HOW TO SCORE A TELEVISION SHOW

Diving Deeper Into The Technical Aspects

BACKGROUND: The directions for this project were to score a scene from the television show Grey's Anatomy. I was given a 2:00 brief and production plan from my professor, Brad Hatfield at Berklee College of Music, to complete the score. Dr. Hatfield gave very detailed descriptions of wanting a score that could stand alone without the visuals, yet tell the story too.  He left any inspirations up to me. Therefore, after watching the originally scored scene, I created a song in the style of contemporary pop. My inspiration came from  "Chasing Cars," by Snow Patrol, and the scores of Life of Pi"by Mychael Danna, and A Walk To Remember, by Mervyn Warren.  EMOTIONAL REACTIONS: The scene I scored was of Meredith Grey drowning, while her daughter searches for her with her co-worker Derek Shepherd. Meanwhile, the episode counter shows another character named Christina Yang reflecting on her medical decisions regarding a patient back at the hospital.  ​ Due to the severity of the scene, the innocence within her daughter's reaction when the audience realizes she does not understand what is happening, and Meredith's reaction of relief when she stops struggling from drowning, it all made me feel a sense of peace in the most intense moments of danger. With that being said, I chose a string quartet made up of: a violin, 2 violas, and a cello, in addition to two vocal leads played by the piano and a harp. All of these instruments are associated with drama, romance, peace, and unity; which I felt these characters were experiencing. ​ TECHNICAL ASPECTS: When it came down to the technical aspects of creating the score the first step I took was composing the music. I used two apps to complete this step, the first is called Piano Chords and Scales©. This application is used to help people who need theory assistance. Within the App, you can do things such as build scales [ie: Ionian(Major), Melodic Minor, Natural Minor, Harmonic Minor, Locrian, Aeolian, Mixolydian, Lydian, Phrygian, or Dorian], chart chords by building chord progressions, and it allows the user to manually shift chord inversions! This is a great use for practice with modulation and syncopated rhythms. Specifically, it helped me build the key (or scale) of my song which was then used to chart my chord progressions, and help me figure out a common pitch that would make the melody have less dissonance and more consonance.  ​ Once I charted the physical properties of my song, I then visually notated the chord progressions, and note values into a notation software called Musescore 3™. In Musescore, it allowed me to choose the title of the song, subtitle of my song, name myself as the composer and lyricist, and copyright the song under my personal recording label, "JJAJ Productions LLC," before entering the notation studio to work.  ​ Once the basics were done, I set up my clefs [I was given the option to write for various instruments such as Piano, Choral (vocal), Chamber (various quarter sections such as wind, strings, saxophone, brass, or wind quintet), Solo (guitar, piano, or voice lead), Band and Percussions (rock band, big band, jazz lead, battery, a small pit, large pit, etc.), or Orchestral (full string, symphonic, or classical)]. At this point in my process, I had only charted the homophonic lead melody and harmonic components, so I chose a piano's grand staff (which consists of the treble and bass clefs). ​ Then I set up my key signature based on my chartings from the Piano Chords and Scales© app. This is one of the easiest parts to do, considering when I charted my chords I had to also prepare my key, which is the same as building my scale of choice.  To anyone who composes, this is one of the main reasons this app is a wonderful brainstorming tool for beginning your process. ​  After brainstorming, I chose my time signature: common time (4/4). They do have the option to choose Cut Common time (2/2) or build a custom time signature. However, since I knew my genre was contemporary Pop, I wanted my music to stay as simple as possible. A tip to remember is that common time is usually easier for audiences to follow along with, as it mimics the natural tap of the human heart. And if I had decided to use 3/4 time then it would make the song a waltz style song which it was not, and the common cut time would build a faster tempo base than needed.  ​ So, once my time signatures were set I began thinking about the number of measures I would need. For this project, I preset my song to 20 measures, which is about a 1:00-1:30 minute song. Even if I didn't have enough measures during the setup process, I did know a tip to add measures using the palette tool. So once my foundation was set, I began the process of writing the music into the notation software by making sure the Note Input (N) button, that is located in the top left-hand corner, is turned on so that I could manually drag notes to the staff, or input them by keyboard strokes (the note values are represented in Musescore™ by the number pad on your keyboard. For example #5 on the keyboard number pad = ♩a quarter note).  ​ First, I input my chords into the bass staff. Next, I did the same for the melody into my treble staff.  Once the entire song had been inputted into Musescore™, I relistened to the song from the beginning by clicking on the rewind to start position ||◢, and then clicking 'spacebar' to play.  I repeated this several times to make sure the keys were inserted properly, to listen for heavy dissonance or lack of variety. Next, I went through the score measure by measure and inserted articulation marks in places where I needed there to be accents, tenutos, or fermatas for dramatic effects or sudden loud movements.  ​ I considered adding some grace marks, like ties and slurs, to make the music flow better or elongate the chords. And any dynamics such as forte, piano, or moderato were also added to these sections for volume effect. Then, I added crescendo marks in places where I needed to build up the sound to fit the climax, and decrescendo marks for silence in places where I needed to add a breath (this can also be done by adding several breath marks); and all of these options (and many more) are inputted via the Palettes tool section that can be located by clicking on view in the control bar,  or by clicking on F9 on your keyboard. ​ Once the score was complete, I clicked shift on my keyboard, while simultaneously holding down the right-hand side of my mousepad, and dragged the cursor over the entire score to select every single marking on the staff. If you have a MacBook you can click on command + A to do the same thing. After this, I went to the "file" section in the header, and where it says "export," I exported my file as an uncompressed musicxml file and saved it to a folder that I could easily find and access.  ​ When I opened my DAW, digital audio workstation (which in this case I used Logic Pro X™,) I started a new project with 4 software instrumental patches and 3 audio patches. When my musical patch library opened, I choose the multitrack patch known as a full orchestra. Once the patch loaded, I clicked on the edit button to manipulate the quartet into the one I needed which had: 2 viola midis, 1 violin midi, and 1 cello midi. Then I clicked on another software instrument patch and choose the prebuilt harp as my lead voice. Additionally, I chose a generic drum kit for my rhythm section and a piano for my supporting duet voice. ​ Once the system was set-up, I went to 'file' located in the top right of the computer bar, and went down the list to the 'movie' section under "print."  I opened the movie (which was identified as an mp4 or mov file in my computer archive) so it could produce itself in Logic as a cut style film that can be manipulated with the audio cursor. Then I went back to "file" and I went down the list to "import," and clicked on the "musicxml file." When the computer archives opened I searched for the musicxml file I saved from Musescore3™ and I opened it in Logic Pro X™. Now, the score had transferred to my DAW, just as I saved it and created it within Musescore™.  Once this was complete, I cut and copy where I needed to create loops and harmonic sections for each instrumental patch until my song was complete and ready to be mixed down.