I started my composition by creating some short melodies and drum rhythms mainly for section building up to the “drop” and after developing the first section created the energetic “drop”. Once I had some short phrases developed I added in the field recording of the 70s school playground as well as some other sound effects, I then began expanding on the phrases and laying out the structure of the first section of my track. After the first section was sounding fairly whole, I created the energetic drums for the final part, and added a bass melody using the synth I was originally going to use as a pad, I ended up using this synth as a bass as when playing in one of the short phrases whilst generating ideas I accidentally slid the octave way down and really enjoyed the way it sounded.I started the energetic bit with a drum rhythm that had brief pauses in and then extended it into a more continuous rhythm.
In the middle of my track I used 12/8 time signature, I did not spend time researching which time signature to use as I wanted to set more boundaries for myself in a similar way to me creating a mix template. I chose to do this partially because I already had a small focus on unusual aspects of time and partially to create a different atmosphere in the middle of my track to help build and give more impact to the 4/4 energetic section at the end of my track.
To help build up sections of my track I used automation on the FM synthesiser, I originally intended automation on the FM synth to create some metallic sounds however I changed my mind and used it in a more subtle way, the dissonance created from layering the fm synth over my analogue synth sound and automating the harmonics and in harmonics to ramp up helped create tension, as well as building up the intensity of the frequency modulation over a longer period of time whilst these harmonic swells were happening.
I used a recording of school children playing from the 70s that I found online and automated it with distortion and delay to emphasise certain screams in the recording. Emphasising screams that could’ve been playful screams using delay and distortion solidified these screams into uncomfortable, eerie sounds. I do like the idea of turning what would be a fun sound into a dark sound, this is something I will experiment with more in the future.