The idea of “Reverse” is the theme of all my works in the final year project. The project involves two songs, or three, depends how you think. There are many things that could be reversed even just in music and I have applied it into my songs. My intention for the project is simple and straightforward: To provide a new way for listeners to listen and encourage them to think in a different way like reverse.
It is pretty fun to work on the project as I consider the idea of reverse is full of possibilities, interesting and unique. I am quite satisfied with the things I have created during the whole process. It is quite a relieve as I see myself as a perfectionist and I always want my works to be perfect. Even though there are still some flaws within the song, I think it is already good. From the project, I have learnt more on the operations of DAW. As a new Ableton user, it has been a great experience to create my project with it. I have also gained a lot of knowledge, in the aspect of mixing and musical arrangement. With the theme I have discovered more on chord progressions and sound design, providing me a new way of writing music. The best thing from the project I would say is that I have gained a sense of accomplishment, which I barely had. Making something good is such a great feeling as I have overcome the difficulties I have faced.
I want to give credits to people who have been giving advice and ideas here as well, since they have made contributions to my projects and made it better. First, I would like to thank Lung Wei for guiding and consulting my work. He has reminded me to think more on the artistic value of my work, which helps me to understand more on it. I would like to thank Julian and Charles as well for providing advice on mixing and arrangement. Lastly, I would like to thank Ip Long, Jeff Chan and Spyro Kong for giving comments on my work so that I can improve it. Thank you so much for reading. I hope you will enjoy and get inspirations from my work.
INTRODUCTION
The first song “ALTEREGO” is presenting the idea of reversing the lyrics and chord progression. This song is about dream but that’s not the main idea because I want to present the idea of reverse. This song is in C major with BPM 144. It is metal at the first part and EDM at the part. Could I call this fusion? Maybe. In order to strengthen the idea, I try to make a contrast in terms of instrumentation and style. The first part sound realistic and analog, just like the reality where you may have to give up your dreams, while the second part sounds artificial and digital just like dreams that is hard to achieve. There is a little easter egg from my song as well. If you listen the drops closely, you may find out that the vocal chop lead is actually morse code:
--- --. . .-. . - .-.. .-
A L T E R E G O
.- .-.. - . .-. . --. ---
Drop 1
Drop 2
The idea is inspired from my classmates Jeff’s song “UTOPIA”. The counter lead of the drop also carries the similar idea but this time instead of morse code I assign them into the notes of the scale (i.e., A = 1, B = 2, …, K = 11 = 1 + 1, L = 12 = 1+2, …, Z = 26 = 2+6). Regarding the key to the song is C major, that means 1 is C, and 2 is D respectively. 9 is the D note with one octave higher and 0 is the B note that is lower than the 1 (C note). Here are the results:
Drop 1
Drop 2
I get this idea from a video called “Encoding the Fibonacci Sequence Into Music” and I realize it sounds great as I apply the idea into the song. The same idea applies to the melody of intro and outro. So yeah, this is a little easter egg that is hidden inside the song.
The second, and also the third song “MOOD” and “DOOM” is presenting the idea of reversing the sound wave, meaning that they are actually the same song but playing in different direction. Therefore, this is one song, or two songs. Quantum physics…you know that. These two words are palindromes, and this is also the reason why I choose them to be the song name. I don’t want to imply which song is the inverted one as I think that the polar will change in different points of view. But if you are asking which one is on the project session. My answer would be…guess! Anyway, this song is about emotion. To me, I think having emotions is one of elements that made someone a human and different from animals. Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher has once said that “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.”. This is what “MOOD” tries to imply. It is vice versa to “DOOM”, which is about being ruthless and numb. These two things are opposite, which is an idea of reverse.
O G E G E T L A
I would say the research period started since March last year. The prototype of the lyrics was created around that time and I have been editing and asking for advice since then. As I believe that even though there are always alternative words that can replace some of the words from the lyrics, it is still different from what I try to express in the song. Therefore, all of my works come up with lyrics first, then the music, which I assume it is pretty different from how people usually write a song with lyrics. I cannot tell the exact time of arrangement period and production period because it happens at the same time. It is also the research period as I did amendments to my work every time when I find something better. However, I would like to talk about my theme. The idea of reverse came up probably around the time when I have written the very first draft of “ALTEREGO”. Since then, I realized that thinking something in an opposite way is interesting. Recommended by Alan, I have watched TENET, a movie by Christopher Nolan, it inspires me a lot towards the idea. “It is pretty cool to watch something in backwards, what about the sound?” The question has led me to create something that I never have done before, and that is how the theme of my project come up.
