Canyon's Calling is a piece that I wrote for a composing competition in July of 2023 run by Ryan Leach on his YouTube channel. These competitions are run once every quarter and are open to everyone. For entry into the competition, the overall piece cannot exceed 90 seconds, and could not have any lyrics.
This was a solo project that took about 1 week.
This was a solo project that took about 1 week.
This composition was inspired by David Frasheski's artwork (above). For this piece, I wanted to try incorporating sound design elements with a composition, focusing on the single character in the artwork. My main goal was to build a scene around him, with the main focus being on his playing a guitar. I imagined this character had just finished a long day of travel and found this scene as he was looking for a place to rest for the night.
The first 15 seconds of the piece sets the auditory stage, bringing the listener into the scene with wind gusts echoing around the canyon, and the sounds of the horse coming to a stop on the canyon's edge. Sound effects from a free to use library, Zapsplat, were used for this. The horse slowing down was layered with different pieces of leather and fabric rubbing together on top of metal clanking and objects being tossed around inside the bags and pouches seen around the character. All of these were panned from right to left to mimic the motion the horse would have had to take to reach this spot.
For the music in the scene, I wanted to keep it simple and calming. The tuning sequence at the beginning of the piece is a way I used to introduce music into the piece naturally. A previous iteration of the piece was made without the tuning sequence, and it was always jarring and unexpected when the music started by itself. Adding it allowed the music to be introduced naturally while still keeping focus on the character.
The music itself was kept to only using four simple chords, C, D, G, and A Major. An 8-bar pattern was set up with those chords, and the melody was put on top of it. The melody is the character simply playing without too much thought or consideration put into it, playing what comes to mind for him. It wanders around and is simple rhythmically but sticks to the chords underneath it and gives the listener a minute of peace.
The first 15 seconds of the piece sets the auditory stage, bringing the listener into the scene with wind gusts echoing around the canyon, and the sounds of the horse coming to a stop on the canyon's edge. Sound effects from a free to use library, Zapsplat, were used for this. The horse slowing down was layered with different pieces of leather and fabric rubbing together on top of metal clanking and objects being tossed around inside the bags and pouches seen around the character. All of these were panned from right to left to mimic the motion the horse would have had to take to reach this spot.
For the music in the scene, I wanted to keep it simple and calming. The tuning sequence at the beginning of the piece is a way I used to introduce music into the piece naturally. A previous iteration of the piece was made without the tuning sequence, and it was always jarring and unexpected when the music started by itself. Adding it allowed the music to be introduced naturally while still keeping focus on the character.
The music itself was kept to only using four simple chords, C, D, G, and A Major. An 8-bar pattern was set up with those chords, and the melody was put on top of it. The melody is the character simply playing without too much thought or consideration put into it, playing what comes to mind for him. It wanders around and is simple rhythmically but sticks to the chords underneath it and gives the listener a minute of peace.