'Strange' - New Original Music - 20 Minute Songwriting Challenge - Electronic/Instrumental + Walkthrough

grapthar (74)in #music • 4 years ago

I was a bit bored last night

so I decided to do another timed challenge, this time for 20 minutes. Unfortunately, I think I spent a bit too much time tweaking sounds, rather than just focusing on adding more layers, but the song is longer than a minute and a half, so better than a lot of previous attempts, hehe. There are basically only two sections, A (Green in Track 1) and B (White in Track 1), but the rest of the tracks help to keep it interesting. The mix isn't great, and the kick drum got a bit lost, but I was out of time by the time I realized that, so that'll have to be edited in the future.

Listen to Strange here.

The basic progression in the A part

begins on a Cmaj, to Dmin, to Amin, then Fmaj, Cmaj, and Gmaj. The White section moves from F to Bb back to F, and the first time around, ends on a Gmajor. However, the second time, which is twice as long, modulates to Fmajor for a bit longer, adding 4 more additional bars before we modulate back to C with that Gmajor. Tracks 2 and 3 add some more harmonization over these parts, and Track 4 the synth bass. I needed to add a bit of compression, sidechained to the kick, to help it come through, but again, that was a last minute thought. Track 5 is the drums, which use the CR-78 from the Komplete Start package.

Track 1, 8 Bars, Full Green and White Sections.

Tracks 6, 7 and 9 provide little

accents, and are used very sparsely. They probably could be written out a bit more, but I think overall, I like the general idea. Track 8 adds a weird little crash, which I don't love, but I guess works as a bit of a placeholder. Finally, we have Tracks 10 and 11, which provide a reversed piano hit (holding a Gmaj to lead us back to the A section) and a heavy sort of hit to accent the return to those parts.