Music

I've composed 2 backing tracks in Garage Band with the help of my brother Sam. Track 1 is a more upbeat happy track which I felt would show his forced happiness in contrast to the sadness that track 2 showcases.
Track 1
Track 2

Track 1

I selected a hip hop drummer because I thought it would suit the theme of the music I was looking to make and would be quite upbeat. I felt that the drums did become too prominent so I used the beat but changed the instrument to a crate digger, which toned the 'shells' down.

I used these instruments because I felt like they worked well together and enforced the beat and are typically used in the upbeat backing tracks found in YouTubers' videos.

I selected these notes on the acoustic guitar, they are all major chords in the C Major key, this was the foundation of the music that I created everything else to as I knew it would create an upbeat style song.

I selected these notes on the bass guitar because I felt that they were quite happy, but I tried copying the bassline from the piano melody, which didn't fit so I found something more simple and it was effective. I also increased the speed on the guitar to enforce this.

I looped the music until the end of the track where I progressively removed the instruments because I felt like it made it more simplistic which is what I wanted.

Track 2

This shows the instrument layout of the second track, which is a lot more simplistic. This was done for two reasons;
1. the removal of some instruments means that the dialogue is accentuated, making the atmosphere seem sadder.
2. I tried experimenting with strings and percussion, from the smart drummer and creating my own loops and using various string sections, but it sounded too busy and forced, and I thought emphasis would be taken away from the dialogue.

These are the same chords as in track 1, but they are minor variants, which means that the transition is easy between the two.

Reflective Comment: Although I'm not a fan of the music I produced I feel like it may be better in the background than no music in most cases. I also think it may suit the theme of the documentary and compliment it nicely. It was also a different experience to learn how to use garage band which I hadn't used before creating this music.