YouTube LINK!!!!
Backstory
- WHAT A DAY! A WEDNESDAY TO BE PRECISE! CAUSE I HAVE ANOTHER SONG FOR YOU ALL! And it’s a very important song for me in the Songs a Day-ish for two reasons; 1) DOUBLE DIGITS!!!!! 2) This is the first of what actually became an album inside a collection and a defining part of this journey. This song is definitely when I can say I felt like I was back as a writer, not only was the song far from what I had ever done before, but it was another conquered challenge that solidified in my head that I was able to write good music again. I think right about now too you can tell that the down and almost lost feelings I had were pretty much gone before this point in the 100, and this one pushed whatever I fear I had left out the window!
- Ok, that was emotional backstory so here’s music version lol. I had been listening to video game music and movie scores in general and just thought how cool it is to just do that for a living and, hell, it would be so much fun to try out! Also If I’m not mistaken JD, our piano player in our band [2morrows June check us out, shameless plug ;-)], had started playing Undertale and it’s music was all 8-bit from what I remember (I never played it) so that just gave me another reason to try it out. I looked for some place to start and this YouTuber called “8-bit Music Theory” had a video come out a couple months earlier called “Why does Mario music sound “Fun”?” and I basically took what he explained in the video and tried to make a simple but fun sounding theme out of 8-bit synths! So let’s get into the music!
Music
- Melody
- Quick preface: there’s only 3 instruments in this song, 1) Arcade Synth (with the arpeggiator turned off), 2) Hip Hop Drum machine that did the shaker sound, and 3) Big Room drums that had the Kick sound that worked for the song. That’s it.
- So if you watch the video I linked you will hear him say that a main part of the Mario music is that it always starts off with a big and quick intro to get everyone engaged and locked in for the rest of the song (I did that with all the songs that are in the “SADI VideoGames” album) but it actually was the last thing I created.
- I did the Major Scale player in GarageBand (2nd Pic) and came up with the melody after messing around with the synth. From there I made the other parts and moved to that B section, I wanted to keep the same motif so it wasn’t too massive of a change and was easy to follow. Something that I always did, in this song especially, was to resolve to the 1 at the end of every section. It gave the song a feeling of familiarity and could be understood by everyone.
- The C section followed the same rules but went minor, still has an echo of the original motif and just feels like it belongs. I also remember wanting every 8 bars to have something completely different so you weren’t just listening to the same thing over and over. The only repeats are the first two choruses and double choruses out (full circle feeling).
- Bass
- This was always the second thing I did in each section. But it’s the same synth sound only 2 octaves down. I just made it follow and compliment the melody, you can hear it skipping along to the punchy syncopations that the main motifs do, and for me it just drives the song so much because the melodies all have a powerful foundations in the bass. They are doing essentially the same thing and it helps dig that earworm pattern into your brain!
- The only time it diverges from the melody’s motif is the C section where it does that walk down into the chorus. Other than that I tried to keep them as close together as possible without feelings like they were just doubled
- Higher Synth
- This one was odd cause I just remember needing the song to have a little more fill. I already did middle C register and already did bass so I just went for super high and kinda just played until I found something that worked. Not gonna lie in listening back I just wrote a bass line and put it in a super high octave lol.
- B section I just played and got something that came close to what you hear now, but I edited it and found its stride.
- C section was chords, I realized there weren’t any real chords (like none that were actually played) so I threw those in to: 1) have chords and 2) to show this part was in minor lol!
- Drums
- I used the drum machine until I found an easy shaker-esk pattern that wasn’t intrusive. That just loops throughout the song and isn’t really a sight to behold lol.
- Kicks were done by hand and looped through the song just like the shaker. Yeah….not much to write here lolol
Conclusion
- Wow this one is way longer than intended, but it proves my point, this song is an important milestone in my journey! I’m not really sure what else to say that I didn’t say in the backstory. It’s all there: conquered challenge, confidence, made it to ten! All those are huge for what I was doing and just made me hungry to get through the next ten. It parallels the blog too really, while technically at 11 posts now, I’m over ten weeks into this process and if I may I’m gonna pat myself on the back for it. Even though there haven’t been huge amounts of people reading or listening I know it’s gonna be worth it in the end! It’s the exact same feeling as when I was writing the songs. A long road ahead, and although good is here now, the great is yet to come! And I am so happy to be on this journey with all of you who are reading and listening!!
If I’m gonna make a lesson out of it, it’s got to be “Take the goods and appreciate them to the fullest, these long journeys are hard, and if you don’t it can feel like your effort isn’t worth it.”
If you missed last week's song "HFIG Backwards Idea" <---LINK
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Twitter: nandomolinar97
email: songadayish@gmail.com
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