My Composing Process: Cacophony!

Dear Readers,

I just recently got back to the US from three months of networking in Europe. I lived in three different cities, each for a month each. Berlin in April, Nice in May and Copenhagen in June. In each city I networked with filmmakers, attended film festivals, explored and immersed myself in the culture of each place, and composed folk song sketches on my travel banjo. When I traveled on trains, I developed a habit of recording short videos on my phone of the every-changing landscape outside of the window. Due to the speed of the train, everything from the trees to the tracks would move in a off-kilter, almost stop-motion-esque manner. I thought to myself while recording a train ride from Berlin to Potsdam that it would be cool to set one of these videos to music.

And I have done that, using a video recording that I took on the Heathrow Express train from Paddington Station to the airport (I had a couple day layover in London before flying back to Philly). The footage intrigued me due to its speed and also the content. Other trains flashed by the camera, the scenery in the background changed from wooded, to scattered with buildings, to empty fields, in a matter of seconds. And finally the ending: a massive train entering the frame out of the nowhere. I saw the short narrative and decided that the music would be inspired by the my Heathrow Express ride.

The Initial Sketches + Settling On A Sound

I went through a number of permutations and sketches before settling on the final soundscape. Some pieces sounded more poppy, others were too busy, some melodies didn’t work, and all of it didn’t gel with the video that I was scoring.

So I started a new project in Logic Pro. A blank slate. Titled it “LondonTrain_New”. And from there the piece came to life.

One of the main instigators for the piece’s sound came from a drum track that I programmed:

These are two Spitfire Labs drum kits (1975 and Animal) layered together. The Animal kit has reverb, tremelo and echo while the 1975 kit is being played through an amp. Together they create a harsh, distorted sound that intrigued me. I ran both tracks through the Step FX plugin in Logic which basically creates adds another rhythmic element to the audio file. It took away the spaces and created a driving rhythm that sounded like a train. I added more effects to that (wah wah pedal and distorted reverb) and that is where the main driving element of the piece stemmed from.

The aggressive distorted sound at the very beginning of the piece is a cut up audio recording that I did of traffic in Oslo, Norway. I ran the already loud recording through crunchy distortion and then spliced it into short rhythm beats at the beginning of measures to create a sort of bizarre kick drum. This element combined with the edited drum track developed the signature sound of the piece.

I knew that I wanted drums to be a driving force in the piece. So I loaded up multiple drum kits and layered the beats so that it sounds like a cacophony of drum kits are playing at the same time.

The main melody element of the piece is a distorted piano. I knew that piano would play a part in the piece, but I struggled to find the right piano sound in my computer. I settled on the Soft Piano from Spitfire Audio, but it was too soft and passive. As a solution, I ran the piano through a crunchy amp and it turned into an electric guitar which worked perfectly.

Finally, I used two Foghorn instruments from Spitfire Labs. They are low, aggressive synths that pack a punch and, when run through amps, are even more aggressive and violent sounding.

Recording Soundscapes Around Europe

With the overall instrument soundscape settled, I turned to another important element in this piece: the recorded soundscapes. When I travel, I almost always have a Zoom H4N microphone with me to record soundscapes. These could be of objects, streets, cityscapes, natural spaces (woods and water) or a combo of elements.

All of these were taken during my three month networking trip except for the Italian recordings which were done in December of last year.

In this piece I combine the following recordings:

1) The Tiergarten - Berlin, Germany: Took this recording in a semi-wooded section of the park. It faced the street slightly so you can hear cars in the distance in addition to birds and some voices of people walking by.

2) Wasserturm Park - Berlin, Germany: This is a fantastic park in Prenzlauer Berg. It has this cool circular castle-struction and a hill that overlooks the tv tower in Alexanderplatz. I took this recording in the afternoon when the hill was filled with sun bathers and people just chatting and enjoying the weather.

3) Prenzlauer Alle (Cars + Tram) - Berlin, Germany: Two separate recordings. One of cars going down the large, busy street. I put the microphone less than a foot from where the tires would be so the cars are super clear and close. There were also tram tracks right there, so I put the mic right next to the tracks and waited for a tram to go by,

4) Rue Antoine Gautier (Early Morning) - Nice, France: Woke up early in the morning (like 4am) and heard birds singing outside the window of my apartment near Lympia Port. So I put my mic outside my window and left it there for a while.

