When logic was still welcome on the Windows platform, I took my first endeavor on the slippery slope of computer orchestration by loading my Vitious composer samples into Logic’s own EXS24 softsampler… As you can see, dear reader, I hold you in high esteem. As I’m sure you’ve read last week’s entry and are now an expert now on softsamplers and how they work. In case you’re a dumb f*&k, let me elaborate. A sample is a digital representation of sound. It can be anything from a fart and a drum loop, to single notes of an instrument (piano, guitar, you name it). Load the sample into a (soft)sampler (EXS24), which is a software program (nowadays anyway) and when you hook up a keyboard you can actually trigger those samples by playing a key on the keyboard. To finish the whole thing of you want to make a recording and you can do that on a sequencer (Logic). That will give you something like this:
In this song I stitched some decaying left over material together. I have to make a confession. I hate musicals (except the ones by Kander & Ebb). Why do I mention this here? Because I set out to compose one once… Please don’t be shocked… I had already made two attempts at rock operas when I decided to write a musical. I have another confession to make. I love zombie movies. So, it seemed logical to combine the two and write a horror musical called “the New Prometheus” to make the challenge at least slightly exciting. The classics among you will know this was the subtitle of Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein and that was the topic of my musical. I decided to follow the original story (published anonymously in 1818 ) for the most part, with one exception. I turned the scientist’s (Viktor Frankenstein) friend Henry into a Henrietta, to create an interesting love triangle between hero Viktor (19th century nerd), his love affair with adopted sister Elisabeth and the jealous Henrietta. I wrote several treatments and hammered away on my Yamaha PSR 320 to write all the themes for the main characters.
When most of the music was finished and I started writing the lyrics, I finally abandoned the project. I still hated musicals, even if the main character was a limping patched together, grunting zombie. Also, I couldn’t figure out the dance moves for the Creature. The showstopper was the Monster losing one of his limbs in a 6/8 waltz and that – maybe – says it all. So I decided to patch two key themes together and turn it into this orchestra piece.
The opening theme is a variation on the Monster’s theme. The Monster is a very romantic character in the book, so I decided to write romantic and dramatic music for him. The aggressive part that follows is Viktor Frankenstein’s madness. You can see him digging up bodies in the rain and working away with thunder and lightning in the back, while the music pounds on. Then the romantic sequence returns which ends in a desperate cry of the Monster. This is again followed by Viktor’s madness.
Next week, I’ll be back with a different monster. Stay tuned!
