Today, I picked the following quests from Quest Logs Level 1 :

  • Compounding the Problem: Use a Compound Meter (time signature) – like 5/4, 9/8, or 12/8. You don’t hear these very often, but they can bring a strong sense of rhythm to your writing and force you to come up with new rhythmic ideas. See for an explanation of Compound Meters.
  • Music Box: Compose a piece for a music box, which may also be called a “lamellophone,” “linguaphone,” or “thumb piano,” in sample libraries. Most multi-voice keyboards have an onboard music-box-sounding instrument.

I chose 9/8. It’s not too odd actually, it’s more like 3/4 with triplets, but I thought it’ll fit Music Box sound well. I opened up DAW and loaded one of Music Box sound virtual instruments, and start working on the piece.

Before I start, I already started to hear something in my head. Just like Day1, I decided to record my improvisation. Then I shaped the melody, added chords, and harmony on DAW and sheet music. After tracking was done, I decided to load up multiple music box virtual instruments on DAW, to choose which one to use for this piece. I found out I have more than 10 of them, and I remembered that I received some of them for free. I then thought it may be helpful to share a sound comparison video to the people who may do the same quest in the future. I opened up Quicktime and made this video.

 

And, here’s the music for Day2.

I ended up using Soundiron’s Musique Box. If you think others sound better, please let me know and I’ll add it to Soundcloud as well!

(UPDATED August 2018)

I went ahead and finalized this sketch! Now it’s available at our Royalty-Free Music Shop, so please check this out!