5) Nørrebro (Bike Lane) - Copenhagen, Denmark: Placed the mic on a small hill near a busy bike lane in the cool neighborhood of Nørrebro. Got the sounds of bikes going by.

6) Song Bird and Geese in Utterslev Mose - Copenhagen, Denmark: Two different recordings. One close up recording of a small song bird singing a complicated tune. Another was taken on a wooden dock overlooking one of the lates in Utterslev Mose where there were dozens of geese, ducks and swans all grouped together on the bank.

7) Seagulls - Malmö, Sweden: Walking around Malmö I spotted a large grouping of screaming seagulls. Took out my phone and held it up.

8) Via Del Arco Della Fontanella - Rome, Italy: A busy intersection on a bridge going across the Tiber river, not far from the Vatican. Got a large variety of street sounds.

9) Wall of Birds - Florence, Italy: In Florence there was a building that was entirely covered with ivy and plant growth. At night, birds roosted there and twittered and sang in a cacophonous way. It was eerie and made for a good recording.

10) Traffic Near Opera House - Oslo, Norway: Only had my phone with me at the time. At a traffic light near the opera house and train station a motorcycle was making a loud sound that intrigued me.

11) Church bells - Venice, Italy: We stayed in the university quarter of the city, right near the Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore. I timed the recording so I got the chime that it did at 9pm.

12) Heathrow Express Ride (from phone audio) - London, UK: The original audio from the video that I took. You can hear the movement of the train and also some sounds of the passengers.

I adjusted each of these audio recordings in different ways. For example, I changed the EQ (equalisation) of each one to highlight specific audio frequencies and also delete others Ran some through distortion, added limiters to increase the gain, and overall just shaped the sounds so that they blended well together.

The Video Informs The Music (And Vice Versa)

The composition part of this piece was ever developing. But I settled upon the following arc: Opening (slow build from driving synth to drums to piano), Drop (seagulls and church bells), Faster Sprint (new chord progression, aggressive build), Sound world (bird sounds, cars, low distorted synths), Quick ending (church bells again).

The video informed my composing from the very beginning. The intensity of the movement of the train, the background details and the arrival of certain elements in frame all informed the different musical hits. I also liked when certain small details coincidentally lined up with elements in the music, like poles suddenly moving in time with the music or a big tree arriving in a rhythmic manner. The other major breakthrough for me was deciding to turn the vertical video horizontal. It suddenly turned the normal-looking train video into a surreal, disorientating video. I especially loved that the sky, land and tracks became three vertical segments that morphed constantly in a dizzying manner.

I started composing this piece in Philadelphia and finished it after arrival in Los Angeles. I am here for a week and a half doing networking. Once I got to LA, I finalized the composing and mixing of the piece and then started to experiment with the film in iMovie. Instead of it just looking the same the entire video, I decided to have the look of the video change with each section of the piece (Opening, Drop, Faster Spring, Sound world and Quick ending). I discovered the cool comic filter and had different styles of that represent the Opening and Faster Spring. For the Drop I loved the X-ray look because it matched the eeriness of it perfectly. The Sound World has a vintage quality to it, saturated with warm colors. The Quick ending is overexposed and jarring which was exactly what I wanted from that brief but critical moment.

Final Thoughts

I feel like this piece is a natural extension from my piece “Bird Traffic” which I composed in April. And for that “Bird Traffic” I drew from my “little pieces of improvised sound” album from last year. I am really enjoying crafting compositions that have a video component and also blend soundscapes with electronic and acoustic instruments. I find the relationship between soundscapes and music to be very exciting and I want to keep exploring this in future work. I will also be composing more pieces for my multiple other train videos that I took in Europe. So keep an eye out for those.

If you have any questions about this composition or any of my other work, feel free to email me at nicholasescobarcomposer@gmail.com.

Your’s Musically,

Nicholas Escobar

Photo Gallery Charting My Three Months In Europe