My Composing Process: In These Times (2020)

Dear Readers,

It was my great pleasure to compose the theme music for a fantastic six-part podcast series produced by the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts and Sciences. The podcast series “explores the science, social science, and history that has shaped events in 2020”. The first two episodes were just released on October 28th and can be heard on streaming platforms, as well as on the “In These Times” website: https://web.sas.upenn.edu/in-these-times/.

I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you how I composed the score for this podcast. In the process, you will see how I creatively approach a project, and how I musically experiment until I discover the right sound.

A Tale of Three Demos

I was brought onto this project at the beginning of August and in a matter of ten days produced the final version of the main theme. This was the first time that I composed music for a podcast. I am a frequent listener of the New York Times Daily podcast, and greatly admire the power of its main theme (composed by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk). The music creates a mood. One that is serious, thoughtful and momentum-inducing. Its orchestration is clear and concise, sparse at times and, crucially, allows for space for the human voice (i.e. narration). It was with this, albeit small, knowledge of podcast music that I begin thinking about how I can adapt my own musical voice for this medium.

The First Demo

I began this composition process like any other: opening a new empty file in Logic X and adding in different instruments/sounds and experimenting. At this point I was staying at a house on a lake in Maine so I only had my 2-octave X-key keyboard to compose on. I wanted to craft a theme that felt serious, but not overly dramatic. It was a tightrope to walk for sure. I equally didn’t want it to sound too saccharine. Musically, I sought to create a sense of uncertainty, worry, stress and distress. The first demo that I created was a mixture of synthesizers and synthetic instruments:

While intriguing to listen to, this demo felt too busy, too hectic, and too dissonant. I understood this, and accepted that this demo was just a step in the direction of finding the right sound. So, I kept experimenting, taking some instruments from the first demo and repurposing them.

The Second Demo

You can hear that all the elements are now here. I utilize the repetitive, driving piano line, the synthetic long string sound and the drum kit from the previous demo, as well as a couple of the synths. However, a lot has also changed. I have essentially completely recomposed the piece. The process of improvising and composing the main melody/chord progression was greatly helped by the fact that, after returning home from Maine, I had access to a full 88-key piano.

I decided to create a melody based around a descending bass line. The reason being that, in my view, a descending bass line that keeps repeating in a cyclical manner represents the year 2020 quite accurately. From personal experience, these times that we are living in feel unabating, exhausting and repetitive. To me, it feels as if I’m running on a treadmill but not going anywhere. This bassline, which structures a chord progresion that contains a mixture of major and minor chords, similarly never ceases and its end destination is for the most part unclear (until the very end, when it concludes with a jarring sequence of three chords).

This second demo contains a lot of positive musical developments. The melody (see above) works quite well. It has this sense of movement, a feeling of metamorphosis and development, but also it has a serious tone to it. It is not too complicated, allows for a lot of sonic room and doesn’t feel too busy. One of the main negatives for this demo was that it felt too big, especially near the end. My use of a large string ensemble, solo cello, the multi-tongued trumpets and the 80’s style arpeggiated synth felt too bombastic, overly dramatic and also a bit messy from an orchestration perspective. I knew I was close though, and three days later I composed, what became, the final version of the main theme.

The Third (and Final) Demo

Now before I dive into it, I urge you to listen to the second and final demos and decide for yourself what the differences are between them. Because, if you take a step back, you can hear that they are quite similar in terms of their structure, and from a melody/chord progression perspective. But, the key difference is that the tone has changed. While the second demo feels more like a Hollywood-style sweeping score, the final version feels more toned down, simple, spacial and cerebral.

The metallic rhythm sequence that I crafted from my “Metallic Metals” sound-kit.

All the string textures are gone except for one string path that is simply a held out, quiet, processed sordino (muted) note that serves to create a nice back-bone pad sound. Now, the main theme is being played by the guitar. I performed two different acoustic guitar parts: one playing the melody and one playing the bass line. The solo guitars playing this melody feels vastly different from the strings. Not epic, and instead more sparse. I drew from the bass line from the second demo, and doubled it with keyboard synth sounds from Spitfire Labs. This forms a counter-melody to the main theme.

The main addition to this demo are the metallic textures. For my score for Charlie Chaplin’s The Immigrant I recorded a sound-kit with a bunch of metal rods, shelves and coils. I used bits of this sound-kit to create a semi-complex driving rhythm that becomes the momentum that moves this piece forward.

This metallic beat helped me further craft the percussion for the rest of the score, and also added a unique sound to the piece’s overall palette. The drum parts in particular are quite odd. They are spread out across three different tracks, and are not necessarily made with a real drum-kit in mind. Instead I use small drum rolls and cymbal hits are accents that blend into the percussive texture.

Overall this finalized demo is spacious, allows for narration and sets the right tone.

Bouncing Stems

After this demo was finalized, I created individual audio files for different parts of the piece (such as the drums, metal beats, organ, basses, piano, guitar, strings, etc.). That way the producers of the podcast could use elements of the score to create entirely different cues and elongate specific sections of the theme to fit into the opening and closing of different episodes. The use of stems allows for musical flexibility for the podcast producers.

Conclusions

My process for composing this score was gradual, and required the building-up of different sonic ideas before I finally landed on the right sound for this podcast’s main theme. Each step in the process was crucial. For example, elements in the first demo are present in the final version. This is a workflow technique that I constantly utilize I seek to create a unique sonic palette/soundscape for every project that I work on, and this process of experimentation, musical development and improvisation helps me accomplish that.

As always, thank you for reading. If you have any questions about how I composed this score, or generally about how i go about composing music for media, feel free to email me at nicholasescobarcomposer@gmail.com or use the contact sheet at the bottom of this page.

Your’s Musically.

Nicholas Escobar

This is the finalized Logic file for this score. You can see that in the keyboard section I have a mixture of synth keys from Spitfire Labs, the Soft Felt piano from Spitfire Labs and an organ. I also blended both a picked bass and an electric bass … — This is the finalized Logic file for this score. You can see that in the keyboard section I have a mixture of synth keys from Spitfire Labs, the Soft Felt piano from Spitfire Labs and an organ. I also blended both a picked bass and an electric bass for the bass line to give this layered, meaty sound.