Composing Spotlight: A Strong Push
Hello!
This month’s composing spotlight takes a look at the orchestral piece, A Strong Push, from my debut album, Journey, in 2014.
I have always wanted to tell the story about this piece. It is the very first piece I wrote that I published and it is the piece that began my serious music-writing career.
I was at university in 2013 and I was increasingly listening to the fantastic soundtracks of some recently (and not-so-recently) released movies and video games. In particular, I liked how moody and melodic some of them were. I ended back at some of the classics like Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean, but then considered how it merges with the atmospheric music of movies like Inception. I liked the idea that the music starts simple and slowly builds up, before then slowly fading away again.
So with this in my mind, it was one dim Christchurch evening where dinner was called. With these thoughts on my mind I began to hop down the stairs, mumbling to myself “dinner, dinner, dinner” over and over again. It was in this moment, that I conceived the beginnings of this piece of music. The repeated “dinner” making up the driving rhythmic base that begins on the piano in bar one and continues relentless throughout the whole piece.
From here, the basics of the piece fall easily in place; the simple, but suspenseful chord sequence, the chaotic offbeats and the super-fashionable guitar riff (which then ended up being on harpsichord). Like the rest of the Journey album, the piece is written for a full orchestra in B-minor.
The opening bars are the piano’s exact rendition of me running down the stairs repeating “dinner” to myself. I start it simple and quiet. The whole piece is meant to be artistic and impressionistic, so I draw things out to really build the painting. Layer upon layer the music will grow, but for now at the beginning it is only the (two!) pianos foretelling the chaos to come.
The distant and quiet beginning of the music.
The name of the piece, A Strong Push, is intended to be a literal description. Think of of it as you listen to the piece: you can feel danger coming, you can sense the chaos and confusion, then the conquest, and finally the subsidence of danger. It is meant to tell the story of a significant challenge that needs to be overcome. To help with this, I created a series of motifs of sorts to identify shifts in the piece as it grows and shrinks.
The first is, of course, those opening bars of endless semiquavers. The music starts with it and the music ends with it. They represent both the chugging along of the boat at status quo, and, through the rising and falling of dynamics, the coming-and-going of danger. In the middle of the piece, the chaos that ensues overrides this beat, representing the pure instinct and reflex that governs human behaviour in tight situations. No longer are you consciously thinking about the danger, no instead you are thinking and responding directly to its impacts.
The second motif to appear is a small call on the horns. This call appears multiple times throughout the piece and adds suspense and foreboding. It is meant to represent a warning - the recognition and foreshadowing of conflict. As the music grows, so too does the warning call. However, when the music begins to de-escalate the call does not reappear in any significant form, for this would not make sense. It is still there, fading into the distance, but it is a shadow of the past.
The horn call in its second appearance.
The third motif signals the beginnings of chaos with the violins suddenly breaking into some crazy off-beat arpeggio as if they were trying to negotiate their way around some block in their way. This is exactly intended and this motif is what forms the basis of the middle “dramatic” section of the piece. The start of the arpeggios forms one half of the forthcoming beats and then end of the arpeggios is the second half. The catch being that the arpeggios are not rhythmically even.
Death by offbeats for the first violins.
The fourth and fifth motifs are the off-beat attacks to accompany the first violins. They start small and simple, but slowly add oomph. When they begin we only have one kind adding emphasis to the string notes, but eventually it devolves into the two different kinds - one to emphasise the start and one to emphasise the end. The result is a constant off-beat jabbing of attacks from around the orchestra. Of course, below this the percussion is driving it forward, filling the gaps and tying it together.
After this there is a fork of the string arpeggios where it descends into just full semiquavers. The tune that comes out is recognisable to the arpeggios, but the rhythm and feeling is totally different. Of course, this is helped by the arpeggios continuing underneath on other instruments. It adds to the atmosphere and the chaos, and helps bring it to the climax.
Finally, on top of all of this is the melody and it’s associated harmonies. The melody is simple and features mostly on the guitar. It includes diminished and seventh chords, adding to the mystery and uncertainty as the music swells. There is little variation, for little is needed. The music grows in intensity simply by adding more instruments and mixing the different motifs together.
Melody in the guitar, with one set of offbeat attacks and supporting harmonies across the strings.
At the music’s peak, when the choir is chanting, the orchestra is swelling and the chaos is exploding, the trumpets let out a finalising call. One final effort; a strong push. It is here, with triple forte to mark the occasion that the music begins to de-escalate. Slowly, the instruments fall away and the dynamic drops back to the solo pianos and pianissimo. The driving beat is all that remains as it fades into the distance. The danger has passed and the journey can continue.
That is part three of the eight-part Journey series.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this spotlight!