From 16 up to 18
In 2021 I moved to Malaga to study music, alongside other subjects, in The British College of Benalmádena. Most of the songs I made from that point onwards were assignments, or my interpretations thereof.
For my music IGCSE I decided to make a song in the style of an 80’s sitcom opening theme
This is an earlier version of the song played with the piano:
This piece was part of my AS coursework. It’s supposed to represent my perception of Paris as a Spaniard.
This is the piano demo:
I composed this song for my AS-levels. I sang it myself, and had the privilege of working with a talented pianist who played the piano accompaniment. The other instruments were all digital.
My musical is called Six Minutes and it has been an exciting challenge. It’s a tragicomedy about a boy named Mark who likes a girl named Juliette. The play begins with Mark walking to school, singing a song in which he expresses his frustrations about life and love: “Oh if the world were to end my nerves would turn to steel”. When he arrives at school, he discovers that the wastebaskets are on fire and students are running down the halls, shouting that it’s the end of the world. Mark is happy about the situation because he sees it as an opportunity to confess his love to Juliette.
On the way, he meets one his teachers, Mr. Norman, who blocks his path to warn him about the risk of unrequited love like he himself suffered: “I loved once but he left and will never know” and now everyone asks, “Why aren’t you normal, Mr. Norman?”. Mr. Norman warns Mark not to make the same mistakes he did. Mark walks away from him and runs to the class where Juliette is. He bursts open the door. A spotlight shines on Mark, who expresses his soul with a beautiful song: “I want to love you, accept my love”. Mark finishes his song and waits for Juliette’s response, but she bursts into laughter, mocking Mark and his proposition. With these laughs, the world also explodes, and the play ends.
The song starts with a guitar ostinato over which the melody develops. The ostinato represents, in a way, Mark’s walk to school.
“It’s Ending” is the song I’ve worked the most on in terms of orchestration. In addition to the choir vocals and organ, I’ve composed for 13 instruments. I used different contrapuntal techniques to add the Baroque elements that give the song its drama. An excellent musical reference about the end of the world is the “Dies Irae” version from Verdi’s “Requiem”, based on a Latin hymn that describes the final judgment.
When writing “Why can’t you be normal, Mr. Norman?”, I searched for and analyzed examples of other musicals that used tangos, including “Tango Maureen” from Jonathan Larson’s “Rent” (1994). I was mostly inspired by and analyzed the structure and harmony of numerous Argentine tangos, including “Por una cabeza”, “Cambalache”, “Garganta con arena”, and “Se dice de mi”.
To conclude the musical, I sought a romantic and intimate feeling, so this song has a simpler structure, harmony, and orchestration. “Dear Juliette” is composed as a string quartet and piano, which mostly duplicates the melody to give more importance to the vocals.
This is de Mockup I made to see how it works all together.
CHEERSY
I composed this music for a videogame my friend made for a GameJam. After the game jam I decided to redo all the artwork and add additional scenes to make the game more enjoyable to play. This edition of the game was never finished but it was a fun project.
JOJO’S GAME
Thanks to this same friend I got involved in a videogame project where they asked me to make the music for their trailer.
This is the first version of the game:
This is the final version after some feedback.
During the summer, I tried to sell beats on Beatstars without much success. Here are some of the ones I made:
80s type beat: