Post-Production- Writing Music

The music took 2 days and 1 night to write and record. The basic piano melody was the hardest thing to nail down- I needed to capture the sadness of the scene, but at the same time build up a certain amount of tension and foreboding. So I worked out a pretty simple but effective minor key melody, using chords for the bass notes in a downward progression and a flowing middle F-G refrain with higher notes- middle C,E and high F, A, C and E as measure breakers. The breaking notes get higher as the scene progresses, reaching high E just before Ernest reads the letter. Before he opens the letter, the music is mainly the piano, with some slow strings backing the bass notes and F-G refrain, bass drum in groups of 3 quavers with a semi-quaver break, which builds in volume as the scene builds in tension. There is also a low-volume backing of a high pitched piano and tremolo violin strings that undercuts the bass track and adds another layer of tension.

When Ernest reads the letter, the tremolo strings build at a fast pace to smooth out the transition into the loud, epic finale of the music, which accompanies Ernest’s revelation. Here there is a complex layering of strings, piano (with various effects, including reverb, echo, celestial settings and delay), drums- double pace snare and bass, creating the illusion of a tempo change- the tempo has actually remained the same, with the bass carrying on in the triples in a 4/4 rhythm- crash cymbals backs up the 4/4, with crashes on every 2 and 4 beats. Noise has been added and the main piano that can be heard is a four key arpeggio using the basic notes of the first piano part- middle G,F,C and E. I timed the editing and the music together so the music ends at the end of a measure/bar, the drums tripling to create ultimate tension and tell the audience it is ending before I added the shot effect of gun shots. The music cuts out, Ernest has been shot.

I used Garageband for Mac to record the music, using a small 8-input Mixing desk in which I plugged my Keyboard in to record the piano and string parts. I used a mixture of dynamic Shure and condenser drum mics to record the drum parts, which also went through my mixer. I added effects on recording on the mixer and also on Garageband in production. I also used some Apple loops to add beef and layers to the track. I exported the file as an AIFF and imported it into Final Cut.