The Big Picture

The 'Big Picture', is an important consideration when you're writing. I often fall into the trap of getting excited building ideas up within a track and end up coming up with a potential climax for the track, before the one and a half minute mark has even been reached. Pretty stupid right? Well, that is usually when it is a good time to take a break, listen to some music maybe, or do something entirely unrelated. Come back with a fresh pair of ears and hopefully, with better creative juices. 

So you've come back to your 'studio' with fresh ears and creativity ready to flow through your fingers and continue with your piece. What I do, is listen to the entire track from beginning to end, no matter what you've got a couple of times. Live in it, absorb what you've already done. Then you can start figuring out where you' ve gone wrong. Maybe I wrote too little in the first Act, or maybe I wrote too much in the second Act. Sometimes I even don't build too much in the third Act. 

Perhaps one of the more important things with 'The Big Picture' is remembering to have patience. It is far too easy to get stuck and frustrated. For example, I can spend an entire evening playing around with the main melody I originally played on a flute, just like in this example, only to find I don't like how it translates to other instruments. There are two things you can do in this scenario. Numero Uno, you can change the melody, maybe take the one you've already written and save it somewhere, export it as a MIDI/audio file if necessary and write another one. Alternatively, you can persist but later. Focus on something else within the track. Maybe focus on the arrangement, or refining the orchestration on some of the other elements. 

The key thing here is, to find that inspirational nugget, that thing that makes you want to continue or that exciting new rhythm that changes something in the track that redefines what you had so far. Either way, you don't want to quit, so you have to find ways to effectively use your time to finish the track and move on to the next. 

 So the example above is from a recent track of mine, 'Here Come The Drums', which you can listen to here. As you can see I had a very dense percussion arrangement, full of layering and doubling. A lot of synths, just because I love playing with my synths, so on and so on. 

Structuring the cue

So virtually all of my music follows a similar structure. Act One, Act Two, Act Three and a Trail. Sometimes, I might break Act 3 into two parts, to really emphasise the build or crescendo. This songwriting structure follows a similar structure to that of film trailers.

Typical movie trailers have a particular structure, at least in the 21st century. In the first Act, they might set up their roster of characters, maybe some quick cuts introducing the actors and the roles they're playing. Sometimes the agency making the trailer might use this Act to introduce the story. Act Two is where you get introduced to the movie's plot, a conflict or the overall story arch. The final Act, Act Three, is where you get the audience excited. Tell them why they're going to want to watch the movie, maybe show some action scenes or potentially spoil the obvious romance movie arch, whatever the case may be. 

Bringing this full circle, we, the composer, have to assist the trailers video footage. If the trailer introduces action stars, introduce conflict and demonstrate some amazing action set piece, no doubt spoiling the movies ending, then we must use our musical skills to drive the same points and tell the same story. It is our job to get the target demographic really pumped, really excited, really engrossed in the trailer.

So let's use a practical example. I am going to use Here Come The Drums, to demonstrate the structure of my tracks and why it could be effective. 

In the image above, I have highlighted the first Act of the track. Ignoring the obvious, that the image shows how little is actually happening on the track, you can see that the first Act is really two parts, punctuated with a sub-bass boom. The second part of the first is where I start introducing the main melody, the synth rhythmic pattern/arpeggio. 

Effectively, I have introduced the sound palette for the cue, created an atmosphere and introduced the main counter-melody, pretty efficiently I might add. Lets move on.

Act Two

The second Act is where I start introducing different instruments or even entire sections if the part I am giving works with the entire section. Also, start bringing in some percussion, some other rhythms, maybe counter melodies. With this cue, the second Act serves as an extension of the first Act. 

Act Three

As you can see from the image above, certainly with this cue Act 3 is the big one. This is where you push the tempo, bring in other instruments, and towards the latter half of Act 3, use the entire frequency spectrum, with all instrument sections. These are the broad strokes of this part of any cue but they're essential. After all, this is the part that should get your listener/viewer excited enough to at least consider watching the movie.

The Trail

This is the part of the cue that typically plays over the credits of the trailer. Sometimes there will be dialogue like 'COMING SOON' from one of those popular booming Hollywood voices. Or perhaps, the trail will play over one of those typical Marvel outros, showing some quip one of the main characters used, reminding the audience that the movie is family-friendly.

Musically speaking, this is also the part of the cue where you can finish your track, outro the main theme, finish the cadence, etc. Sometimes you might want to leave your audience on a climactic note, but usually, you want to bring them home, to the root note/key. Bring the whole thing to a finish. 

I hope you will keep reading this series, and check out some of my other stuff. More importantly, I hope you'll check out my music, like, comment and share all of my stuff, as long as you like it. And if you don't, tell me why! Thanks for your interest so far everyone.