A Beginner's Guide To Composing Cinematic Music [PDF]

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HOW TO COMPOSE CINEMATIC MUSIC IN

5 EASY STEPS A beginner’s guide to composing cinematic music

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Intro Welcome to this beginner’s guide on how to begin writing cinematic music. The aim of this guide is to show you a very quick step by step process for composing some simple, yet ‘cinematic’ sounding music. Although ‘Cinematic’ can be a very broad term, I am defining it as music which you might hear in a film or television program. This guide assumes that you have some basic knowledge of music such as simple chords/scales and have at least a little experience playing an instrument.

About Composing Academy was set up by Simon Stevens, a composer for films starring Kevin Hart, Christian Slater and Donald Sutherland. He has a degree in Composition from the Royal College of Music, London and is also an alumni of the world renowned Screen Scoring program at USC, Los Angeles. He has also been mentored by film composer James Newton Howard.

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1. What equipment do you need to compose? Computer with a DAW or Notation Software Most composers will use either a DAW such as Cubase, Logic or Reaper, or notation software such as Sibelius or Finale.

Cubase

A DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) is a piece of software which will let you compose, record and edit music. DAWs handle both audio and midi, enabling you to use virtual instruments to produce a sonically high quality version of your music. Reaper has a generous 60 day free trial and then has a purchase price of $60.00 Notation Software such as Sibelius or Dorico are like word processors for music. They enable you to compose primarily using notation, especially useful if you are used to reading music.

Dorico

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Audio Interface An audio interface bridges the gap between the music in your software and actually hearing it with your ears. Most interfaces also have an input(s) to plug in a microphone or instrument such as an electric guitar to record into your DAW. When using a midi controller to play the samples, a good audio interface will also help to reduce the latency (the time it takes to hear a sound once you press a key on the keyboard). Good audio interfaces for beginner composers include the Focusrite Scarlett Solo (around $135) or the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 1 interface (around $100).

Midi Controller Finally, if you have keyboard/piano skills, you may wish to use a midi controller to quickly record your ideas into the computer. A midi controller is a keyboard with no in built sounds which connects to a computer via USB or Midi (via an interface). They come in different sizes ranging from 25 keys, up to a 88 keys (the same as an acoustic piano). Recommended models include Native Instrument’s Komplete Kontrol A25 ($170) or Novation’s Impulse 49 ($300).

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Samples/Virtual Instruments When composing in a DAW, you need to have sounds installed in order to hear your music. A sample library is a collection of sounds, often featuring real recordings of individual notes played by actual instruments. Spitfire Audio are a very well known Sample Library Developer and they have a library called ‘Discover’ which features sounds from the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The best part about the library is that it is free!*

‘Discover’ by Spitfire Audio

Another great company for sounds is u-he. They make virtual synthesizers and also have a free instrument to download called ‘Zebralette’.

‘Zebralette’ by U-HE

*In order to get the free copy customers have to fill in a short survey and then wait 2 weeks.

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2. Starting with a chord progression Let’s start our piece by choosing a suitable chord progression. If you are using a DAW, load up a plugin such as Spitfire Audio’s ‘Discovery’ Sample Library and select a long string sound. As we want our piece to sound rich and cinematic, start by choosing one of the following chord progressions and recording it into your DAW or Notation program.

Tip If using a DAW such as Cubase or Logic, you can either draw these notes in manually within your software’s midi editor, or record the notes in using a midi keyboard.

1. 2. 3. 6

3. Writing a 4 bar melody The next stage of the composition process is to add a melody to our chord progression. Writing a melody can be a little bit more involved than coming up with a chord progression. Begin by loading up a sound such as some French Horns or Trumpets in your DAW.

Limit Pitches One of the more easier ways of coming up with a suitable melody is to limit your chosen pitches to those which make up each chord. E.g. if your first chord is A minor then the notes you have to choose from will be A, C and E. You can see in the example below, a melody has been added to the first chord progression. Notice how the melodic pitches in each bar are only those pitches which are found in each chord.

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Repeat a Rhythm Notice that the rhythm of the melody is essentially made of up two 2 bar phrases, which repeat the same rhythm, but using different pitches. Try to come up with a melody which repeats rhythmically.

Avoid big leaps You can also see that there are no big leaps between consecutive notes in the melody. Although we have limited ourselves to using just the notes of the chords, try not to have any gaps larger than 5 notes.

Contour Giving your melody a shape or contour can also help to take the listener on an emotional journey. You can see that measure 3 contains the highest pitched note (a high G), before ending lower on a D in bar 4.

Your turn - have a go at writing a melody to accompany your chosen chord progression. Record or input the notes into your DAW. You will then have a musical ‘Building Block’ which we are going to extend into a longer piece of music in the next step.

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4. Adding Structure You should now have a 4 measure musical ‘Building Block’ which we are going to extend into a 16 measure piece of music.

Repeat and Vary A good melody is one that balances repetition as well as adding some variety to keep the listener engaged. We will call our first melody an ‘A’ Section. Lets have your ‘A’ Section play twice, but on the 2nd time, change some of the notes to add some variation. We will call this new block ‘A1’

A Section

A1 Section

Your turn - copy and paste your original A section, so it repeats. Then aim to change 3 or 4 notes in your A1 section to make it a variation of the first.

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Adding contrast Now we have added another ‘A’ section, it is time to add some contrast in the form of a ‘B’ section. Adding contrast helps gives the listener a break from our ‘A’ material and also helps the music to progress forward. Let’s begin by changing the order of the chords in your progression to add some variation. In my example, instead of Am - F - C - G, I have now chosen F - C - Am - G Next add a melody, again using only the notes of each chord. Try to vary the rhythm, compared to the A section:

B Section

Your turn - have a go at writing a contrasting ‘B’ section - remember to change the order of your chord progression first.

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Finishing with an A section Now you have your ‘B’ section, it is time to conclude the piece by returning to the ‘A’ section to finish. In order for the music to feel like it has come to a natural ending, it makes sense to reorder the last two chords of our ‘A’ section, so that the final chord is C major. This will result in the melody notes changing as well, so let’s call this section ‘A2’

A2 Section

Your turn - copy the material from your beginning ‘A’ section. Make amendments such as changing the order of the last two chords to make the music feel like it is coming to a natural ending.

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Putting it together:

A Section

B Section

A1 Section

A2 Section

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5. Adding rhythm as an accompaniment Using Ostinatos to give movement Ostinatos are repeated patterns of music. They can be used to great effect in cinematic music, adding movement and energy. Let’s begin by loading up a staccato string patch from Spitfire Audio’s Discover plugin. As a starting point, we will again use the notes that form each chord as the notes to include in our ostinato. All of the examples below use notes from the A minor chord (A, C and E) Choose one of the following patterns:

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4

Tip 2 .

5

3 .

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You could change ostinatos to reflect the structure of your piece, e.g. change during the ‘B’ section to add further contrast.

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Example:

Below is an example of all 3 elements, having chosen Ostinato 2 to accompany the first ‘A’ section. Note that for the F, C and G major chords, the notes of the ostinato have changed each time.

Your turn - having chosen an ostinato, record or write in with the mouse, an ostinato for the duration of the piece. Make sure to use only the notes which are present in each chord.

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Next Steps Congratulations on achieving your piece of cinematic music! Feel free to experiment with the orchestration of all 3 parts - you can even add some more elements if you are feeling confident. If you are ready to continuing learning about how to compose cinematic music, please subscribe to the Composing Academy Youtube Channel for new composing videos each week. Happy Composing!

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