The Secret to Successful Musical Transitions

hello everybody today we're talking about transitions I'm going to be showing you how to go from happy to scary to sad to comedic all in the space of like 30 seconds it's going to be a bit of a but the point is I'm going to be talking about the basic guidelines I'm I don't say rules rules is silly um because everybody's approach to this is different the basic approaches you can take to successfully move from one emotion mood or storytelling approach to another whether you're writing songs or musical theater or film or television or games it's all basically the same because it's all music okay so learning to do this learning to take you know completely different um uh musical ideas and put them into the same piece is incredibly powerful you know a lot of you ask oh how do I go from a 30C piece to a 3-minute piece how about a 3-minute piece to a 10-minute piece you know part of the answer is knowing how to deal with transition so you can actually take completely different ideas and go and put them together Bohemian rap CID Tuit bells mathur park you know rings a bell those kind of things there's you know Bohemian rap city is a really good example actually anyway what we're going to do let's start with what did I say I was going to go okay let me start by writing a few bars of happy and then we'll go into scary and then we'll start talking about the re how I'll give you jumping to the jumping to The Cutting to the chase um the essence of it is um a lot of this is about not changing everything all at once if you just go to this there you go now that's not a very subtle transition is it it's like crash bang Wallop now that might be what you want to try and Achieve you want something which is really dramatic but what we're looking at mainly today is how you do it subtly how you go from one to another without quite such a big anyway back to that bloke in the shed like that and we'll be back with my friend in a minute okay let's get going let's get this little chap going here right what am I I'm going in [Music] [Music] for okay B now I'm going to just nudge those along a tiny tiny bit cuz I'm playing all of them slightly early then quantize them and they'll go perfectly onto the turn soft quantise off cuz I want it to go bang on for this particular occasion do that and now we got um four bars of that right now let's have something to go with that um how about some um Viber phone it's a very very eclectic group of samples I got in here this is Sonic Aur vibh uh it sounds great I'm big fan here we go [Music] okay once more into the breach okay so we I'm just building this little four bar sequence and then we can start extending it let's have some Chelly [Music] going okay now what about [Music] piano okay so going a bit modal there um right let's now we've got this going I think that'll do for now now we're going to use this to um transition uh into scary now this is very unscary at the moment um the theory is right we're going to keep something going and bring something else in and take something out so what we want to do is here we go let's show you what what we got up here so what are we going to keep [Music] going okay so we're going to start by bringing in either a high string or a synth let's bring in the synth okay okay we can turn him up a bit I [Music] [Music] think right now we're going to take some stuff out out um because we don't need all that going going to take out the cello bit at the bottom um turn that from bars to beats there we go right um we're going to uh here we go lose a bit of that so what we want is to work out what we want to keep keep what we could do is just get rid of the uh maybe we get rid of the pit aato and then bring something else in so we're overlapping stuff as we build things [Music] up get rid of that one there so he's getting Rhythm bit by bit okay now now there's another thing which really works well with transitions is to use Dynamic sounds um things like symbol Sr uh swells and things like that so it gives them some movement and it can be really effective cuz it just takes your eyel away from what's changing you don't notice it so I've got these uh string swells in here from Sonic Z is it Sonic zma how can I pronounce that here we go where are you friends here we go there we go these ones they're really really nice and it can add that kind of little note of tension Maybe [Music] okay right now I'm going to take out this and I'm going to play something slightly different in so we're continuing the texture and the tambra but we're taking out the actual um notes himself I'll show you I mean here we go look we're in mer merge mode [Music] so okay now so it's continuing it on you can hear it Contin on it's just getting simpler it's getting quieter but at the same time we're going to start introducing some another sound cuz what we're actually doing with the transition is going from one thing to another so the two are going to overlap and that's what we now need to do so now we're going to inod introduce the uh the more suspenseful bit this is a albian except I've turned it right down somehow hang on come on my friend where are you you can do [Music] it right now we're going to introduce the the more tense bear [Music] now that has I think reasonably successfully gone from happy to scary now there's a much better way well not Better Way um another top tip if you have strong um um melodic content it can really help to um bind the two parts together so if we just get rid of the piano for a minute and now we're going to put the piano back [Music] in or something I don't know we're going to come up with a little tune on the Fly the way I do okay and put my my glasses of Bravery on there we go just write a tune guy in one [Music] go that's going to work okay glasses of Bravery [Music] off [Music] you see how that binds it together because I just transm moded it I just made up that word um from a sort of major well it's slightly modal lydian is sort of tune to uh a minor one and it worked pretty well um so now we're going to add some extra bits [Music] in right let's go from the beginning this is Doo um which is one of these let me just show you so CU people always ask and I want to show them you go fractured sound Concert Grand Doo concert Grand anyway be that as it may here we [Music] go now we're going to move from this effortlessly into sad the next thing we want to talk about is okay we're going to get now going to go from SC scary to sad um is you have to be really careful about uh key and Tempo changes because you can't just go Bo and go off sort of ping at 150 bpm or suddenly cut it in half listen to the end of bomi and rat city that rentando that when slowing down is really effective and it goes very you don't you know it builds tension as well um so we're going to do something very similar here we're going to go into free timing turning the click off which