I am so enthralled by the composition of divided we scroll, the use of traditional strings and synths perfectly encapsulates the relationship between the organic humanity and the artificial, constructed devices we seem to have tethered ourselves to. And the fact that said strings are warped in pitch emphasises that idea of how we are being changed over time. There’s this strong sense of foreboding, from the anxious melody to the deep bassline on the synths, the aforementioned warped strings and glitched/delayed tones, all of these things form a composition that really presents itself as something that should be payed attention to, the subject matter is serious and should be worth considering. I would be interested to know the process behind this composition, both in the nitty gritty technical side of what synth was used, which daw and plugins etc, but also in terms of, what was the development like, was Alexandra given a the footage and brief and then free reign, or (due to its nature as a dance piece) was the composition made before and then the edit was done around that? I wonder if there is a standard way to do this or if it does vary from production to production.
Attempting a Response
In this particular response it turned out to be just an attempt at scoring, having no musical talent/ knowledge I went in with how I wanted it to feel. There was quite a foreboding, grand, slightly ethereal sense to the scoring in Divided we Scroll. Which in shorthand means slow and with reverb, I found a good preset on the Air Hybrid 3 virtual synth, I altered it slightly but overall it had this good slightly mysterious vibe to it. From there I found a 4 note pattern that sounded good and then just looped that a few times, ultimately I ended up just shortening it down to one use of that loop to make room for the next ‘melody’. In this case I used a preexisting orchestral loop which I put through Fracture XT which is a granular glitch processor. The traditional orchestral sound which has been glitched matches the theme and feel of Alexandra’s warped strings quite well I think. Over the back of it all I used a noise maker to create a deep wind which I feel adds more atmosphere to the overall score. Alexandra uses a transition or two to switch between segments and so I made one of my own, using a harsh wind from that noise maker I applied a doppler effect that’s built in to audition and then gave it more thickness with a chorus, vocal synth and a compressor. Overall I think it works quite well, it’s dark and mysterious which was what I was kind of going for. I think I should have shortened the second melody and not the first as that was more interesting to listen to and a lot of that glitchy feel can be quite abrasive after a while.