Welcome
For those who may have missed the "script" or backstory to this instrumental that's listed on its BandCamp page, let me take a moment and share it here:
A remarkable young maiden is pursued through the forest at midnight by an angry, ignorant mob from her village. They are jealous and afraid of her magical beauty and intelligence. She is completely innocent, but accused of witchcraft to justify their intent to murder her in order to remove the perceived threat they believe she might pose to their ordinary lives. For a few moments she comes upon an abandoned chapel and takes refuge there, contemplating her
loneliness and betrayal before continuing her effort to escape...
Last week we got our first peek under the hood of "Witch Hunt." This week I'll continue the origin story of this track. For a quick review, here's a link to the rhythm guitar part that started it all:
After I recorded that, I went back and added some high, bell-like softening "Fairy Tones" to give it a mystical, delicate (feminine beauty) feel along with a super-low, deep bass drum, for a primal power touch (an ominous heartbeat, and also representitive of the impending violence of the menacing pursuers). The sample is called "Taiko Drum":
That ancient, primal feel of the Taiko Drum reminded me of a composition I recorded for my "
WATER CIRCLE" album (1994) called, "
Ancient Ritual," and I began to hear
the same repetitive chord figure (that comes in at 1:07 in that song) over what I had so far, so I tried it and came up with this Electric Piano additional "Ancient Ritual" layer:
Next, to further the ancient, spiritual feel I wanted to create (and glue it together), I experimented with adding a church organ to the mix. This acheived two important compositional ends: 1)provided a sustained part to contrast the more rhythmic elements I already had, and 2)provided more definition (contrast) between the first and second sections (verse and chorus, if you like) that I had written so far:
Finally, to nail down the low end and add a little more dark power, a Bass Guitar part was added. At this point I pretty much had the accompaniment (backing track) complete. The lead (melody) would be the finishing touch. At this point I had the first formal section figured out, but there needed to by a second, contrasting section to extend the story. This is where I came up with the idea for taking refuge in the abandoned chapel in the woods (through which she was being pursued). A dark
and introspective piano part is where this second section had its beginning. You will hear it begin after the first section comes to a close:
To further the dark, mysterious power of the abandoned chapel, I added some low strings next, to reinforce the low end power, and being a repetitive piano pattern, it needed to evolve with the eventual addition toward the end with another instrument, and since it's a place of worship, there had to be more organ, which you'll hear enter toward the end of the clip. Again, an example of contrasting a sustained part (organ) with a rhythmic (non-sustained piano) part:
At this point, I felt the need to return to the original section, after all, she's being pursued and can't stay there indefinitely, and the ABA form is a tried and true formula, so I used the repetitive "Ancient Ritual" Electric Piano along with her "Fairy Bell Tones" figure/motive to transition back to the first theme. (That transition back to the first section is my favorite part!)
And that's how it was done! Hope you enjoyed the journey, and I look forward to sharing more music with you next week.
(Click on the graphic below to hear the finished version with the melody (lead guitar), and see if you can pick out all the hidden parts, now that they have been revealed!)
