Cis Ramble #11--Halloween Tunes 2024
Howdy! It's been a while! I've been enjoying my little hiatus! I actually did some fun planning and completed this years Halloween tunes *before* Halloween! I'm very proud of this one--so proud I wanted to chat about how it was made! Come on down let's delve deeper into these tracks!
Which by the by, the way I make tunes is through soundtrap. I use their music loops and fit them together to make these songs! I have no music bone in my body, but I love listening to music, so I've been going by ear on how to create these songs. In soundtrap you can find different sounds and voice clips. It's a bit difficult because I usually have to search by a general word like 'scary' or 'poetry' to find something usable. I was genuinely surprised how I was able to find a lot of clips using the same person for this. It felt so on purposely cohesive when it was purely luck!
Believe it or not, this was the last track made. At this point, I was honestly burned out from putting my entire brain into the other songs. When most songs took maybe 3 hours in one day, I worked in smaller amounts of time over the course of several days. It was interesting because this was one of the tracks I was looking forward to, but it turned into a hard puzzle to crack.
As I wanted this song to convey the vibe of the rest of the songs, I wanted to include certain things--strings, guitar, some music change ups, and possibly an outro. The first iteration was very messy and felt very forced. There were too many moving parts and changes. When things get messy, I usually make a new file so I can start on a clean slate. However, I couldn't do that this time. I really wanted to keep the 'Let me out!!' sound clip, but I couldn't remember what words I used to search for it so I kept working in the same file. Since I couldn't restart on a fresh file (and you can't duplicate songs you make on soundtrap) , I went back to my thought process that worked for the previous songs--what's the story?
I've said this before, but my main background is writing! And when making these little tunes, especially the Halloween themed ones, I try to picture a music video and have the music follow the video playing in my head. With that in mind, the story we follow is essentially 'person is walking around a grave, gets kidnapped by a witch, and gets a spooky cast spell on them'. Very easy to piece things together--especially when I was able to find so many spoken clips of the witchy character (which you hear more of throughout other songs). Despite being a mess at the beginning, I think it turned out really good in the end! A good opener!
Track 2: Lurking in the Deep
This was fun! And I believe one of the few songs that doesn't have any spoken voice clips. This song was the fifth one completed, for those curious.
The main conceit of this song was 'weird monster in the ocean that's chasing you'. I imagined this playing during a chase scene or something similar.
One of my favorite things is the sound of the monster. That consisted of two different monster noises I found. One of them is a growl and the other is gurgling noise. I changed the effects of them to make this creepy monster noise. I find weird gurgles scary and uncomfortable, and I think really sells the idea that this being is otherworldly.
I'm also really proud the 'underwater' section. I love when a scene shows characters interacting with music. For example in Brave Bang Bravern, when Bravern first appears his theme music is playing. At first you think it's just a directional choice in the show, but then it's mentioned it's actually playing in real life from his speakers. I wanted to do something similar to the track where the music sounds like its muffled underwater because the person is literally underwater.
I wanted to make a fun club like track LOL
So some context, I make characters for these little albums I make. The character here, BATTY, currently has the most albums since Halloween comes around every year and I'm always inspired by the holiday. The first album was really fast paced and dance-y, and I wanted to make another dance-y song.
This song was one of the ones I made in 3 or so hours in one sitting. It was a fever dream. I don't even know if I have much to say about it. This one came together pretty quickly. It was the seventh song made, and is partially the reason I had some burnout when trying to finish Cold Blooded as I put the last bit of my brain into making a Halloween club song.
One thing that I find interesting is there are so many loop that sound spooky. A lot of the trap loops in soundtrap lend themselves to a Halloween-esque sound. I will say, a part of me kinda wants to make an extended version, but I'm not sure. I can be easily convinced though LOL
This one is a personal fave. I play it all the time lol
It was the sixth song completed, and at first I was a bit lost at what to do, but after I found the main voice clip (I don't remember what I searched for it--I think vampire?), I got a game plan.
I believe the voice clip is a poem focusing on healing mental illness (at least that's what I think), but I found it kinda compelling as a comparison to a vampire settling with their newfound monstrous side. (It also would be good for a Jekyll/Hyde metaphor!)
Props to the guy who recited this poem, he really gets emotional in it. I really love it. His voice reminded me of the guy who speaks in Thriller by Michael Jackson at the end of the song. Really cool. I think the 'Insomnia' vocal clip (a soundtrap loop) is a nice juxtaposition with it. The idea of pairing them together was to perpetuate the idea of being able to settle with the good and bad parts of ourselves. As humans, our ignorance causes us to be bad people at times, but we still have good in us and we can nurture it to live alongside the bad.
