over the course of several episodes as the relationship between the two characters evolves. Within Gravity has its roots in American folk song, especially music of Aaron Copland. Very simple violin motives and melodies. Here's a section from a piece called Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copeland. Take a listen and see if you can hear how it influenced Within Gravity. The idea of hope and exploration and openness that his music tends to evoke. 02:45 Sing along So Within Gravity begins with a pulsing, slow rhythmic, not even quite melody, just a feeling that's based on the idea of a radar or some kind of instrument in this ship. The feel of the piece is intended to be something like a lullaby. When I sat down to write Within Gravity, I played the scene that it was going under on a loop actually continuously while I played the keyboard along with it. The first layer of Within Gravity that was written was this set of floating, morphing chords that are very gentle and slow and soothing, kind of like the lullaby with a pulse on the root of the chord acting in a rhythmic radar like fashion. Sort of to emphasize the spaceship aspect of where their relationship takes place. While the scene was playing while the dialogue was playing, I would play the scene and plug my keyboard into my DAW and just sing different ideas along with what I was playing until I found something that I liked. 05:06 Viola for Quill Once I was done singing my way through the melody and I was happy with it, I took it and transcribed it into sheet music which became the viola part for Quill in Within Gravity. In Within Gravity each separate piece of the music represents something the viola melody is quill. The radar pulse is the character of Mandry who is our pilot. The floating chords are gravity itself binding the piece and the melody and all of the other parts of the song together, like gravity binds us to the ground. 06:09 Dialogue clashing One of the challenging things for me is that the instruments that I like to use tend to live in the same area as the vocal ranges of our actors. To demonstrate what I mean by the music and the dialogue clashing, here is me speaking in my normal voice against the melody of a viola. And here I am speaking against the same melody but in the range of a cello. So you can hear how much easier it is to hear me and understand me when I'm speaking over the cello. 06:50 Keep it simple It would be very easy for me and it is my natural tendency to overcomplicate music and so keeping it simple and something that can exist peacefully in the background, while the scene is happening was something I definitely had to work on. 07:04 Wet keyboard This Planet Needs A Name is a pretty emotional show. We sometimes say that it's very effective free therapy for people who listen to it! And audio drama tends to be pretty emotional anyway, so the dialogue is already emotional and the story and then you're adding the music. There is a lot of catharsis. There is a lot of crying. Sometimes happy tears, sometimes not so much. You have the occasional wet keyboard! 07:58 Layers The background parts of the song are happening over several layers. You'll hear several different instruments combined to create each part. But when you have a melody that's representing one of the characters, that melody is always a solo instrument and the reasoning behind it being that space is big and made up of many, many things. And humans are very small. SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama This Planet Needs A Name https://pod.link/1487283992 Join over 200 patrons supporting This Planet Needs A Name https://www.patreon.com/needsaname Check out other work by Trace Callahan https://tracecallahan.com/ BONUS MUSIC & SFX CREDITS Aaron Copland - Appalachian Spring Tomattka - Thunderstorm.wav 

