Category: Self-initiated

So, apparently, the studios will be kept closed so I may have to record on my phone and try to make it sound nicer by adding some plugins in Logic. I’ll try not to worry that much right now and focus on making my project as good as I can and making progress on my related reading and online courses I’m completing. I’ve actually finished my film scoring course and it did have some nice tips as to how the whole process works. It discusses how to create good music for a horror scene, which is what I’ll be doing for the “bad” version of the chase scene, so I’m looking forward to that.

As for the books, I’ve found that Arranging for Strings has some useful tips here and there but is talks more about dealing with live string players, which I’ll be dealing with in the future anyway. The other book is a lot more focused on theory, it breaks down the concepts of different periods of music and is currently discussing counterpoint. It’s extremely interesting but I don’t really see the connection to this project. The online course has a lot more useful stuff so I’m not really worried about not having learned too much stuff that I can actually apply to this project.

In any case, I’ve already started making timestamps so I know what I need to highlight on the scenes and how to help tell the story I want to. I’ve also been listening to a lot of Arabic genres mixed with electronic music and other genres and I feel it’s starting to fuel my creativity.

I’ve been listening to this video on repeat for the romantic scene I’m hoping to score. I’m a bit worried because it has some dialogue which I was hoping to have my classmates do but now with everyone in quarantine everything’s different. I still need to think what to do about that.

Tomorrow I’ll be getting started with the “horror” version of the chase.

After much thought, I decided to score two scenes from the live-action version of Aladdin. The reason behind this is that I found some scenes quite easily in a relatively good quality. I’m also a huge Disney fan and a huge Alan Menken fan so I felt it was the right choice. I also felt that some of the action movies I was considering (like John Wick), were too violent and didn’t seem fitting for a university project, but maybe that’s just me.

The idea of the project is to score both of these scenes twice: once with a fitting soundtrack and another time with a more “funky” one to show the impact music has in a particular scene.

As for the theme of the music, I’m thinking about adopting a different style while still maintaining an “Arabic” feel to it (especially for the chase scene). The other scene is a more romantic one but I still have no idea how to approach it. I also have to think about the foley and the restrictions regarding how many software instruments I can use because now that lectures have been moved online, the studios have been shut down. I was planning to record many sounds with studio microphones as well as asking my classmates and teacher to bring their instruments so I could have more “real” elements but I don’t really know how it’s going to work now.

These are the two scenes I’ve chosen to score.

I’m trying to look at this in a positive light because it has fueled my creativity and made me look for different ways to create sound patterns with everyday objects; for the percussion, I experimented with a pepper shaker and then I hit a metal water bottle for some more variety, I also used my violin and scratched the strings lightly to produce (or attempt to produce) an effect called “chopping”, which is a type of percussive (and quite uncommon) technique. I learned this through a book I’m currently reading called “Arranging for Strings”. (I believe I’ve discussed this book before on my blog). I’m glad to have found some interesting tips and techniques for this project. These tips will hopefully be useful over the course of my degree.

The other aspect I’m bothered about is that I didn’t get the chance to record rapping with Ed on the studio (for my last project) so I’m gonna have to leave my final piece as it is. I’m still quite happy with it, though.