Check it out, I wrote a song.
One of my goals in starting this project was to have an excuse to write some music. For some reason I absolutely need a reason to compose, if I just sit down at the computer and say "hmm, what if I wrote some music today", it doesn't happen. Writing some music because I need something to put up on here, though? That, apparently, works fine.
Process-wise, I programmed the whole track in MuseScore, then rendered it out with Logic Pro using a bunch of its default synth presets. I feel like I'm getting a little more used to writing drum parts in MuseScore, that's always felt like the part where traditional music notation is the most limiting. On the plus side, the notation makes it clear how goofy this build-up is in a way that piano roll doesn't:
As usual, I started with the bassline. I both play and sing bass, so it's a natural starting point for me, and it really sets up the whole harmonic and rhythmic structure of the rest of the track. For some reason this time I found it pretty easy to mix in fills and variations. I'm pretty fond of this one at bar 50:
and this off-key walkup to the IV chord at 33:
The pad synthesizer came next, I believe, and then the melody and drum part. It took me a bit to get the structure right (one early draft just ended after the middle eight), and then I took a couple passes at mixing some more variations into the bass part and cleaning up weird spots in the harmony, and I decided that was enough.
I did show a couple friends an earlier version of this piece a couple days ago and one said it reminded them of Wayne Lytle's work on Animusic; that wasn't an explicit inspiration when I started composing it, but... I used to listen to that a lot. It's gonna be in there. This actually caused me a bit of a funny realization –– I don't always have a lot of confidence in my ability to compose music. I have a strong music theory background, but it's mostly "as applied to performance", I haven't studied much at all of what goes into writing a piece down in the first place.
But after my friend said that, I listened through it again, and on this draft I didn't have the bass fill leading right into the ending yet, it was actually a bar earlier (final version pictured):
And I thought "wait a second, if I'm gonna lean into Lytle's style here, I should have the bass fill go all the way to the end, he loves doing that one". I can't remember if I had the B♯ in there yet, but that's another thing that's very much "that sound", it really calls attention to the bass.
And then I just kinda sat there for a moment thinking about how within a few minutes of each other I'd posted "jeez, I kinda think this sucks and that I'm a fake composer" and also "oh, yeah, it does sound like the work of [other musician] and I can articulate exactly what I'd have to do to better match their style". I get the feeling that if I really didn't know anything about music I wouldn't be able to tell you how Mr. Lytle likes his bass fills, y'know? So hopefully that'll give me a bit of confidence to do more of this in the future.
Here's the MuseScore file, by the way.