#074 Within Gravity from This Planet Needs A Name by Trace Callahan

The piece of music featured in this episode is called Are You A Memory. It’s a traditional jazz piece which I wrote for the comedy/horror audio drama Mockery Manor by Long Cat Media. The show tells the story of an amusement park set in Britain in the 80s with a dark and thrilling history. And furry mascots. This week we’ll look at some of the insights into why and how it was made. My name is Laurence Owen. I'm a composer from the United Kingdom, and this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 01:23 I was a child actor when I was a kid. It all came together recently when I thought actually, I should be making audio dramas! 01:37 This song, Are You A Memory is from the podcast Mockery Manor, which is set in a theme park in 1980s Britain. There’s a lot of music in the show, including songs by fictitious pop stars of our own invention. In reality, they’re all just me singing in different voices. 02:21 The piece was designed to sound like an old scratchy jazz shellac record on a gramophone. It’s a weird thing to do in the 20th Century using computers and software. It’s formal and influenced by British jazz performers like Henry Hall and Al Bowlly 03:51 Mockery Manor is influenced by the horror films of the 80s, particularly The Shining. There’s a lot of the same territory, with a creepy haunted hotel and jazz pouring in through the foyer. We also pay tribute to the Tower of Terror rides from The Disney theme parks around the world. 05:00 Are You A Memory often plays in the background of scenes in Mockery Manor. We wanted it to be unclear whether or not the music is diegetic. 05:51 The first step was to write out all the chords on the piano. It has a straight, deliberate functional rhythm. Then I added drums and double bass, both software instruments. In the spirit of the recording practices of the day, there’s very little expression to the rhythm section. 06:47 The violin is the Spitfire Audio Solo Strings software instrument. Tasteful, and not as bombastic as the Hollywood sound. Sounds realistic! I added live guitar and lead vocal. 07:46 I added vintage orchestration in the form of brass, a small string section and a sax choir. Then I aged it by applying gross EQ to make it sound boxy and horrible. Originally, the whole orchestra would have been crowded around a single microphone. 09:06 A major challenge was making orchestral instruments sound live. Jazz is hard to do on synths! Another challenge was imitating the sound of playing. I had to add fake vibrato to the saxophones. I was trying to remove any aspect of the digital. 09:45 I’m a singer. This was still out of my comfort zone because I had to sing in this polite, flutey voice. If you feel like you’re taking the piss, you’re probably doing it right. 10:23 The guitar wasn’t sounding right. I had to hammer it because the guitar is one of the quietest instruments in a vintage jazz ensemble, and that’s how they would have had to have played it in the early days of jazz. 11:18 In the B section, the piece modulates. The harmony is super simple. No Herbie Hancock or Jacob Collier chords here! Towards the end, the piano does some flourishes. I imagine that to be the fictitious bandleader Alfred Mockery taking liberties on the piano that the others can’t. 12:59 I play the theremin. Here’s a piece I wrote called Sonate D'Une Autre Epoque. SHOW NOTES Want merch? Get the (physical) pop magazine from inside the Mockery Manor universe https://longcatmedia.bandcamp.com/ Listen to audio drama Mockery Manor by Long Cat Media https://pod.link/mockerymanor Visit Long Cat media https://www.longcatmedia.com/mockery-manor Check out other work by Laurence Owen https://www.laurenceowen.co.uk/ BONUS Laurence Owen plays George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue on the theremin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rt8vxHAZJ0 MUSIC & SFX CREDITS Henry Hall - The Teddy Bears’ Picnic Al Bowlly - Midnight, The Stars and You Thaighaudio - Concert Applause 4.wav ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and investigate the insights into how it was made. Subscribe to How I Make Music https://pod.link/1460793686 How I Make Music https://howimakemusic.com Contact How I Make Music https://johnbartmann.com/contact How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com

#073 Are You A Memory from Mockery Manor by Laurence Owen

The piece of music featured in this episode is called Colin. It’s a genre-bending piece which I wrote for the fantasy audio drama Casual Magics by Inside Fictions. The show tells the story of a young mage who must discover his identity as a freshman at The Weisz Institute, a college for mages. This week we’ll look at some of the insights into why and how it was made. My name is Jacob McNatt. I'm a composer from the United States, and this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 01:23 Casual Magics is about young mages at a college for magical beings, and they quickly get swept up in danger beyond their abilities 01:52 The writer and producer, Steve Spalding, came to me with the idea of listening to Darren Korb as an influence. Darren Korb is an American game composer 02:28 We knew we wanted there to be an element of jazz. I always want to incorporate the orchestra. In my head I kept hearing elements of hip hop, even though I have no experience in it. The result was a total genre mashup outside of my comfort zone. But original! 03:08 The tune plays whenever the character is narrating the story. He’s not as adept at magic as some of the others, and quickly gets taken advantage of by a barista that casts a charm spell on him. We wanted the music to reflect a ‘fish out of water’ feeling of naivete. 03:53 We established a jazz combo timbre with trumpet, trombone, saxophone. These instruments are used throughout the whole soundtrack. 04:23 I love imperfection. Because everyone uses the same sample libraries, music can become very samey. My goal is to use the samples in a different way. I intentionally detuned the trumpet alongside the saxophone. You don’t really notice it until it’s isolated. 05:07 To write a melody, I sit at the piano and begin playing. Colin’s theme needed innocence, so I centered it around a nice C minor ninth chord. I started writing an uplifting version in the relative major (Eb), but it drove me insane. I think the minor key still retains optimism. 06:15 Colin’s theme uses traditional orchestral instrumentation. It was a challenge to tie it in with trip hop and jazz! Woodwinds, strings, low brass. The Cm9 chord really brings it all together and ties Colin to the story. The flute arpeggio represents magic. The tuba fulfils a comical role which suits Colin’s dorky side. 08:37 Near the end, a distant piano plays the melody, which ties Colin to the secondary protagonist Kim. There’s also a swish effect which I made by recording my voice and running it through some weird guitar effects. SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama Casual Magics by Inside Fictions https://www.insidefictions.com/ Check out other work by Jacob McNatt https://www.jacobmcnatt.com/ BONUS Check out a video of Jacob doing a trombone/hip hop cover of the TwoSet Violin roast challenge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEx6vBqwWw8 MUSIC & SFX CREDITS Darren Korb - Old Friends The Pebble Shaker Jazz Band - The Jumping Jive Lil Miss Beats - Just Let Go Ludwig van Beethoven - 7th Symphony (2nd Movement) Bernard Hermann - Vertigo Theme ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and investigate the insights into how it was made. Subscribe to How I Make Music https://pod.link/1460793686 How I Make Music https://howimakemusic.com Contact How I Make Music https://johnbartmann.com/contact How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com

