Happy Thursday!
Today's song marks my first foray into the world of soundtrack composing. Track number 9 from my album Legacy is entitled "The Descent".
This song has its origins dating back to my undergraduate studies in music at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. During that time, several of my friends were in the communications & videography program and as their final project, they were working on a short film. The story was actually quite interesting -- imagine a very condensed, 15 minute version of "The Matrix" meets William Gibson's "Neuromancer". Both "The Descent" and "Zero" were intended to be used in this film.
The song gets its title from a scene in the movie where the protagonist connects his consciousness to the Internet and descends into it. Unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances left me unable to participate in the project, but I really liked what I had come up with. Ultimately, I was still able to use "The Descent" for my own final project, which I'm sure didn't sit well with our very conservative and very anti-pop/rock music department.
After graduating, I had an opportunity to submit "The Descent" to a contest for possible inclusion on the soundtrack for the 2000 Adam Sandler film "Little Nicky". The contest was held on the now-defunct Garage Band website (which existed several years before Apple's desktop music app). This site used a democratic, blind, A-B comparison voting system that allowed both members and the general public to listen to entries and vote A or B. There were about 1,900 entries by the final submission date, and by the final week of judging, "The Descent" had peaked at #9 but ultimately fell to #13 at the end of the contest. Only the top 10 finalists were considered for the soundtrack, so I didn't quite make it, but I still felt pretty good about that level of positive response.
Now in terms of what changed from the original version to this new version, there isn't a huge number of changes, but they are rather significant changes. The first change was the addition of bass guitar. Previously, the bass was handled by synthesizers. The bass guitar added an aggressive punchiness to the low-end of the song that I didn't even realize was missing. I also did a minor rewrite of the bridge section of the song. The original riff was too chaotic and didn't mesh well with the rest of the material.
The biggest change was the key change. When I originally wrote the song as a purely synthesizer song, it was in C minor. This didn't fit well on guitar, so on the first recorded version with guitar, I transposed the song up 4 semitones to E minor. The E minor version played nicely on guitar, but it wasn't as dark and heavy. So for the new version included on Legacy, I used my 7-string Jackson RR7R Flying V guitar, and I transposed it back down past C minor, all the way down to B minor, which fits perfectly on that low B of the 7-string guitar.
I'll have another "Story Behind the Song" for you tomorrow, then I'll be taking another break for the weekend. If you'd like to pick up a copy of my album Legacy, please visit http://chrisstark.com for links to buying an autographed CD, digital downloads, iTunes, Google Play, or Amazon MP3.
Today's song marks my first foray into the world of soundtrack composing. Track number 9 from my album Legacy is entitled "The Descent".
This song has its origins dating back to my undergraduate studies in music at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. During that time, several of my friends were in the communications & videography program and as their final project, they were working on a short film. The story was actually quite interesting -- imagine a very condensed, 15 minute version of "The Matrix" meets William Gibson's "Neuromancer". Both "The Descent" and "Zero" were intended to be used in this film.
The song gets its title from a scene in the movie where the protagonist connects his consciousness to the Internet and descends into it. Unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances left me unable to participate in the project, but I really liked what I had come up with. Ultimately, I was still able to use "The Descent" for my own final project, which I'm sure didn't sit well with our very conservative and very anti-pop/rock music department.
After graduating, I had an opportunity to submit "The Descent" to a contest for possible inclusion on the soundtrack for the 2000 Adam Sandler film "Little Nicky". The contest was held on the now-defunct Garage Band website (which existed several years before Apple's desktop music app). This site used a democratic, blind, A-B comparison voting system that allowed both members and the general public to listen to entries and vote A or B. There were about 1,900 entries by the final submission date, and by the final week of judging, "The Descent" had peaked at #9 but ultimately fell to #13 at the end of the contest. Only the top 10 finalists were considered for the soundtrack, so I didn't quite make it, but I still felt pretty good about that level of positive response.
Now in terms of what changed from the original version to this new version, there isn't a huge number of changes, but they are rather significant changes. The first change was the addition of bass guitar. Previously, the bass was handled by synthesizers. The bass guitar added an aggressive punchiness to the low-end of the song that I didn't even realize was missing. I also did a minor rewrite of the bridge section of the song. The original riff was too chaotic and didn't mesh well with the rest of the material.
The biggest change was the key change. When I originally wrote the song as a purely synthesizer song, it was in C minor. This didn't fit well on guitar, so on the first recorded version with guitar, I transposed the song up 4 semitones to E minor. The E minor version played nicely on guitar, but it wasn't as dark and heavy. So for the new version included on Legacy, I used my 7-string Jackson RR7R Flying V guitar, and I transposed it back down past C minor, all the way down to B minor, which fits perfectly on that low B of the 7-string guitar.
I'll have another "Story Behind the Song" for you tomorrow, then I'll be taking another break for the weekend. If you'd like to pick up a copy of my album Legacy, please visit http://chrisstark.com for links to buying an autographed CD, digital downloads, iTunes, Google Play, or Amazon MP3.
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