MD4M Percussion
The objective of this task was to create percussion accompaniment to the dancers and brass instruments, then just my own ethnic percussion to the solo dancer to create a certain mood.
Visually, I accompanied the brass with a marching feel as the girls stomped, using timpani’s and a snare drum. I also added the triangle to widen the sound spectrum and kept to a typical band sound because I didn’t feel it needed to be over the top.
For the solo dancer, I slowed the tempo down to fit the dreamy sexy feel. I also looked at when she turns, and used ‘ethnic pluck’ for a low sound when she showed the man her ‘behind’. I also stopped the instruments when she stopped to the side. I thinned the texture as the camera showed the man on his own in the seats. I highlighted when she turned her head repeatedly with bell sounds for a twinkly innocent eye appeal, then when she blinked I used a shaker noise because it also sounded like a kiss, which is what he is probably thinking. I used slap/clap noises as the camera shows her hands moving, then a breath noise as she relaxes her arms down. I added some latin kit almost animal like sounds as her hands move over the front of her skirt. I used a native American flute going down in scale as her zip goes down. Again I thin the texture because I predicted the man to be more focused on that one thing. His eyebrow is raised before the jacket opening so as it does this, I use a faint ethnic pluck. As she begins opening her jacket repeatedly, I use the latin tone each time. I used African drums as the flowers come out to symbolise his heart beating and the ethnic pluck with the flute with an ascending pitch bend to show his feeling of elevation.
I listened to Thomas Newman’s original track several times to get a flavour of how to use the percussion and ethnic instruments but I wanted a heavier beat and texture and more focus on visual elements, which I did do. I have also found David Van Tieghem, who used sticks on anything in the street, any material, any surface to create rhythms and different sounds that you wouldn’t expect from ordinary objects, which I found as very useful to ignore what the instrument was and what it went with, so I treated them more like sound objects, as Schaeffer would say.
An audio sequencer technique I used was to first record my sounds in as close as I could to the movie, then go back over parts with the selector tool and grab individual notes to sync them more accurately with the picture.
A musical technique I learned was how to keep within a beat as well as syncing to a randomly cutting movie. I also learnt to not just loop things over or copy certain melodies or patterns, but to create individuality within the music, even if it did mean using one instrument playing a single note for the piece. This to me, sounds more professional and has taught me to pick out particular sounds to use them individually and be more patient.
This is practice as research because I have learnt a lot through creating a percussive piece rather than a more tonal one. It’s not just about creating melodies – but individual sounds over a whole range of different instruments from everywhere, as Thomas Newman has shown us working really well to create something different but equally as appropriate for the movie.
Van Tieghem, D. (2011). Ear To The Ground. Available: http://www.vantieghem.com/. Last accessed 12th Mar 2011.