will come as a relief to those of you who hate my click [Music] um right now what key are we in we started out in a sort of C major and we've ended up in a c min [Music] now if we're going to change key which we are um we need to be aware of our circle of fifths and um you can't just suddenly leap in uh and effectively go from one side of the circle F to the other without any preparation as I explained the other week um because it'll sound like uh car crash so we need to be aware of where we are on the Circ Fifth and how we're going to um maneuver our way through this so we were in C S of C minor we could pick up in an A flat minor I quite like that median shift see how it sounds be brave guy be brave I oh what the glasses of Bravery again can't see anything cuz they're too Misty in [Music] G [Music] right there's a good reason why I've held that long note at the end what we've got going on here is very simple cordal shift um we've gone from an A Minor to a sort of E minor and then finally to an F minor um SAS suspended now just remind myself what the motif is cuz we're going to try and use that in our sad [Music] section [Music] okay W it didn't record so I use my retro record button are you ready magic to happen ding F where would we be without retro record sometimes here we go so now I've got my retro recorded bit up there look so now we got a nice do you know what I'm going to do snip my friend out bounce him to audio boom like that uh then I can increase the volume a little bit and increase the Reverb here we go so now it's going to [Music] be don't need the um paret to be honest [Music] I think it does at the [Music] end oh then it goes to a hell G is that right [Music] why is this person holding this note let's go back to my friend on the beach and he'll explain Okay so suppose we wanted to go from this shot here on the beach to one in the middle of the village but we didn't want to just go and we wanted to go in a more subtle way one way we could do it is by going via a common image or um fading to black or fading to white or something like that which is really not dissimilar to the way we use um pedal notes and things like that in music so for example bye see you in a minute to this okay so there you go the seamless transition from Beach to village and we're going VI a common object which makes the transition seamless allegedly well look let's see how that works with music back to guy in the shed there you go it's a cinemat cinematic analogy cuz that's it's quite a common technique in cinematography um and we can use it so what we're doing essentially is um we're sort of retreating to a place of safety so we're going to a h note uh which makes perfect sense in in the context of where we are um but it allows us to come out pretty much wherever we want um let me just add this symbol uh swell in thank you very much lineage percussion um should we make it longer yeah let's drag it out a bit there we go it's long there see how that sounds here we go whoops good on you can [Music] do again another one I'm going to bounce uh bounce oh it's very quiet okay I think come on guys just press on no room for Dilly [Music] dallying now out of this held note we can go wherever we [Music] want so where are we going from sad to comedic how am I going to go to comedic from s okay back on with a click yeah it's quite quick that's all right this is going to this is going to [Music] work right so what note is this so we're held G okay so the G is what we're let's go back to [Music] our [Music] oh how cheesy guy [Music] cheesy and that will be the end okay what on Earth is going on in here [Music] so actually what about our tune remind yourself of how the tune started out cuz it might be useful if we go back to the beginning where okay [Music] [Applause] right something like that but not that [Music] go on give me one more crack at that [Music] go on one more one one one one more more [Music] cra [Music] oh sorry one more go on this is this is the [Music] one [Music] there's a Dodge note in there and I just don't think I care anymore what else could I put in here uh I need something uh uh I need a [Music] bit right I [Music] really [Music] okay I tell you what I could duplicate this track and go onto a staccato string and see if that works any better yep you could do that guy and that might be just a tremendously peachy idea or a terribly bad idea we're about to find out are we are you sure guy yes I am sure uh Stato ah Ah that's the idea which has just dawned on [Music] me transition [Music] complete do you know what the timing in there is amongst the worst I've ever ever ever heard hit quantise and hope it doesn't break it uh okay it's a bit off oh let's just this is either going to be better or much much [Music] worse that doesn't work okay but this the transition does I [Music] think [Music] there you go we have now gone from happy to scary to sad to comedic in 35 bars uh which is a bit of an achievement frankly right let us see how successfully these transitions work are you ready you're not too late it's going to happen [Music] anyway [Music] it's okay um I would put the symbol swell back there actually I think that's going to work [Music] better and I'm not at all sure about that [Music] that's it so there you go um so you need to leave stuff the same change other bits say overlap things uh you can use swells and dynamic movements and things like that you have to be careful about changing Tempo and changing key even if you are changing section you know if you just want to do a sort of Smash and grab edit so you just go poof and you end up in some completely different musical world go for it but if you're trying to do it in a sort of Lely slight of handishop 30 seconds I don't know 45 seconds it's it's a minute cool knock yourself out guy if you're um yeah if you're trying to do four moods in 60 seconds uh then you need to work on it quite carefully anyway I hope you found that useful if you have you could subscribe to the channel because I'll be back doing more of it I promise you whether you like it or not I will be creeping into an inbox that sounds a bit weird um in the meantime go and check out thinkspace education.com because we do lots of courses which teach people like you how to do things like this what can I tell you thanks very much for your company see again very soon bye-bye

Channel: Guy Michelmore

Views: 17,825

Keywords: The Secret to Successful Musical Transitions, Musical transitions., thinkspace, education, film, scoring, television, composition, composer, guy michelmore, guy, michelmore, thinkspace education, transitions in music, how to develop a piece of music, music theory, music theory key signatures, music theory in 16 minutes, how to music usic, how to write a song, how to write a musical, how to score films

Id: 5e0zB8jhYxw

Length: 28min 59sec (1739 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 05 2024