Twelve seconds movie logo

Hi, I haven't been posting for a while. Today I finished up this 12 seconds piece, which is meant to work as a logo for some hypothetical asian movie company, so no big american companies.

It's very short and I'm aware it's actually quite simple.

My task was experimenting with some new compositional techniques I learned and to catch the listener's attention for that brief moment.

I would like to hear about your opinion! Score is attached.

I think you've managed to use some nice color chords and tritone substitutions.  It sounds very smooth and pleasant.  I would have labeled the last chord as either an E7 sus2 or a B minor over E sonority but that's just a nit-pick.  It sounds like what you intended - a logo introduction.  Well done!

Hi PaperComposer, thanks for the nice and useful comment.

To be honest, I was playing on the piano around the E- chord, added the F7 | Bb progression, then I just thought the Ab and Esus2 were nice chords to finish up.

Since you noticed that there is a tritone substitution, do you mind helping me out a bit to understand what is going on here with the harmonic functions?

My interpreation is that, while the main key is Emin, there seems to be a temporary modulation to Bb major through the F7 tritone substitution (sub B7), which resolves to Bb. Ab is still in Bb major, and then suddenly goes back to. I don't see a clear link between Ab and Esus2, but it sounds ok . Does it make sense to you?

20 minutes ago, Composition86 said:

Since you noticed that there is a tritone substitution, do you mind helping me out a bit to understand what is going on here with the harmonic functions?

The F7 kinda functions as a tritone substitution as (after a brief detour) it eventually leads back to the Esus2.

22 minutes ago, Composition86 said:

To be honest, I was playing on the piano around the E- chord, added the F7 | Bb progression, then I just thought the Ab and Esus2 were nice chords to finish up.

If you respell the Ab chord as a G# major it becomes more clear that it functions as a III in E major.  Resolving to an E minor chord from there is nice and smooth since the G# would go down to G, the B# to B and the leading tone (D#) would resolve as expected to E.  You resolve it to an E7sus2 which works as well and the D is just a nice color tone (which in a tonic minor chord would be quite foreign in the music of the classical and pre-classical eras).

This progression does make sense to me.  Nice job!  (-:

Ok, that is clear now, thanks a lot.

It’s very nice. Joe hisaishi inspired?

I’m not so fond of the modulation in the middle but overall the mood is nice. And it sounds a little too similar to Windows Startup Sound at the beginning, so be careful with that. 

5 hours ago, Sepharite said:

It’s very nice. Joe hisaishi inspired?

 

I’m not so fond of the modulation in the middle but overall the mood is nice. And it sounds a little too similar to Windows Startup Sound at the beginning, so be careful with that. 

 

Hi Sepharite, thanks, I really appreciate these kind of feedbacks.

Well done spotting Joe Hisaishi's influence, his logo for Kitano's movies was my main inspiration for this one.

Yes, that modulation is quite abrupt and definitely splits the piece into two parts, but I like the fact that a 12 seconds composition can still contain an interesting harmonic structure. 

I am not totally convinced about the similarity with Windows: indeed, there is some Windows feel in it, especially the older ones (maybe Windows 95 or Windows Me?), which just happened to be there (I have been using Linux and MacOS for the last 10 years, so...).

I decided to listen to all the Windows logos up to the latest ones, but I wouldn't say that it is too similar. But I may be wrong, so I would be very happy if you could tell me which one you mean. Thanks again.