"Dude Br0 Its Lit" is a very orchestrally influenced electronic composition. A good portion of the piece builds off of the arpeggiated harp you hear in the intro and its descending chord progression. I chose to make the drums for the song more rock/ metal based because I think it really fit will with the intensity during the last part of the song. This is the first song I have ever programmed drums to so that was probably the most challenging part of writing the piece for me. The first part of the song builds slowly, starting with the harp while the strings fade in, building energy up to the drum’s entrance. More and more instruments build on this progression until it ends suddenly leading into the B section. I wrote the B section with the intent of breaking the monotony from hearing the first chord progression over and over, but not killing the energy created thus far. I tried to give it a little bit of “bounciness” or swing feeling to really set it apart from the rest of the song. I chose to end this section with a hard stop and a bar of silence to create suspense leading into the final and most intense part of the song. This part of the song uses the same chord progression as the beginning and just continues to build in intensity even more so than in the beginning. I used lot of instruments and layering to really make this part stand out as the climax of the song. A combination of guitars, basses, synth basses, and piano follow the original chord progression while strings and brass play a new melody in octaves to make for a huge epic sound. Then enters the lead guitars which play a harmonized lead based on the melody being played by the strings and brass underneath. To top off the intensity of this part, I used a series of huge, metal influenced drum fills to really push this section over the edge. Finally, the song fades out with just a huge timpani and crash cymbal in the background while the violins slowly fade out.

Software Used:
All composition was done in Logic Pro X
All instruments besides drums and guitar are Logic instruments mixed in Logic
Drum were programmed and mixed in Pro Tools using Steven Slate Drums 4 and McDSP plugins
Guitars were tracked in Logic using Pod Farm 2 with my own preset

Dude Br0 Its Lit

*Intensity Intensifies* is a very dynamic piece in A minor that mostly builds off of a single melody. The first part of the song is in 3/4 time at 210 bpm. The first thing you heard is a piano establishing the main chord progression. After playing the chord progression once through you hear the main melody for the first time, also on piano. After another time through the progression the song continues to build adding violins to the melody, then cellos and brass to harmonize, as well as a faint piano arpeggiating the chords in the left ear. Then this section fades out on the tonic while a reverse cymbal and guitar to create suspense leading into the next part of the song. The second part of the song switches to 4/4 at 140 bpm. This part is obviously very metal influenced and in your face. I tried to create the guitar part with the original melody in mind by using the same notes and same motion, but obviously in a much different way. Leading into the breakdown, the guitars follow a harmonized version of the original melody, adjusted slightly to the different time signature. The breakdown pretty much has no compositional significance at all, it just felt right in my heart, and created a huge contrast in the song after hearing variations of the same melody the whole time. Finally, the song fades out on piano with a slightly different progression. I chose to fade out on this because it didn’t sound quite right to end on a breakdown and this melody and progression fit in with the original one pretty well so I went with it.

Ian Kusner

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