#072 Colin from ‘Casual Magics’ by Jacob McNatt

The piece of music featured in this episode is called The Amelia Project Theme. It’s a fun and eccentric piece which I wrote for the dark comedy podcast The Amelia Project, which tells the story of a mysterious agency which helps its clients fake their deaths. This week we’ll look at some of the insights into why and how it was made. My name is Fredrik Baden. I'm a composer from Oslo, Norway, and this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 01:18 I still choke up when I think about my high school graduation composition. Take a listen. 02:10 The Amelia Project, which tells the story of a mysterious agency which helps its clients fake their deaths. Clients feature scientists, politicians, cult leaders and even an AI. The only way to get in touch with The Amelia Project is by having a really interesting story to tell. 03:09 Today’s selected soundtrack is version 7.6 of the musical theme. Over time, I’ve written many versions of the musical theme for different contexts. 03:30 My girlfriend and I searched for the Dirk Gently opening theme but accidentally stumbled on the BBC version of the show. I kept it in mind and would consider it an influence, along with the theme tune for the TV show Dexter. Ominous and weird, I guess! 04:45 I was approached by the show creators to write the theme. The first few drafts were considered too serious. My family has a cabin with a pedal organ. I came up with a really silly ‘oom-pa-pa’ sound just to find an extreme for them to counter against. But it turns out they really liked it! Big sound, big melody, big drums, big bass offset with plucky chords, honky strings and a piccolo flute fanfare! 06:32 I’ve made a few versions of this theme to suit different stories. A metal version for an episode set in a funfair park called ‘Hell’. There’s a mafioso Italian version and a Frank Sinatra Christmas version. There’s a Scottish version. 08:10 For World Audio Drama Day in 2018, we collaborated with four other audio dramas. I ‘frankensteined’ a whole bunch of themes into one theme. I butchered it, but it was a load of fun. 08:58 The opening of the track is a simple beep which creates suspense. I set the beep on the dominant (C over Fm). 09:35 There are five keyboard sounds: strings, rhodes, accordion, dream piano and a harpsichord. A mellotron joins in the B section for dreamy feeling. 10:35 The drums use subdivision emphasis to keep the momentum going. Everything else is very ‘oom-pah-pah’. 10:59 I have a habit of trying to make sense out of weird things. I try to find out what kind of chords these weird sounds have. The chords progression for this piece is a mix between phrygian and locrian. There’s a tritone interval which creates a sense of oddness that suits the eccentricity of the audio drama. SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama The Amelia Project by Philip Thorne and Øystein Ulsberg Brager https://ameliapodcast.com Check out other work by Fredrik Baden https://fredrikbaden.com BONUS Listen to The Amelia Project’s sound design special ‘Liquified Marzipan’ https://art19.com/shows/the-amelia-project/episodes/79ff5b6b-66b4-4735-b340-9f60ac715d47 MUSIC & SFX CREDITS Juan Cristobal Tapia de Veer - Theme from Dirk Gently (US) Daniel Pemberton - Theme from Dirk Gently (UK) Rolf Kent - Morning Routine from Dexter ZeSoundResearchInc. - Vinyl Backspin and Beat Scratch.wav ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and investigate the insights into how it was made. Subscribe to How I Make Music https://pod.link/1460793686 How I Make Music https://howimakemusic.com Contact How I Make Music https://johnbartmann.com/contact How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com

