One Hour to write a complete piece of music

hello everybody it's friday again and time to take a simple phrase and turn it into a three-minute piece of music in just about uh an hour and as ever i'm gonna do this for however long it takes 60 70 minutes probably to write a piece of music uh this video on youtube so we don't lose people's interest it's a little bit shorter than that but like me when this chair collapses um but um you can download the full length thing and the thing and everything and the cubase file and the stems and all that kind of thing uh by clicking the link underneath this video but let's get stuck in today i'm gonna do something slightly a little bit different i'm i'm gonna start with a marimba we're gonna go for marimba and vibes um this is from um sonicature who they're nice they're nice people they're a small developer well i say small i mean they produce lots of really good stuff um this is their uh marimba and i'm also going to be using their vibes and i'm going to be using celesta and there's a bit of a choir going on there as well so i'm going to start with a kind of riff um a little motif so there's going to be a slightly minimalist vibe to what's going to go on today um and i thought ah rims and vibes you know if if my name was steve rice i would you know but it isn't and um i don't have his talent insight or originality but i make do okay so what we're gonna do i'm gonna put on my the famous princess layer headphones right and let's start with the let's start with the marimba so what am i going to do i'm going to do a bit of rhythmic displacement so am i going to have a i want a pattern which lasts rhythmic displacement where you you have different phrases lasting different lengths which interleave so then they kind of build into this sort of texture so i'll show you what i mean so if we start it's very easy thing to do and then we're going to build everything around it um so let's start bar one that's always the best place to start no come on now be original guys start on bar two if that's the limit of your originality guy you have a problem okay [Music] there you go there's a five note phrase uh well it's not five notes but it's more than five notes but it's a five beat phrase so what we're going to do that was a bit sort of cavalier wasn't it might be absolute rubbish you haven't even heard it yet [Music] okay then am i really gonna live with that is this the day i crash and burn answers on a postcard okay i have no idea what's going on here [Music] that's nice it's also five beats though so that there's no displacement going on right now oh don't get so hung up on your displacement it sounds nice and let's start it let's start it there [Music] no start it later [Music] and it's that also is going to sound like a little packet of dog flavored peanuts unless i can get in there and put that sustain pedal back in now it's going to sound like peaches and cream what did i tell you [Music] okay i'm liking this i'm so often starting with a viola [Music] it's a little bit assertive today aren't you mr viola no i'm not assertive i'm just confident okay i'll bear that in mind now do i want this um spicatory sound uh i'd love to know who these play well i mean there's people out there possibly watching this very video who do you play viola with the bbc symphony orchestra marion it's you okay well this is you playing there you go somewhere out there there must be people from the bbc's that this presumes that they have enough time to watch youtube and that they're uh silly enough to come and hang out on this channel if this is your first time however do feel free to subscribe that's a bit of a youtubey thing to say sorry okay let's let's get into this with some viola pits [Music] no no no no no stop [Music] that's terribly well known i just can't think what it is i'm sure you're going to let me know in the comments but um [Music] that does work though rhythmic displacement wise because it's a sort of three beat little cycle isn't it but it comes in too soon bring in your ideas one by one [Music] okay how are you feeling about this piece so far confident i'm not [Music] ah um let's just a brief round of applause for um trolls 1928 uh piano which i believe is free when you download the sound pen thing i'm a sound paint fan do you know okay let me let me play that again as seen from the top take it from [Music] so it's slightly jazzy is this a good thing [Music] if there's something missing talent i knew that was what it was how long can you get away with it though no come on [Music] thank you paul and christian thank you your chamber strings have just come to the rescue the big guns ladies and gentlemen let's hear it for ah that was a bit on not that big guy come on take a deep breath take a deep breath have another think [Music] do you really want this yeah i do really want this [Music] okay this is where um i compress the whole thing together i spread it out because in a weird way uh if you do this you can use it like a piece of sheet music it doesn't tell you the pitches but it does tell you when things are happening and so and now [Music] okay um this is a good sign i'm not i'm not bored with this yet and oh you are oh i'm sorry i'll hang around a bit longer go on [Music] somebody in the comments the other day said uh it was really good rhythm was all over the shop you're so true so right absolutely that um can't be helped just the way it goes [Music] i could spend some time sorting that out but i'm not going to when you're trying to take a simple idea and expand it into a three-minute piece of music um a lot of people introduce all their ideas at once and wonder why it runs out of steam but this time we're kind of there's our main idea this little marimba but it's then it's got some sort of harmonic stuff going on around it then in comes the viola idea number two and the vibes going on doing their thing [Music] a bit more vibrant [Music] now bar 12 we've now established our idea [Music] ain't necessarily so i kind of like this vibe i have to say i'm [Music] something rhythmically wrong [Music] it's a half tune and sometimes a half tune's what you want you don't always want always look on the bright side of life copyright stroke um because you know sometimes some tunes are sort of bit too primary colors and actually what you want is something which is sort of you can play with it's got a motif in it and you can start but actually to be absolutely honest um yeah okay i'm just checking the time in real time i've been going 19 minutes i don't know what that so i'm still the right side of the line here um so how am i gonna okay what else have i got to do to this to make this work makeup [Music] that we need something else which is going at double that speed [Music] i quite like the sound of damn tarp [Music] i'm just going to take that whole idea and stick you can't just do this guy yes you can maybe it's going to work [Music] it's this is what's called car crash counterpoint i've just invented something it's called car crash counterpoint [Music] actually in all seriousness what guy don't say in all seriousness this is not [Music] it uh it's not though this could be worse now it needs to check look i tell you what's really kicking in here is um harmonic monotony yep you can't i and we hear this is i could easily just keep going to the end on this one no a bit like bolero or whatever but what does bolero do towards the end it suddenly modulates goes bang and everybody goes whoa what just happened okay uh minute in i'm gonna have to come up with a better idea than this or we'll never it'll just do what so many tunes do peter out boom but this one's not going to peter out it's now going to transition so i'm now going to this is where this is the hard line okay now let's see if i can use that top note of the piano as a pivot note so it goes up to a c okay okay so now on that c [Music] we're going to a different chord we're going to go to a different harmonic world and all that funky little stuff will bite the dust so now be ruthless kill your babies they're gone [Music] so what [Music] okay watch me from the top now so it's a sea blue scouser [Music] it's got to be a note which has got is called which you've got c in it [Music] quite like an a flat don't like an f minor d minor seven [Music] no it sounds too much like a high pedal [Music] i'm i'm in several mines and as my dad would say i don't know which of them to make up um the only way i'm going to find out is to duplicate that instrument which i did uh while you weren't looking because i had the camera on the wrong one and then work out how we're going to deal with this [Music] yeah that fulfills my every wish that nice big warm a flat takes us it's a bit lounge lizardy it needs some [Music] so [Music] quite like that but i didn't have to click on so it was all over the shop [Music] one two three four i like that one why didn't you like the others go i don't know i think actually in this case simpler is better [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] and to be honest that little tiny touch of cello uh has given me a little bit of renewed face that i'm not gonna crash and burn as much as i thought i was going to a little while ago [Music] um i need a gliss um so i'm going to duplicate it get rid of the rest and go on to gliss mode come on gliss mode there we go [Applause] a little bit bright and breezy [Music] ah now hang on there's normally a whoa here we go what's this [Music] there we go often in bbc symphony or stuff if you look click on this thing in the middle you get oh these are all the things i can control really so it can go up or down so it's now going up in a major key so i'm just going to play it in a flat and that's going to be great [Music] ready [Music] we now go back into some form of [Music] okay [Music] okay feelings what do you think [Music] um have i been neglecting the choir all the time and actually it's going to be a really good thing to have in here [Music] so this is similar to the first bit but different [Music] oh that's why you silly boy wrong one [Music] [Applause] [Music] that has helped a lot so what we've got is a new idea that's a sort of rearrangement or imagining of the idea we had at the