Hi all, here’s my entry for the sad music contest. I had a very specific inspiration for this.
First, this was inspired by the tragic character of Sakura Matou from the anime, “Fate/Stay Night Heaven’s Feel.” Although she’s the main heroine, so to speak, she’s not really a heroine. Her backstory is having been taken from her family as a child and was abused and raised by her adoptive father and brother as nothing but a tool to be used in a war between mages. On the outside, she seems a quiet, average girl who’s only dream is to be with her upperclassman whom she has a crush on, and lead a normal life. But she knows that it’s just a dream, as her foster father implanted in her a certain magic that controls her and is slowly turning her into a demonic killing machine to use to win the mage war.
I attempted to compose this piece somewhat in the style heard throughout the series soundtrack, so it has a bit of a cinematic underscore feel. Musically, I chose the key of A minor and the opening piano progression plays around Am7-Dm then moves to Dm-Am-Gm before moving to the Dominant Em. This part represents Sakura’s normal self; the shy girl. The string part moves around some add9 chords, essentially, I think it was Am-Dm-F-Gm , this is Sakura’s darker, demon half. Then the outro is Em-C and I deliberately chose an Am/Em sound to create a sense of duality; instead of having the v-i final cadence, you get something that both feels final and doesn’t. This represents Sakura’s uncertain fate.
Instruments/gear:
Strings: Audio Imperia Areia
Piano: NI Kontakt Library Grand
Harp: Garritan Concert Harp
NI Kontakt Library electric bass guitar
Percussion: ProjectSAM True Strike
Media Man Productions Violin Swells
Mastered with Ozone 9 https://soundcloud.com/parnassus-musique/one-dream-two-fates
Hello, I think the second part is really good arranged to be feel sadness. strings play some nice intervals. The repeating hit with delay is very good. It adds some strangeness to the piece. The tempo is right for a sad music piece.
Thank you Klaus. I tried to make the first part a bit melancholy and the second part a bit tragic. The delay part was created adding a bit of extra verb tail and a beat delay effect in triplets to a regular orchestral bass drum.
Thanks Brandon! It’s something I had heard done in an other unrelated piece and I tried to duplicate it a bit because it gave me such an empty, hollow feeling.
Great piece! Especially from the 1 minute mark through the end. The sadness really comes in when you hold that high string out. Beautiful piece. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Vicente. Now that you mention it, I didn’t realize I didn’t write a pure melody for this one
I definitely was focused more on the right harmonies for the emotion. Thanks for listening!