#071 Theme from 'The Amelia Project' by Fredrik Baden

The piece of music featured in this episode is called After The Darkling Thrush. It’s a chamber piece which I wrote for a performance in New York City in 2015. The piece was later adapted to the psychedelic noir audio drama What’s The Frequency, which tells the story of Walter “Troubles” Mix and his partner Whitney as they search for a missing writer and navigate through a city quickly falling into madness. This week we’ll look at some of the insights into why and how it was made. My name is Kurt Nelson. I'm a composer from New York, and this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 01:04 About What’s The Frequency and the backstory of how I got involved. 02:55 The work was inspired by European composers from the second half of the 20th Century, including Witold Lutoslawski, Alban Berg and Luigi Dalapicco. 04:44 I draw heavily on the symmetry of the octatonic scale in this composition. The flute solo demonstrates this in a very clear way. 06:47 This atonal type of music is a good match for a show like What’s The Frequency. The inconsistency of the tonality reflects the meltdown in reality that we experience when we listen to the audio drama. The tonality of music by Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven provides a stability. In an atonal composition, we experience a kind of freedom from that. 09:18 I use identifiable motifs to bind the piece together. One example is the dotted rhythm first heard in the piano, then the piccolo and repeatedly throughout the composition. 09:48 In a dramatic flourish, I use the piano and the vibraphone to separately play the eight notes of the octatonic scale, which I find to be a brilliant instrumental effect. 10:38 The original inspiration for After The Darkling Thrush was a poem by Thomas Hardy. The poem depicts a bleak view of the arrival of the 20th Century. The thrush in the poem is a bird that sings, oblivious to the cynicism of the poet. The flute takes a solo role to depict this innocence. 12:24 Many composers who write concert music have just one performance before they have to move on to the next project. With podcasts, I find a wonderful opportunity to give the music some life after its initial performance. SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama What’s The Frequency by James Oliva https://wtfrequency.com/ Check out other work by Kurt Nelson https://kurtcnelson.com/ Bonus video: watch ‘After The Darkling Thrush’ being performed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgoN2nUnrLk MUSIC & SFX CREDITS Witold Lutoslawski - Five Songs Alban Berg - Violin Concerto Joseph Haydn - The Creation The Darkling Thrush (by Thomas Hardy) - read by Tom O’Bedlam) Thaighaudio - Concert Applause 4 (CC0) Artemis R Swann - Song Thrush (CC0) Victor Herbert - The Prima Donna ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and investigate the insights into how it was made. Subscribe to How I Make Music https://pod.link/1460793686 How I Make Music https://howimakemusic.com Contact How I Make Music https://johnbartmann.com/contact How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com

#070 After The Darkling Thrush from ‘What’s The Frequency’ by Kurt Nelson

The piece of music featured in this episode is called The Fugue. It’s an atmospheric piece which I wrote for the sci fi season finale of the audio drama The Big Loop, which follows a ship’s peace officer sent to investigate strange visions haunting the crew. This week we’ll look at some of the insights into why and how it was made. My name is Daniel Birch. I'm a composer from Somerset in England, and this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 01:59 For this episode of The Big Loop show creator Paul Bae wanted a mix of ambient drones and haunting sci fi horror themes. 02:33 Influences include the score for Ex Machina by Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow. I’d heard they used a plugin called PaulStretch, which influenced me to create ambient tones of The Fugue. I retained certain childlike qualities using an instrument called a celesta. Clint Mansell’s score for Moon is another influence, and uses sparse instrumentation to create a powerful score. 04:43 Show creator Paul Bae sent an email requesting [quote] “Something beautiful, ambient, reflecting the vastness of space and human sacrifice. I want to bring the listeners to tears with this one." I only had a few weeks, but I find having a short deadline really helps. 05:09 I subscribe to the YouTube channel of Christian Henson, the co-owner of Spitfire Audio. I was inspired by his use of various pedals to resample and manipulate audio, turning them into sampled instruments. I thought “I could do that!” 05:21 I ran some of the sounds through my pedals. I ran my Arturia Microbrute through the AMA’s AC Noises pedal, which is a spring reverb with a bitcrusher and oscillator. By the end of it, I had a totally new skill. 06:37 I am also a vocalist. I included vocals into the compositions by singing along without a clear melodic line, just capturing my emotional response to the story. It’s definitely an organic sound, with some granular digital static. 08:09 During the intro to the track, you hear a combination of a patch called the ‘unstabler pad’ with the celeste and vocals to create a nice mellow bed. 09:16 There’s a heartbeat-style sound which plays throughout parts of the track. The sounds are a sampled instrument called Native Instruments’ “The Grand”. It sounds like the side of the piano is being tapped, drenched in reverb. I wanted this to symbolize the humanity of the lead character. 10:23 The synth lead was a mangled, distorted version of a simple saw lead. I used a plugin called Reels to provide tape emulation. 10:57 Another influence was Mica Levi’s score for Under The Skin. Very dark and atmospheric. 11:47 In episode 59 of How I Make Music, David Devereux cites Disasterpeace as an influence, and I also love his use of ambient washes and synth darkness. SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama The Big Loop by Paul Bae https://www.thebiglooppodcast.com/ Check out other work by Daniel Birch https://www.danielbirchmusic.com/ Follow Daniel Birch https://twitter.com/iamdanielbirch MUSIC CREDITS Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow - Skin (from Ex Machina) Clint Mansell - Welcome To Lunar Industries (from Moon) Mica Levi - Lipstick To Void (from Under The Skin) Disasterpeace - A Chorus Of Tongues (from Hyper Light Drifter) ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and investigate the insights into how it was made. Subscribe to How I Make Music https://pod.link/1460793686 How I Make Music https://howimakemusic.com Contact How I Make Music https://johnbartmann.com/contact How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com