beginning and then that cello line half accidentally half on purpose went back to the theme which was originally in the violins and it doesn't matter that everything else stopped because now we can build other things so this frequently happens you're playing and you keep going even though all the rest of it's dropped out and then you add the extra bits in and then it sounds alright did that make any sense to anybody except me this is metronome come on metronome you can focus up there you go metronome he's my god of timing he i need you today today more than ever metronome i need you right and what i was going to do was going to try a little sort of canony effect here with the men going down an octave [Music] except they're not there they've gone down the pub the men have gone down the pub what's going on oi oh i see you're rooted to the wrong thing what are you supposed to be oh no this is all this is so complicated i'm not ready for complicated are they event in park it's probably there we go blokes come on then well i'm sorry we're just gonna go and go have a quick half no you're [Music] right now this is where it goes to back to the same chord progression a flat f minor except i've left off the um c d flat delete is applicable because i have no idea which key we're in um [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh okay see i've got an a flat a c and an e flat really to choose from which one sounds best coming in on the great downbeat is it the straight a flat no it isn't it's the e flat [Music] i'm so busy looking at this picture trying to cut them [Music] right let's octave that up copy it oh no little that's better now it's all one now we'll copy it down to legato two hit my button which transposes it down an octave and [Music] let's take out the binolas for a moment and add some uh so if we got [Music] right so i'm what am i missing here i'm missing a b flat rising to a c because if i've got if i've got a a flat in there and an e i've got e flat on the top i've got a flat on the jelly in the bottom if i want a little sus2 i put in a b flat rising to a c let's see if that sounds any good [Music] that's what i need to do so that's suspended second of a flat rising to the third which is the c then for the f minor chord i'm going to do a uh the same thing again g right into the a flat let's try it [Music] so what i'm going to do now is just take out those violas there and if we're going to make this big moment we're going to bring in some [Music] and i could get that wrong several times forgetting what i played originally so i'm now going to just cut and paste [Music] but uh that is too loud and a bit there we go so i need to bring the whole thing mod wheel down a bit here we go [Music] [Applause] oboe can do what the viola is doing but an octave up [Music] [Applause] okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] hang on only had one round of the choir and we decided that was really good this is another thing which sometimes happens you have a really good idea and because you're just so relentlessly pressing forward you forget [Music] look um what can i introduce okay look quickly guy you've got about five minutes to finish this off maybe [Music] um okay [Music] did you notice how actually the rhythm just settled in um in the second half so often hands so you record it then you just use the last bit when you've actually kind of decided what's going on [Music] now wouldn't it be nice if i could somehow get this back to where it was to start with but is that gonna happen uh well let me just try cutting and pasting that and that at the end because then that would be a kind of would it have a satisfying feeling of symmetry about it no it would not [Music] and where was those [Music] 224 okay so call me a liar it's not exactly three minutes is it but okay that's it we're done let's now have a performance from the top of this um quasi minimalist so it's not really is it i have a slightly unsatisfied feeling about this track to be absolutely honest but here we go [Music] this is the bit i don't like car crash [Music] two three four slightly awkward gap definitely gets a second wind here though doesn't it yeah you see that's the theme [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] that's it and i've got 22 seconds of disk space left so that's it hope you enjoyed it uh remember there's the downloading thing underneath this if you want to get the stems and the rest of the nonsense and um be leave some comments and tell me what you want me to do next time see you again very soon

Channel: Guy Michelmore

Views: 35,429

Keywords: thinkspace, education, music, film, scoring, games, television, composition, composer, guy michelmore, guy, michelmore, thinkspace education, Music Education, how to write music, music education, music theory, cubase, orchestral composition, orchestral composition tutorial, how to write film music, how to write orchestral music, how to finish a piece of music, One Hour to write a complete piece of music, write a complete piece of music

Id: bSz6uRXGvaM

Length: 37min 35sec (2255 seconds)

Published: Fri May 27 2022