Lesson video

Hi, I am Dr.

Southorn.

and we're gonna be looking at approaches to contemporary composition in this unit.

Let's begin.

In this lesson, we're gonna combine pitched and unpitched samples in a composition.

There's three key terms for this lesson.

The first is sample, a clip of preexisting music or sound.

The second is pitched sound, which is sound that has a clear pitch, in other words a note.

The third is a hook, a memorable, repeated musical idea.

There's two parts to this lesson, and the first is called creating pitched samples.

Sampling on pitch sounds can be an effective way to create interesting timbres, effects and textures in composition.

It's also possible to sample individual pitched sounds.

Sounds that produce a clear pitch, and to combine them to create melodies, baselines, or riffs from the samples.

Can you think of any sounds that have a clear pitch? There's many different kinds of sounds that have a clear pitch.

These include musical notes or chords, voices when they're singing or humming, animal sounds such as bird song and machines producing a humming or buzzing sound.

By sampling these types of sounds, we can create interesting and unique musical textures.

Listen for the two different samples of pitched vocals in this clip.

How have these individual sampled sounds been used? Pause the video and listen to the clip.

Lucas says, "They have been arranged into interesting rhythms and added effects, distortion and varied the dynamics." These are just some examples of the ways that a single isolated pitched sample can be used in varied and interesting ways.

Listen to this single pitched sound.

(single pitched music) One more time.

(single pitched music) We can arrange it into interesting rhythms. Listen to this.

(orchestral music) So that's just the same pitched sound used as a sample and placed into a rhythm.

Let's now add effects to it or distort it.

Let's listen to this one.

(orchestral music) Can you hear all the different effects on that one? Let's listen to it one more time.

(orchestral music) We can change the pitch of the sample as well using technology, let's have a listen to that original sound with the pitch changed.

(orchestral music) Now the sample itself was only recorded at one pitch, but we've used technology to shift it, so that it sounds like lots of different notes.

Even though the sound is altered, it's still considered sampling 'cause it uses pre-existing sounds and creates something new.

A few different pitched samples can be arranged to create more complex musical ideas.

Let's listen to another one.

(orchestral music) We can arrange these into a pattern to create a repeating riff like this.

(orchestral music) And we can layer them up to create interesting chords like this.

(orchestral music) One more time.

(orchestral music) In this example, the artist has sampled the breast chord, which is the first note to change the pitch and then arrange the different pitches to create a unique and interesting pattern.

Pause the video and listen to that clip.

How many different pitches have they created from the original sound? Sam says "They've created three different pitched versions of the original sound." Did you hear them? To use pitched samples, we have to isolate the individual sounds that we want to use.

Watch this clip to see how to isolate pitched sounds.

To sample some pitched sounds we're gonna be focusing on the second track here that says pitched sounds.

Now this is an orchestral piece of music, so it has lots of different sections of the orchestra playing, and depending on what kind of timbre and what note you want, you're gonna sample different parts of it.

I'll give you one example.

Let's say I wanted to sample the first note in bar nine.

I'm gonna zoom in, and that's this note here sounds like this.

(orchestral music) We've got some brass and some strings playing a note together.

(orchestral music) Now to sample that, I'm gonna follow the exact same process I did for my unpitched sounds.

I'm gonna put the play head where I want to cut just before the note, I'm gonna make sure I've slide to the track and right click and split, so that's before the note.

Then the note ends there, so I'm gonna do the same just after the note.

Right click, split, and then I have my isolated sound here, and I'm gonna move it into an empty audio track down the bottom.

So I'm gonna use sample seven.

Let's just have a listen to that note on its own.

(orchestral music) So that's how we sample a pitched sound.

Now for a check for understanding what is a pitched sound? Is it a sustained sound? A sound with changing pitch? A sound with clear pitch? Or a sound with no pitch? Answer is C, it's a sound with clear pitch.

Suggest three ways that we might alter pitched sound to create something more interesting.

Think back to what we've just covered in the last few slides to help you.

Well, you may have come up with adding effects such as distortion, using technology to change the pitch, arranging the pitch into interesting rhythms or layering different pitches to create chords.

Let's do some practice.

I want you to create three or four pitched samples from the pitched sounds track.

Your success criteria are as follows.

Isolate three to four short samples from the track.

Each sample will be placed on its own track.

The samples will all have a different pitch, and I want you to consider the timbre of the samples so that they have variety.

I hope you enjoyed that task.

Let's now listen to these samples and I want you to think about how they could be more useful as the basis of a composition.

Here we go.

(orchestral music) One more time.

(orchestral music) Well time for some model responses.

You could say that the pitches could be different to each other, or there could be more variety in the chosen timbres.

At the moment, all samples are the same pitch, and two of them use the same instruments so they sound fairly similar.

Part two, creating a hook from pitched samples.

We can use our pitched sounds to create a riff or a hook.

There are many combinations in which you could combine up to four different pitches and we can experiment with different orders and rhythms of the sounds to create unique musical patterns.

I want you to listen now to the variety of different patterns that could be created.

Here we go.

(orchestral music) To create a hook or riff from three or four pitched sounds, you can change the order and rhythm of your pitched samples.

So I've chosen three pitched samples.

Let's have a listen to or three of them.

Here's the first one.

(orchestral music) Here's the second one.

(orchestral music) And the third one.