#069 The Fugue from ‘The Big Loop’ by Daniel Birch

The piece of music featured in this episode is called Three-Months Forevers. It’s a slow and steady post-rock influenced piece which I wrote for the sci-fi audio drama The Orphans, which follows a group of survivors who crash land on an alien planet. The soundtrack aims to convey a yearning feel as the characters feel the loss of one of their own. This week we’ll look at some of the insights into why and how it was made. My name is James Barbarossa. I'm a composer from England, and this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 01:37 The piece was influenced by the Dr Who theme. The bass and drums captured the emotion I was trying to convey. There’s a certain amount of ‘aping’ when it comes to imitating your influences. 03:42 I used a chimes patch as a leitmotif for the character Nora Evers. The chimes play whenever she is present, physically or otherwise. 05:01 In Batman Vs Superman, the Wonder Woman musical theme is a distorted electric cello. Strings are traditionally female instruments, especially in opera. But the power of this theme is the fact that it’s an electric cello. 05:55 I used Garage Band to compose this piece. Take a listen to the piece-by-piece breakdown of the rhythm section, the Nora Evers chimes, rising piano melody and the clean electric guitar leitmotif. 07:18 A major challenge in writing for audio drama is to avoid overwhelming the sound in the scene. Another challenge is knowing when it’s done! Art is never finished, only abandoned. 08:29 The electric piano, a jazzy instrument, is used to represent the unrefined nature of the human characters. The clean grand piano is colder, more cruel and represents the artificiality of the society in which they live. SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama The Orphans by Zachary Fortais-Gomm https://www.orphanspod.com/ Check out other work by James Barbarossa https://open.spotify.com/artist/7velnaC7HmpMcK0OuUWNmf Follow James Barbarossa https://twitter.com/barbarossaphone MUSIC CREDITS Murray Gold - Doomsday (from Dr Who) Hans Zimmer & Tom Holkenborg a.k.a JUNKIE XL - Is She With You? (Wonder Woman Theme) ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and investigate the insights into how it was made. Subscribe to How I Make Music https://pod.link/1460793686 How I Make Music https://howimakemusic.com Contact How I Make Music https://johnbartmann.com/contact How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com

