Tsuya - Postmortem

This was posted as someone was asking everyone's process of how they came up with their submission. I consider it a postmortem but these are all the thoughts that went through my head while working. Thank you for taking the time to read <3

For me, I saw the picture and theme but couldn't work on my submission before the weekend. Having around 24 true hours to work on this jam, I decided that I would probably be doing one piece that had to have multiple beats on the same track, as I wasn't sure I would be able to do more than 1 track.

As for ways of working, my process was to understand what the theme meant to me personally, and understand the emotions that I am feeling.

From there I start sketching out the idea for the story of what and where this song is supposed to be played, and also visually imagine the scene.

The goal then is to write the melody and a few chords that would translate the exact feelings I want to express in the song. At this stage there is no need for me to work linearly, but really dig into the emotions until i have a few motives that work to express the feelings I want the song to express.

So I feel emotions, be it happy, sad, melancholic, euphoria, a mix of those... Letting them bloom feels like the process that is most natural to me.

Once I have a few motives that feel the closest to the emotions I want to express in general with the piece, I go from there and just build upon the idea that feels the best and most expressive and that would fit the lore and theme I'm working towards.

Orchestration starts taking place here and i structure the song with different phrases like AABCCD in this case, where repeating a phrase is not exactly just the same as the previous one, but builds upon it. Chords in repeating phrases can be similar but usually the first phrase of a repeating sequence does not end the same way than the second one. The goal is to create enough tension on the first phrase so the release on the second phrase is that much more rewarding.

In Tsuya (link: https://soundcloud.com/kevin-fernandes-878873752/tsuya-main-theme) this can be heard on the AAB pattern, where the repeating A phrase doesn't end the same way. The first one is stripped off and ends with tension, the second one is fuller and keeps the momentum of the and ends differently. In Tsuya I decided to have the release of the tension on the start of the B phrase instead of closing the tension immediately at the end of A. So actually the second A phrase in the repeating sequence ends with even more tension. This is on purpose as I want the B phrase to be the big emotional overwhelming phrase of the piece. Building that much tension I feel helped overwhelm the listener when volume, instrumentation and general orchestration all work in tandem to provide a huge relief, even if that relief happens in sadness. My mental image here, is when you start crying and try to hold tears, but the tension at some point becomes overwhelming and you are flooded by all these emotions that can sometime even contradict themselves. This image is purported by the fact that this is the moment the little child feels this exact thing happen to them. While they were drawing their deceased mother into the drawing and trying to hold the emotions, they end up breaking up.

The B phrase is meant to not just be full of despair, but transition in 8 Bars from Sadness, to incredible melancholy to despair. The chords and melody support that choice and I think I did a good enough job where the listener might feel almost confused by the different emotions that happen almost simultaneously. The most important thing to me was to work with the melody and chord progression that would flow through all these emotions one by one naturally and without hiccups. It was important to build a progression that would naturally fit how our emotions can go from one to another in a moment's notice with us being really aware of the transition.

I was adamant in having some sort of troughs and valleys to the song. I felt that after the B phrase was done, and because I ended in absolute despair, with the chords and melody building tension, but also the general full orchestra being present, I needed to give a moments respite, for the listener, and the little girl.

The C phrase doesn't have the exact same melody on both repetitions, and like A, they do build up as we go. In the first instance, we have piano and cello, like mother and daughter, despair and hope being represented. I knew I wanted to have this moment of respite yes, but I wanted to express the despair in that moment, as a contrast to the piano which sounded like it was trying to comfort the listener and the child. At 1:45 we hear an incredibly dissonant pitch from the cello against the piano melody, that was purposely set up to create immense tragedy and tension. And because there is only 2 instruments playing at that time, the feeling of despair and loneliness felt that much more impacting. I also tried to have the piano play chords in a stable tempo, and let the Cello play a ton. This was important to establish the dynamic between the stability in a way of the mother figure in a children's life, and the almost erratic and infinite questioning and sorrow a child would have on a moment like that one.

The second C phrase, the Cello supported by the piano and some other instruments that fill up the sonic space, seems to morph a tiny bit. Like the efforts of the mother to soothe her child didn't fully work, but still had the tiniest of impact to change the mood from despair to sorrow. This second C phrase ends with again some tension so the final D phrase that ends the piece in a somewhat hopeful manner can be as rewarding as possible.

D phrase I haven't talked but is exactly like the intro but with piano instead of a flute like we had at the start. This was the main motive I worked with when I started the piece, and is supposed to be the lullaby the mother used to sing the child. In the intro, I actually purposely didn't end the lullaby in a proper way, cutting it off as I way to start to build tension. We as humans feel when something is incomplete, even in a passive way, so I wanted to tap into that feeling of uneasiness and tension! The chords are mostly quartile voicings and using colour notes to add tension and mystery. The fact that I have in a way adding the exact key I'm going for makes the listener confused. This is a technique used a lot by japanese musicians and of course Joe Hisaishi which is a big inspiration. These chords built usually in the same way a jazz player would in some ways, have a really huge blend of emotions attached to them due to colour tones and the quartile voicing own quality. I look at quartile voicings like playing mostly a sus4 chord in a way, which is a chord that blurs the exact emotion a traditional chord would have.

I'm using this at the start and at the end to build uneasiness and tension in a softer way that typical super demonstrative chords like i used for the whole piece.

I don't want the whole piece to fully resolve, but to still have this sense of resolution, I actually ended up in a way the lullaby melody. This is my gift to the listener, and a gift to the child. There is hope! Better days will come, it might not be right now, but they will come. now sleep child...

SORRY FOR THE LONG POST: this is the whole thought process I had. It's funny I didn't think of really documenting it but maybe I could put it in a devlog, maybe that would help others like me to find some footing in this realm.

This is my first piece since I started learning piano, music theory (and japanese music) and orchestration, etc... There is a lot of work also on trying to show impermanence but I think that was also a tying theme for other pieces that never happened. If you read all this, ping me @indiekev I'd love to chat <3