Have you heard? 10. Wet Hands

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Have you heard? is a showcase for the unconventional, unique and inspiring music out there that never seems to get the limelight it deserves.

Wet Hands - C418 (2011)

Minecraft is BIG.

I first played it back in 2011, about the same time it had its “official” release, and when Daniel ‘C418’ Rosenfeld completed and released his first album of music for the game. Wet Hands is one of many pieces released as part of this set and is possibly the most iconic. C418 can now claim to be the composer for the best-selling video game of all-time. Impressive feat!

So how does the ambient music for the most successful video game ever made constitute an unconventional, unique or inspiring piece of music?

Wet Hands is a short and simple piano piece. It is not flashy, overbearing or excessively thematic. It is just some soft and relaxing ambient music to help you enjoy your Minecraft adventure. Most people, myself included, will remember this piece for the nostalgia of pixelated dirt and exploding monsters. However, I wanted to highlight this piece for the music itself and the way it fits into the Minecraft world.

The thing I appreciate the most about Wet Hands is how free-flowing and meandering it is. It doesn’t follow any kind of strict structure, instead just doing its own thing. I can relate to that, as it’s similar to how I play piano myself. The key is well-defined and the music deviates from it only a little, but the way it has been put together makes it feels slightly atonal. It’s clever, simple and effective.

With Wet Hands C418 has gracefully found the balance between interesting music and background music. The themes or not fancy or overpowering. When playing Minecraft the music is noticeable but not distinguished. It’s the kind of music you’d remember when you hear it.

To craft it, C418 has opted to employ heavy use of arpeggiated 7th and 9th chords. The key of A-major is fairly open, with some bonus G chords thrown in. The tempo is calm, fluid and relaxing. On top of this C418 used a simple melody to tie together the different chords. Sometimes, the music augments into a different tone, most notably in the middle where things become dominated by the G9 chord and Bm9. Most interestingly, the major fifth chord, E, doesn’t appear until near the end - at which point it makes quite a stark statement against the predominant G chords. C418 has made crafty use of off-beats to emphasise or de-emphasis certain things. This has resulted in the music flowing as if on an adventure - a clever way of capturing the essence of Minecraft.

And of course, being a short piece, it demonstrates that music doesn’t need to be flashy and long to be good. It’s a reminder of how music only needs to be as long as it needs to be. It’s short, beautiful and atmospheric. An absolute joy to listen to in the background of anything.

This piece has no directly influenced my music. I have not yet strived to write atmospheric and ambient music. However, one can certainly draw similarity between this piece and my style of playing piano. When this music came out I had not yet taught myself the piano, so maybe it was influential in how I developed myself as a musician.

One thing that is sure; it was one of the earliest pieces I learnt to play and I still enjoy it to this day!

Happy listening and enjoy!

Composing Spotlight: Piano Sonata in Db

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Hello!

This month’s composing spotlight takes a quick look at the 2017 semi-improvisational piano music Piano Sonata in Db. You can find sheet music at the bottom of this post!

I wrote this because I wanted to write something a little more traditional and I had a nice tune stuck in my head after playing some piano. Of course, I have applied the term “sonata” rather loosely here. Strictly speaking a sonata is a form of music involving a theme, some development and then a restatement. This piece is a bit more free-flowing than that, as I prefer not to stick to the traditional guidelines. But when it came to naming, a loose “sonata” sounded nicer and more appropriate than a generic “fantasia”.

The music is exclusively for piano and begins in common time with a tempo of Allegretto and a (fairly obvious) key of Db-major. It is dolce, it is quiet and it is tender. Right from the start I wanted to create something light, atmospheric and emotional.

I begin by hovering between two notes and mashing the sustain pedal. This IS the theme. And it will continue for the rest of the piece. No mucking around, just straight to it. Then, it’s a simple and emotional piece, so some gentle octaves in the base constitute the melody. Although, it’s more about the harmonics being formed between the right hand quavers and the left hand breves.

Opening bars. This rhythm will continue for the rest of the piece.

There isn’t anything too special at the beginning of the piece. The music is literally just two notes played one after the other, with a bit of slow melodic action in the bass. But after the initial establishment of this I allow a bit more in the higher register and add another portion to the melody. The notes are pretty much the same, just two octaves higher. But at some points it diverges for a bit of super-exciting harmony.

The two-note theme varies itself as required alongside the bass to produce a melody of sorts, but always it will hop back and forth.

The first change comes in bar 55, where the first note of each quadrant of quavers is pushed up a sixth. The effect subtly changes the dynamic of the rhythm and melody from being a two-note phrase to four notes.

It also allows the music to begin slowing and transition into the 12/8 section, where the tempo is kept the same, but now everything is in triplets. This is the traditional ‘B’ section of the music, or in the case of a sonata, the development. The underlying rhythmic theme is retained, but the music instantly becomes more melodic and the previous note become supplementary to the main theme. This is the tender and emotional part.

Transition from 4/4 to 12/8, signalling the start of the ‘B’ (development) section.

Creativity and the free of my improvisational piano are rampant in this section, with rall’s at the end of each phrase and numerous duplets (two notes in the space of three). Everything is incredibly legato. The usually 4-bar phrasing and distinctive chord-per-bar harmony is prevalent here, but the focus is on the melody, not everything else. However, I did take opportunities to embellish a few chords.

The theme in here repeats a few times and augments itself into another chord sequence for a bit, but for the most part it is the same. Hence, it’s a pretty poor ‘development’ section, but it sounds nice, so who cares?

The music then makes its way back to where it started, reiterating the original theme, the ‘A’ section and fading out. It’s a small attempt to loop back and tie it all together, but it was never intended as proper sonata.

But who cares!! It’s a nice piece of music for the piano, great for a tenderful little serenade. So make good use of the sheet music below!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this spotlight!

Project Teaser - October 2019

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Hey everyone! It’s the 11th of the month, so here’s another teaser for my upcoming project(s)!

I love writing thematic music. Music that grows and develops a theme, usually ending in some blockbuster extravaganza. My upcoming project will be no different. In fact, I have made themes the centrepiece of the project. As you can see in the video, I am varying my themes between different pieces of music.

In the case of the video below, the theme is the same set of notes in both pieces of music. The underlying chords are also very similar. The differences are in the tempo, the rhythm and the supporting music. In the first case, the music is slow and gentle, with careful phrasing and delicate harmonies. In the second case it is more hurried, with no emphasis on any particular note except for those enforced by the orchestra hits in the background. The magic is all in how it’s played.

Now the question is: for what reason would I start meddling like this with my themes for?

Only a few more months to go until 2020!