#068 Three-Months Forevers from ‘The Orphans’ by James Barbarossa

The piece of music featured in this episode is called Confessional. It’s a menacing and grisly piece which I wrote for the historical audio drama Confessional, which tells the story of a 15th century French sadist called Gilles de Rais. The soundtrack aims to convey a dark and viscerally evil feel. This week we’ll look at some of the insights into why and how it was made. My name is David R Simpson. I'm a composer from Scotland, and this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 02:37 Inspirations for the piece included the drone-based music written by Mark De Gli Antoni for Werner Herzog’s documentaries ‘Into The Abyss’ and ‘On Death Row’. Another influence was Hildur Guðnadóttir’s Oscar-winning score for Joker. An ugly drone with a beautiful string line speaks to me of two sides of humanity - both the monstrous and the sublime. 04:03 When I write for chamber music, I inevitably end up listening to the album ‘Handwriting’ by Rachels. It came out at the time of instrumental post-rock in the era of Scottish band Mogwai. 04:59 I chose this piece for How I Make Music to get across the sense of foreboding and evil, an unusual avenue for me. ‘Confessional’ aims to establish a strong mood immediately. 05:52 I wanted to keep the composition drone-based but not rely on anachronistic electronic sounds. I am a self-taught double-bassist and cellist and multi-tracked them to create a rasping low sonority. The physicality of playing them worked with my vision of this barbaric central character. I wanted to take advantage of my lack of technique on these instruments, which brought across a rawness suited to the setting. 07:52 The foundation of the piece is a pedal tone on G. The term ‘pedal tone’ comes from organs, which are played with the feet to create (usually low) drone notes over which other harmonic motion takes place. 08:20 My friend is the guitar tech through the noise-rock band Sonic Youth. The band is known for the use of microtonal tensions to really amp up the discomfort. I wanted to explore the use of microtones with the fretless instruments to create an unsettling feel. 09:16 An early version of the piece began as an iPhone demo. Take a listen to how it sounded before I started developing it. 09:46 There are a number of cello articulations in this piece, including drone, pizzicato, staccato and legato. I took advantage of glissando, sliding between notes in a way that you can’t really with a keyboard instrument. 10:31 I wanted to emphasise the melody of the piano and retain a forward motion in the left hand. The studio piano had a lovely warm tone but because it’s so old I couldn’t get it in tune in context with the rest of the instruments. I ended up using a software piano. Take a listen and see if you can spot the difference between the two! 11:52 I chose to voice the chords in root position to keep the feel unobtrusive. I love the way Tori Amos rolls her chords right down to the lowest octave. 12:38 The tempo shifts up and down by 5bpm. It’s barely noticeable, but listen out for it. I used this technique to add a sort of subconsciousness disjointedness. I wanted the whole piece to feel like it was being dragged into existence. The combination of certain cello parts sounds like a heartbeat quickening. 13:35 The software we use tends to divide music up into unnatural parts. Four bars of this, then four bars of that. I try to avoid those types of blocks and rather employ musical foreshadowing. 14:05 There’s a textural layer in the piece, a set of noises using extended techniques and time-domain effects. I automated the feedback and volume to create a crescendo, a technique I used when scoring the short film ‘Magda’. 15:13 The Phrygian mode is a dark mode of the major scale which starts on the 3rd degree. The first two notes, a minor second, always remind me of a silly sitcom I grew up watching called The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. The minor second is echoed in other parts of the composition and introduce ambiguity. SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama Confessional by Jill Korn https://www.jillkorn.com/audio-drama Check out other work by David R. Simpson http://davidrsimpsonmusic.com/ Follow David R. Simpson https://twitter.com/DavidRSimpson_ MUSIC CREDITS David Whittaker - “Beyond The Ice Palace Title Music” Mark De Gli Antoni - “Into The Abyss Theme 01” Rachels - “Southbound To Marion” Mogwai - “Take Me Somewhere Nice” Tori Amos - “Pancake” (Live) Ronnie Hazlehurst - “The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin SFX CREDITS "Metronome, 168BPM.wav" by InspectorJ (www.jshaw.co.uk) of Freesound.org ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and investigate the insights into how it was made. Subscribe to How I Make Music https://pod.link/1460793686 How I Make Music https://howimakemusic.com Contact How I Make Music https://johnbartmann.com/contact How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com

