Title
Find Your Dawn

Description
(If you had a hard time hearing the motif within the music, the explanation section down below might help guide you to where the motif was integrated into various melodies and accompaniment throughout the piece.)

Overview:

Find Your Dawn is an experimental narrative piece which explored how to tell a story using the provided theme in various different contexts. I tried experimenting with the theme through rhythmic and pitch variations, inverting (vertical flipping of notes), reversing (horizontal flipping of notes), and trying it out in various key and time signatures throughout the piece. I then integrated these variations into the melodies and accompaniment within the music.

The purpose of all of these variations is to build up to the Coda, where the 'original' theme is played as part of the final main melody.

The piece begins in B minor in 6/4, modulates to F# minor in 4/4, then ends on C# minor in 6/4.

For me, this piece is about adversity, despair, hope, and self-discovery. I'm curious to hear about what you guys thought about this piece!


Structure:

Exposition - Interlude - Development A - Development B - Recapitulation - Coda


Explanation:

Exposition: 0:00 - 0:18 (B minor, 6/4)
- The piece begins with a piano playing a melodic fragment ending with an elongated version of the theme, which continues into a melody with a choir that ends with a 'false' variation of the theme that ends on a higher note than it is supposed to be, sounding as if it is asking a question. The piano echoes back another melodic fragment, which again ends with a 'false' variation ending on another unresolved note, before the piece continues into the interlude, the percussion slowly building up along the way.

Interlude: 0:18 - 0:30 (B minor, 4/4)
- The piece takes the building up percussion from the exposition to dive into an interlude with an intense percussion line which masks the fact that the time signature itself is lacking the forward momentum from prior, having switched to the more stable 4/4 time. The voice line sings one more melodic line ending with a 'false' theme variation, as the lower strings push the harmony forward to a modulation to F# minor.

Development A: 0:30 - 1:19 (F# minor, 4/4)
- The piece strips away the percussion and lower strings that were driving the rhythm before, revealing how the momentum from the exposition is all but gone. With just a voice line and a simple piano accompaniment, the piece seems to stagnate, with the melody and rhythm going nowhere. The theme is nowhere to be found, though if you listen closely, you might notice that the synth piano, which seems to be playing sporadic single notes in the background starting from 0:38 , is actually playing an extremely elongated, reversed version of the theme. At 1:06, the voice line sings a slower variant of the theme, but it once again turns out to be a 'false' one, ending on a lower, unresolved note.

Development B: 1:19 - 2:10 (F# minor, 4/4)
- The B section starts with the voice line singing an inverted variant of the theme starting at 1:18. Throughout this section, the voice line sings melodies that integrate the inverted variant of the theme, and the harmonies begin to move once more, and the accompaniment gradually builds up towards the modulation to C# minor.

Recapitulation: 2:10 - 2:26 (C# minor, 6/4)
- The piece returns to the exposition, though now in C# minor. The piece starts moving forward again in 6/4, and the original melodies return, though this time the themes are played with the 'correct' notes, resolving properly. As the drums pick up, the piano once again echoes back a melodic fragment, though this time it ends with an upward motion as the music enters the Coda.

Coda: 2:26 - 3:20(C # minor, 6/4)
- The piano plays a melodic line that begins with the theme this time. However, the first time the melody plays, the theme has syncopations in it, making it seem a bit hesitant, and creating a sense of resistance. However, when the piano plays the melody again at 2:43 with the help of the voices from the development section, the theme is finally played properly, with the correct notes and rhythm. After a brief interlude at 3:00 with a melody that incorporates the inverted theme once again, the music finishes properly with a sequence of themes building up to a cadence on C#. The music finishes with the arpeggio sequence from the exposition becoming the main theme at the very end.


Thanks for listening, I hope you enjoyed it!

Plugins used
Base Cubase 12 plugins (Padshop, HaLion Sonic, etc.)
Spitfire Audio: Cinematic Percussion, Cinematic Pads, Felt Piano, Intimate Grand Piano, Abbey Road One Foundations
Vocaloid 4 + 5
SCC Taiko Drums

Link(s) to your submission
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjNuflDAmUU (includes subtitles for the lyrics)

https://soundcloud.com/yujisatomusic/find-your-dawn