One Day...

I'm writing a song right now (or I should say recording a song) for Mohammad's production reel, titled "One Day."  This has been a pretty fun project as I'm getting to blend some unique elements, accordion among them, and I'm getting to be as creative as I can while emulating a style of music that I quite enjoy.  French accordion music.  

So, the piece is very very reminiscent of a certain track on the Amelie Soundtrack by Yann Tiersen but, I'm putting my own spin on it adding some edgy rock elements to it.  My good friend Crystal Bright was good enough to record the accordion part and send it to me via Dropbox.  Now I'm working on the mix which is gaining in complexity.  Piano, guitar, bass, orchestral percussion and tympani are included in that mix.  The fun part is figuring out how to layer them in order to build the song up and create dynamic shifts.   I'm finding that my initial decisions are being subverted, and each time I sit down with the mix my mind changes.

For example, I realized that one of the ways I can build the tension and excitement in the piece is to not bring in the orchestral percussion track right away, simple though it was in the first few bars of the piece.  Also, I doubled the accordion part and panned it hard left and right and am slowly raising the levels as the piece draws to a climax.  In addition, I doubled the first guitar part, which was clean, and decided to run it through a tremolo effect (one of the great things about amp modeling is that you can take the same take after you've recorded it and process it in as many ways as you can think of!).  This tremolo effected guitar also slowly increases in volume throughout the piece.

I even just brought the piano part up higher in the mix, because I'm finding that on what I originally wrote, it's actually pretty crucial to the song.  Right now, though, it's just a dummy track that I pulled straight from my  notation program, Sibelius.  I plan on actually recording myself playing it later this week when I get a spare moment.

In addition, I may add some more guitar tracks and possibly some synth.  At the moment though, what's on my mind is kick drum.

This is one of my favorite points in the process of writing a song, the implementation and realization.  Several eureka moments typically ensue, especially when I walk away from it for a while and I come back and hear something that wasn't there before or I get an idea of something that isn't there but should be.  Incidentally, this is why it's so hard to stop writing sometimes (in the absence of a deadline of course).  You always find something else you can add to a song or change.   Occasionally, you do reach a point where you feel it's perfection but it's sort of rare, I've found.

That having been said, hopefully, I'll be finished soon so I can post it.  I almost forgot to mention that I'm done with George's music! We sat down at NY1 in the break room after my shift last Thursday and before his to sort of iron out the last few tweaks to the mix on my laptop.  I've heard the music against the visuals for the main title sequence now and it looks pretty awesome!  More to come on that as they work to finish the final film.  For now, I'm thinking I'm going to eat my lunch.  Yes, at 4 in the morning.