Like I said before, this is the third album under BATTY, and I kept thinking about his first one where it was kinda 80s inspired with some of the tracks. I wanted to bring the techno vibe back and I think it fit with this song a lot!
Track 5: Lucifer, Fallen Angel
This is where we get to my artistic fascination with the devil. Ol' Luci is an interesting character and I wanted to make a song kinda describing his descent into hell.
This song was the 3rd one made out of the group! And it was made as a pair to go along side Hell.
Here you get to hear the witchy voice again! It was only on a relisten that I noticed that she's heard here and in the following track, Hell. Accidental cohesion there. It kinda adds a layer of 'maybe the speaker who was kidnapped by the witch is going through a bad trip or something through the spells' to everything. Imagine to your heart's content what the overarching story is!
One thing that was cut out from this was a sound clip of like a metal scream of 'SAAATAAAAAN!!!'. I was going to use it during the metal section of the song, but I was afraid it was going to be a bit too hokey LOL Maybe next year I'll use it. I love making metal songs now since soundtrap finally added TONS of guitar loops
I was unsure of adding this one at first, as I thought it didn't sound Halloween enough. But then I said fuck it and kept it in LOL
Whoooo!!! Let's give it up for the track that set the tone for this little collection of musiccc!!! Whoooooo!!!
That's right folks, this was the first completed song. It made me so pumped. I love intros that build up, and this one has like an over minute long intro.
This one probably has the most sound clips used. I just love all of the demon clips I was able to get. After piece them together, I thought 'ohhhh....I could do all of the songs like this'.
Piecing voice clips together actually came from a previous song I worked on that I'll use for my new stream opening. I know, I'm on hiatus and I'm working stuff for when I inevitably come back lol That song was like my trial run, while Hell was the like proper execution of the skill if that makes sense.
And we have an outro!! I never really made outros too much, and I just listened to KNOWER's song Nightmare that has a fun little outro, and I thought 'I gotta make an outro for people to groove out to'. I'm kinda obsessed with outros now because this one was so fun. I'm really happy with this one, and I'm glad I finished it first because I didn't have a direction when making tunes this year and this totally put me on the right track!
This was the second track to be completed! And originally the final song.
After the high I had on finishing Hell, I jumped into making this one the day after. The voice clips of the first girl is actually the same in my new stream intro and outro music lol, she has a lot to pull from.
This turned into a very uplifting song. This and the last song, Ashes to Ashes, are my exploration of death. Death is a major theme in Halloween, and one I often avoided for years. This song didn't touch on my thoughts with it too much as the next one does, but I was surprised how calming it ended despite the strong intro.
And there's an outro! I told you I became obsessed with them after I finished Hell. What was cool was this particular music loop pack had a sample of the main melody in two different ways. So I could start and end with the same melody but with a different tone. lol it makes me seem more masterful than I am.
Ahhh the namesake of the album, and another high key favorite.
This was the third song completed, and it made me very reflective.
I mentioned this several times of my little blog, but I lost my father suddenly three years ago. It has made my relationship with death much closer than I thought it would be, at a time much earlier than I thought.
I was never someone who liked talking about death even when my dad was alive. My dad on the other hand talked about it as if he was just talking about the rain lol that's just the kinda guy he was. At first I was a bit scared to do this song, as I believed it would make bad memories come up. The more I found sound clips and pieced everything together, I felt this wave of calm come over me.
It was very weird. I felt more and more at peace with everything. It was a bit of a full circle moment. I saw a post online of an ignorant person who talked about a celebrity who's personality is grieving her partner, and it made laugh. I don't wish ill on that person at all--in fact, I hope they remain ignorant. Grief is a body altering thing. It's something you won't understand unless you experience it, and I genuinely don't want anyone to experience it for a long time. Trauma changes everything about you, you turn into a different person, your brain acts differently, your body changes.
Rebuilding yourself from the ground up takes so much work. I've come to terms with not being able to be at 100% anymore. I'm happy I can make it to at least 60% every day.
With that being said, yes, I'll keep talking about my grief. It's only because my grief led me to making music and streaming as an outlet.
I know I didn't really share any tidbits about making the song with this one, but I think its more important to share how I felt when making it. I hope it makes you reflective as well!
And that's it!! Whoo!! Thanks for reading and for listening to the tunes!
I'll try to have more music out--I know I have a huge backlog lol
Either way, enjoy the spooky season!!! I'll see you on the next oneeeeeeee