Revisiting an older composition with some new hardware

Lessons Learned

A bit of a break from 23 in '13 for a chance to revisit something I wrote a few years ago. When I initially composed it, it's safe to say that it pushed my computer to its limits: the only way I was able to convince Logic to play it was by bouncing two thirds of the software instruments to disk and purging the samples. Then, editing became annoying because in order to edit, I'd need to reload the samples, and hope the whole system didn't choke. Suffice it to say, it wasn't entirely fun. and I ended up leaving the piece less finished than I would have liked.

Fast forward to now. I just upgraded my system*, and immediately thought about finally tweaking Lessons Learned...and also to see how easily my new system could handle it (which it does without even breathing hard. Six times the RAM and four times the cores helps immensely.). I didn't want to change the overall composition, mainly just the kind of cleaning that is difficult to do when most of the composition is pre-rendered: adjusting notes, fixing rhythms, changing some chord voicings, that sort of thing. Also, I was finally able to add more instrument voicings, the sort of thing that was a pain to do with limited RAM.

As far as the piece itself, it's a bit of a story told in several parts. For fun, here's what I call each section:

1. Home
2. Run!
3. Captured
4. It Just Got Worse
5. The Rescue

*for anyone interested: Mac Mini, 2.3 GHz i7, 16 gigs of RAM, dual 20" monitors, scads of external storage. Life is good.

23 in '13 #9: Overture

Song #9: Overture

It's a good thing that I was running ahead of schedule on 23 in '13, as the past month has made things a bit more difficult to work on projects like that. But, we're back to it!
Part of this last month was spent catching up on some of the Big Movies of the past year or so, notably some of the Marvel action movies (Iron man, Avengers, et al). And anytime I I watch a movie like that, i find it very hard to not thinking in terms of BIG MOVIE SCORES. They're just so much fun. So, we're veering away from Orchestralectro for the time being, and working back in pure orchestral again.

The genesis for this project was when I was driving on an errand. I had a basic string rhythm in my head, and started to hum a melody over it. I liked it...quite a bit. I actually parked the car for a bit so I could plunk the melody into an app so I could be sure to remember it for later. Good thing I did, because I definitely forgot in until I listened to it later.

I'm calling this one "Overture" because it veers around from different feelings and emotions in a relatively small space. The different sections in it could be developed into pieces in their own right (which I just might do). Time to get back on schedule for #10!