The Heaviest Burden (guitar-based piece for a short film)

Hello everyone, 

A friend of mine has made a short film and asked me to try to make some music for the last scene and the credits. He wanted it all played with real instruments so I had to work with what I had, a cheap classical guitar and an digital piano. There was not much time left so during a couple of days I tried to compose and record an initial draft for the piece. I might have in a week a few chances to record the sounds again and modify the piece so I was wondering if anyone had some feedback about the piece. It is my first time composing in such a style and with real instruments (I mixed it all in Reaper) so I am not sure about the result. 

The instruments are: 2 classical guitars, piano, electronic dark pad, electric bass (the electric bass is also played in the piano). 

The piece is based on a 8-bar harmonic progression which could be understood as: Amin9(no5) - Amin9(no5) - Amin9(no5) - Amin9(no5) - Fmaj13(#11) - E7 - Fmaj13(#11) - E7/G# (However, when the electronic pad enters, I harmonized the Am9 alternatively as an Am9-F-Am-Bdim7 chords in the pad voices taking advantage of the lack of the fifth in the strings). At 1:30 the credits start so there is change in texture and the melody becomes improvised before playing the main theme once more and then the ending of the chord progression at the same time that the credits are ending. 

The piece is called "The Heaviest Burden", a reference to Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", since the last scene of the short film reminds me to the ideas found in that book. The piece is supposed to be melancholic/nostalgic but with a little bit of hope.

I recorded the guitars with my mobile phone and the rest directly from the digital piano sound exporting function. Really cheap guitar with years-old strings and no nails in my fingers so the sound is really dark and hollow. It all sounded as a toy at first but I think the reverb made a really impressive job for making everything sound better.  The idea is to re-record the parts with a nice mic and new strings, but I am not sure yet about whether we will have time to do it or whether we will leave it as it is.

Any feedback about the piece, whether you think it works or not, or how it could be improved, is more than welcome! Thank you!

Hi @JorgeDavid!

Very beautiful recording and rendition!  I personally feel like the electronic dark pad synth could be switched out for string orchestra.  But that is just my own personal taste and I have a bias toward acoustic instruments.  I also think that the synth gives the piece a bit of an 80's or 70's vibe and if it were my composition I would want to avoid that connotation.  But I don't know what your intent was with using the synth.

On 11/4/2024 at 8:07 PM, JorgeDavid said:

Am9(no5) - Am9(no5) - Am9(no5) - Am9(no5) - F#4 (add6) - E7 - F#4(add6) - E7/G#

This way you've written out the chords is a bit confusing.  Are you talking about and F# chord with an added 4th and 6th?  Or an F chord with an added #4 and 6th?  I can tell from listening to the music that you mean the latter but it's just written confusingly.

I think you have done a wonderful job with what you have!  I guess your choice of synth was required by your friend wanting it all recorded on real instruments?  In that case, if your digital piano doesn't have good string sounds then the synth would be preferable.  Thanks for sharing and congrats!  Did you play this all yourself?

12 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Hi @JorgeDavid!

Very beautiful recording and rendition!  I personally feel like the electronic dark pad synth could be switched out for string orchestra.  But that is just my own personal taste and I have a bias toward acoustic instruments.  I also think that the synth gives the piece a bit of an 80's or 70's vibe and if it were my composition I would want to avoid that connotation.  But I don't know what your intent was with using the synth.

This way you've written out the chords is a bit confusing.  Are you talking about and F# chord with an added 4th and 6th?  Or an F chord with an added #4 and 6th?  I can tell from listening to the music that you mean the latter but it's just written confusingly.

Thank you so much for listening and commenting @PeterthePapercomPoser! I am really glad you liked it!

You are right, the F chord was notated really badly! Since I might have to re-record everything soon I transcribed the audio into a sheet score today (I had not written it down and I was starting to forget the notes so I wrote it down for not forgetting them 😅) and I needed to notate the chords in the score too, since there is an improvised section. So I corrected that F chord into an Fmaj13(#11). Thank you for letting me know! 

12 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

I think you have done a wonderful job with what you have!  I guess your choice of synth was required by your friend wanting it all recorded on real instruments?  In that case, if your digital piano doesn't have good string sounds then the synth would be preferable.  Thanks for sharing and congrats!  Did you play this all yourself?

You are right, the main reason I used the synth pad was because the string sounds are really really bad in my digital piano. I have a Yamaha P-515, which I really love but, among one of its cons, is the fact that there are not many midi sounds available and most of them are quite bad. Since synth sounds are normally okay in any keyboard I selected those. However, the short film is set in an industrial neighborhood of a large modern city, so the synth sound does not sound too bad in the context.

Yes, I played all of this by myself. But it is not particularly hard to play. The main problem were the slides because I had not played guitar for a long long time so the "hard-skin" of my left-hand fingers is totally gone and they did hurt quite a lot. In general the fingers from the left hand were hurting for the whole time 😅

As when I play piano, I tried to compensate the lack of technical virtuosity with expressive playing but in many places I made mistakes :S. Also there was an improvised part and I am not good at improvising so you can tell I am doubting a lot while playing that section. If I re-record it I will try to play it exactly the same but without mistakes or doubtful notes!

Thank you so much for commenting!