(orchestral music) So the slightly different lens the second one is a little bit longer.

The first and third ones are both one beat long, but I can adjust those if I need to as I go.

So I'm gonna try some different ways of experimenting with the order and the rhythm of these samples.

Let's maybe start off with this order here and see what they just sound like with quite a simple rhythm there.

(orchestral music) It actually works quite well but let's try changing the order around, see what happens.

Let's try it this way.

(orchestral music) And if you wanna get a real feel of what it sounds like, you can copy it and repeat it to see what it sounds like on repeat.

(orchestral music) Now, I could also try changing the rhythm, at the moment, it's quite simple rhythm, this is a two beat sample and these ones are both one beat samples.

So I could try to create some more complex and fast rhythms. For example, I could take this top sample here and I could shorten it and then repeat it.

Let's see what that sounds like.

(orchestral music) I could even shorten it further so that we have even faster notes.

(orchestral music) And I could try the same with the other ones as well.

So I could try lots of different patterns with faster notes or combining fast and slower notes.

(orchestral music) If I wanted, I could alternate some of the notes as well.

So if I took one of this top note, one of this second note and I alternate them like this, I could do a little bit of copy and paste, and repeat this pattern alternating between the two notes.

So this is a slightly more complicated technique.

Let's see what that would sound like.

(orchestral music) It's very different.

It sounds very sort of processed up.

It's quite an interesting effect.

I could also experiment with combining some of the notes, so layering them up so they'd play at the same time.

So if I took this original sample here and this original sample here, I could put them playing at the same time and see what that sounds like.

Some of these will sound horrendous, some of them might work really well.

Depends what kind of effect you want.

You might want to create a really distorted sort of dissonant, classy effect.

(orchestral music) And it all depends on which notes you've chosen.

So that one actually works quite well together.

(orchestral music) I could experiment by repeating those two together and then playing the third sample.

(orchestral music) Quite a simple rhythm, but because we've got that combination of the sounds, it creates quite a unique sort of timbre.

(orchestral music) So what I'm gonna do is experiment with all those different techniques, shortening the samples, lengthening them, trying different combinations, layering them up until I find a catchy little memorable four-beat pattern that I like the sound of.

And you can listen to it with your rhythmic groove, then loop it to repeat.

So I've now created my pitched riff from my samples.

It sounds like this.

(orchestral music) And the final thing to do is to see what it sounds like with my unpitched samples as well.

Before I do that, I'm just gonna copy it and paste it, so that it repeats in bar two, and that way it'll last the same amount of time as my unpitched samples, and now I can listen to all of them together and see if I like the way they sound.

If I need to, I can make some adjustments.

(orchestral music) I think it works quite well.

However, at the moment, the balance is slightly out, which means I can hear a lot more of the unpitched sounds, whereas the pitch sounds are a bit quieter.

So I'm gonna bring the volume up of my pitch sounds a little bit, and I might bring the volume down of some of my unpitched samples just to make sure that I can hear every part equally well.

When I'm happy with it, I can then copy and paste the whole lot to repeat it for even longer so that I can hear it repeating over and over.

So I'm gonna repeat it every two bars and let's maybe do eight bars worth.

Let's see what it sounds like now.

(orchestral music) So there, we've taken these unpitched sounds, this pitch to music, we've sampled tiny little sections of it, and we've created something totally unique and new from those samples.

To use samples in different ways, we can contrast fast and slow rhythms, layer up the samples by playing them at the same time, repeat one sample with a fast and interesting rhythm and change the order of the samples to create different pitch patterns.

Let's do a quick check for understanding.

Why is it useful to create copies of each sample sound? Is it in case you make a mistake with one? Is it so that it's easier to find the right one? Is it so that you can use more than one at once? Or is it so that it's more musically complex? The answer is C, so you can use them more than once.

Suggest three ways that we might combine pitched samples in an interesting way.

Think back to the previous slides for some inspiration for your answer.

We may have said, use contrasting rhythms. You may have said, change the order of the samples to create different pitch patterns or layer the samples.

Time for another task.

I want you to create a four-beat hook or a riff using your sampled pitched sounds.

The success criteria for this are as follows.

Copy each sound so that it can be used more than once.

Experiment to find patterns that you like.

Create a four-beat pattern by arranging the pitches into a specific order and rhythmic pattern.

And it works effectively with the unpitched rhythmic groove.

And finally, loop it so that it repeats with the unpitched groove.

Good luck.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that, and I hope you created some really interesting music.

I want you to reflect now on your composition and how you could develop it further.

So let's consider some prompts.

Does it use a range of contrasting pitched and unpitched samples? If yes, brilliant, well done.

Do the pitched samples create a memorable four-beat hook? Can you hear each sample clearly? Does it include an eight-beat rhythmic groove with unpitched sample? And do the samples create something that sounds unique and different from the original audio tracks? I hope you've enjoyed this lesson.

Let's just do a quick summary of the key learning points.

The first one is that pitched sounds such as musical notes, vocals, or buzzing machines can be sampled.

These can create unique timbres and textures, particularly when they're altered and recombined.

We can alter them in many ways, including changing the pitch and adding effects.

And by experimenting with different patterns of pitched samples, we can create unique hooks and riffs.

Well done today.

Hope you've enjoyed it, I've really enjoyed it too.

Some great interesting sounds coming out of this.

I'll see you next time.

Goodbye.