#055 Autumn Wind by John Bartmann

The piece of music in this week's episode is called Autumn Wind. It’s a piano-centered orchestral piece which might be used in period drama stories set in the late 1800s and historical biopics like The Current War. It uses classical instruments (and omits modern sounding ones) to capture that sense of history. Let’s explore a few questions the composition of this style of music. IN THIS EPISODE I wrote this week’s selected composition, Autumn Wind with two objectives: to keep a sense of forward motion, and to keep the timing as organic and ‘off the grid’ as possible. How does it convey ‘forward motion’? Method 1: changing key (modulating) 01:55 The piece begins in Ab major, remaining centered in one key for a minute. At 00:58 it modulates to a Cm (by way of G7) and peacefully makes its way back home to the Ab. Key modulation (ie harmonic progression) tends to provide forward motion - a feeling of movement or sequence. 03:09 The opposite effect is required in ambient music used for tension and horror. For these styles, we require stagnation and plot stasis to create a gap before the big shock happens! This is why music with forward motion is excellent for montage, and why ambient music is better for tension and mystery. Method 2: building and dropping in volume (dynamics) 04:33 Autumn Wind uses piano crescendos and decrescendos to its advantage to fulfil its purpose - a human-sounding score from an era before MIDI editing, and one that can (hopefully) be listened to and enjoyed in isolation from picture. For the purposes of broadcasting, fluctuations in the volume of music composition are discouraged. It’s the inevitable byproduct of the loudness war, which requires everything to be overcompressed in order to compete in a broadcast environment. Regardless of its media usage suitability, I wanted to make a score that could have sounded like it was actually being conducted with some dynamic nuance. How does feel more ‘human’? 05:24 Autumn Wind has an organic approach to timing. The recording of the keyboard part (ie the piano sound) was not done to a click track, so the tempo appears to be speeding up and slowing down in the style of romantic era composition. Minor corrections were made to the timing, but at no point was the whole arrangement quantized (locked to a fixed tempo) and then tempo-modulated digitally. While it’s easy to make these types of editing changes using software, it also tends to rob the score of at least some of its human feel. The approach isn’t about making it perfect, it’s about making it provoke emotion. Instrumentation 07:28 This piece uses piano, flute, clarinet and violin. I was glad to have been able to include the live violin along with the remaining software instruments. It’s been a goal of mine for many years to be more confident when recording solo violin parts. If you want to know if a string instrument has been recorded live, listen out for nose whistle on the recording! DOWNLOAD & USE THIS MUSIC Download ‘Autumn Wind’ by John Bartmann https://gum.co/elfgbSearch for more music by John Bartmann https://johnbartmann.com/music SHOW NOTES Download album ‘Softly, Boldly, With A Piano’ by John Bartmann https://gum.co/azLIe SOUNDS & DEVICES USED Native Instruments Symphony EssentialsPianoteq 4 SUBSCRIBE SpotifyApple PodcastsYouTubeRSS StitcherTuneInHome MY BANDS! Pravda https://pravdaofficial.comPebble Shakers https://pebbleshakers.co.za CONTACT https://twitter.com/johnisthemusichttps://johnbartmann.com/contact ABOUT THIS SHOW How I Make Music is where behind-the-scenes musicians tell their own stories. Every Wednesday, we break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and investigate the insights into how it was made. Host an episode of this podcast https://smarturl.it/howyoumakemusic