PROCESS
DIFFICULTIES FACED AND SOLUTIONS
There are quite a lot of problems faced throughout the entire production period in different aspects like song writing and arrangement. Let’s start with the first song “ALTEREGO”. The biggest difficulty for this song would be the lyrics. As mentioned above the second verse of the lyrics is the retrograde of the first verse’s lyrics. The idea is simple to understand but very hard to write, as the lyrics have to be rational and grammatically correct in both forwards and backwards direction. In order to write something like this, I have done some research on the internet and I figured out that this type of article is called “Palindrome”. In the research stage I have read some palindrome works of Chinese literature as well such as “四時山水詩” by 吳絳雪. I have also gathered Chinese words that can also form words even if written in backwards (e.g. 首回 - 回首, 好友 - 友好) and try to combine them into sentences.
Another difficulty of this song would be the arrangement of the song. As the structure of the song is not so common (As there are 2 verses only), I have to think more on the arrangement so that it sounds fine and smooth even with 2 verses only. However, it doesn’t bother me that much because soon I have come up with the idea of designing the structure of the song (Intro – verse – drop – drop – verse – outro). The main problem would be the chord progressions because I want to enhance the idea of reverse, meaning that the chords have to reversed as well. Therefore, I have improvised and finding chord progressions that matches the requirement. Among these chord progressions I think the I – IV chord progression is the best because it carries a strong sense of harmonic direction and it can form the plagal cadence when it flips. Therefore, I have used it in the chorus. You may find that the first chord of the drop 1 is in V chord (G major). This is because the last chord of drop 2 will be V as well, which will form half cadence, creating a suspended and incomplete feeling, just like a dream waiting to be achieved like what it is in the lyrics. Thus, using the V chord in drop 1 has created a pentatonic feeling (G Mixolydian), which matches the common chord progression of rock music.
For the songs “DOOM” and “MOOD”, finding right sounds would be the most important thing as it has to sound good in both forwards and backwards. However, this is slightly easier comparing to creating the lyrics “ALTEREGO” as I have done some research as well before creating “DOOM” and “MOOD”. After doing some research, I have made a brief conclusion of it:
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It is suggested to add reverb so that the sample will sound more smooth
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The lower the attack of the sound, the stronger feeling of rewinding it is
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Regarding to the above rule, it would be great if attack = release of the sound
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EQ Cutoff doesn’t affect the feeling of rewind
With these rules I have a clearer mind to design sounds that fits. Therefore, it doesn’t take so much time for me to think about the sound design for the song. I was quite surprised for what I have created because I feel like I am making something good and unique. If I have to define the genre of the song, I will say it is ambient music because it is mostly covered by pads and reverbs.
Another problem would be writing lyrics, again. If I have to reverse the soundwave, it would be even better if the atmosphere of the song is also reversed. Therefore, I decided to write palindrome lyrics again, but this time it is reversed with each line instead of a word (Because it is much easier). To learn to write them I have looked up some English palindrome literatures on the internet and watched some tutorials. Luckily enough, I found a decent work and so I have made a huge reference of it to my lyrics. The lyrics of these two songs are greatly referenced from a poem called “Pretty Ugly” by Abdullah Shoaib. From his work I have understood the ways of writing a palindrome. It is even easier than I thought: First, write a neutral sentence and set it as an axis. Then, write a sentence with positive feelings on top or below that axis sentence and write the sentence with opposite feeling at the opposite of the former sentence. I thought it would take me so much time to write the lyrics but turns out it doesn’t.
Lastly, same as “ALTEREGO”, the chord progression is a challenge for me because again, the sound wave is directly reversed and so the chord progressions have to make sense as well. Yet since it is an ambient music, the chord progression could be different from pop songs and allowed to be a bit “weird”. Therefore, I created the chord progression with the circle of fifth and run the circle completely because it must work to change the chords. The graphs below show the chord progressions of two songs:
Chord progression of "DOOM"
Chord progression of "DOOM"
As long as it is within the circle of fifth, it works. Therefore, apparently this is even easier than creating chord progressions in “ALTEREGO”.
SONGS
ALTEREGO
MOOD
DOOM