#067 Theme from 'Confessional' by David R. Simpson

The piece of music featured in this episode is called Anneliese. It’s an off kilter piece which I wrote as the character theme for the psychological fantasy/horror audio drama Palimpsest. The soundtrack conveys a quiet and contemplative feel. This week we’ll look at some of the insights into why and how it was made. My name is Ian Ridenhour. I'm a composer from Asheville, NC, and this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 01:56 I was influenced by Gregorian chant music. Gregorian sheet music was written without barlines, and I wanted the feeling of flowing seamlessly without a fixed rhythm. 02:54 The first electronic artist I listened to was Deadmau5. I’ve cited him as an influence because of the idea that Anneliese should use a palette of purely electronic sounds. Other influences include Moses Sumney, who is from my home town of Asheville. 03:38 The rhythm in this track is complex. It’s a core 6/8 and I’ve added a bizarre 2+5 meter over it. Listen as I count along. There’s a word for this type of polyrhythm: it’s called hemiola. 04:55 The harmonic structure pushes the boundaries of typical pop harmony. I wanted to convey a lack of permanence by using odd shifts. Noteworthy influences include Gabriel Kahane. I use a circle of 4ths (plagal cadence) modulation to destabilize the listener. Every chord sounds like the root. 06:47 There’s a low and subtle wind sound throughout the piece. You only really notice it at the end. It changes pitch and pans back and forth. It’s my favorite piece of the composition. SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama Palimpsest http://thepalimpsestpodcast.com/ Check out other work by Ian Ridenhour http://www.ianridenhour.com/ Follow Ian Ridenhour https://twitter.com/ianridenhour MUSIC CREDITS Monks of the Dark Abbey - Derek Fietcher and Brandon Fietcher Strobe (Club Edit) - Deadmau5 Cut Me - Moses Sumney Empire Liquor Mart (9127 S. Figueroa St.) - Gabriel Kahane Gleam - Covet ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and investigate the insights into how it was made. Subscribe to How I Make Music https://pod.link/1460793686 How I Make Music https://howimakemusic.com Contact How I Make Music https://johnbartmann.com/contact Composers: host an episode of How I Make Music https://bit.ly/host-an-episode How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com

#066 Anneliese from Palimpsest by Ian Ridenhour

The piece of music featured in this episode is called Theme from We Fix Space Junk. It’s a playful and futuristic piece. I wrote it as the opening tune for the comedy sci-fi audio drama We Fix Space Junk, a story about two female repairmen who travel space fixing things (and trying not to get killed in the process.) The soundtrack conveys fun, adventure and an overall positivity, and this week we’ll look at some of the insights into why and how it was made. My name is Hedley Knights. I'm a composer from London, and this is How I Make Music. IN THIS EPISODE 01:53 Influences for the piece came from Tim Souster’s theme for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy TV show and from historical 70s depictions of the future. 03:32 The piece was written entirely in MIDI, using no live instrumentation. This gives it a more digital, futuristic feel. I used a deliberately fake-sounding string patch from a program called Reason and layered it with a more realistic sample-based string library to give it both the retro feel and extra emotion. 04:52 For the drums in this piece, my free trial expired! I had to replace the drum sounds with a different patch, resulting in slightly different versions of the piece over time. 05:41 I use a technique called portamento to glide smoothly between notes. This roughly emulates a theremin, a really common instrument in vintage science fiction. 07:05 The drums and bass groove well together. The song is in 6/8, but at a faster tempo than most compositions in that time signature. The bass, kick drum and ride cymbal groove well together to really create a fun atmosphere to kick off each episode. 07:41 I wrote the piece in C major, which is usually attributed to happy and bright sounds. I included a Bb to give the melody a darker, almost bluesier feel. I feel this conveys the tone of We Fix Space Junk pretty well, being a comedy with a dark side. 08:31 The brass layer is a synth patch which has a triumphant fanfare sound. 08:58 Once I’d written all the instruments, I reamped them by running them through my Midas 80 analogue mixing desk. The random imperfections give the piece a real, retro feel. SHOW NOTES Listen to audio drama We Fix Space Junk https://pod.link/1360406263 Check out other work by Hedley Knights https://BattleBird.productions Follow Hedley Knights https://twitter.com/hedley_k MUSIC CREDITS Tim Souster - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy TV Theme Music ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is where behind-the-scenes musicians get to tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and investigate the insights into how it was made. Subscribe to How I Make Music https://pod.link/1460793686 How I Make Music https://howimakemusic.com Contact How I Make Music https://johnbartmann.com/contact Composers: host an episode of How I Make Music https://bit.ly/host-an-episode How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com

#065 Theme from We Fix Space Junk by Hedley Knights

A weekly podcast for the musically curious to go behind the scenes of composition in a digital age. Each episode is a new audio experience, featuring creative musical reinterpretation of original soundtracks in an audio collage of separate stems and soothing vocal narration. Close listening required. Every Wednesday, we break apart one of my own compositions and investigate the stories and insights into how it was made and its effect on listening ears. My name is John Bartmann. I’m a music composer from South Africa and this is How I Make Music. New episode every Wednesday! Subscribe to How I Make Music for principled insights into the human musical experience.

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