Speaker 1: 0:02

What is happening everybody? This is Dave Kroff, and welcome back to another episode of Ready for Sync, where we feature a cue written by a member of the 52 cues community, and I give feedback, like you'd might hear from a library or a publisher, and we ask is my cue ready for sync licensing? Today we are checking out Chromatic Climb to Conquest, which is an orchestral hip hop cue written by 52 cues community member Judith Ms Jujubeats Blakey, and this features music theory concepts that I had to look up, so we're going to take a listen to this and then we will talk about it on the other side.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Okay, music, music, music, music, music Music.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Music, music, music, music. Alright, that was Chromatic Climb to Conquest and I gotta tell you that title absolutely nails it. This was a Chromatic Climb and this is from. This is what Ms Jujubeets writes, by the way, yeah, this is so well done. It's like here's the title, this is the type of cue, here's the description. Really, really nice.

Speaker 1: 3:37

This is a Neo-Riemannian Chromatic chord progression. I'm not sure if it's Riemann or Riemann, I'm assuming and, like I said, I had to look this up After Hugo Riemann or Riemann, I'm not sure of Mr. Let's say, let's say, let's say Riemann, alright. So Ms Jujubeets says this is a Neo-Riemannian Chromatic chord progression, with twists and turns like a seasoned playbook, with each modulation a testament to relentless practice and unwavering dedication. The vocal odds rise like a chorus of defiance, gaining momentum with each verse, building a symphony of hope. Sweat and syncopation weave a tapestry of triumph as gritty beats lock in with pulsing, a pulsating organ and guitar, building an unstoppable rhythm of victory, just pure, unadulterated grind. The anthem is for champions foraged in the crucible and warriors and warriors who redefine the meaning of hard work with every note. This is their victory chorus, a sonic symphony of sweat, sacrifice and ultimate glory. And she goes on to say this is my first cue. For a while now I've wanted to write music. You is using the Neo-Rimani and transformation or the Tonets chart. If there's an interest in this type of progression, I'll plan to do more. Anyways, here it is. I would appreciate very much your suggestions for creating a better mix and anything else you think is needed. Thank you in advance. I'm so looking forward to your good advice. And the idea with this one was a hip hop orchestral sports cue and I had to look this up. I had to look whatever what Neo-Rimani and music theory is and I'm just going to read. This is from the Wikipedia page.

Speaker 1: 5:27

Neo-rimani and theory is a loose collection of ideas present in the writings of music theorists. What binds these ideas is a central commitment to relating harmonies directly to each other without necessary reference to a tonic. Initially, those harmonies were major and minor triads. Subsequently, neo-rimani and theory was extended to standard dissonant sonorities as well. Harmonic proximity is characteristically gauged by efficiency of voice leading. Thus, c major and E minor triads are close by virtue of requiring only a single semitonal shift to move from one to the other, so basically closely related chords by changing just one or two notes in the chord not tethered to a tonic or without reference to a tonic, and the music theorist in me, the theory nerd, the composer in me, adores this concept. I think it's really, really cool that, having been said it's, I had a publisher, and anytime I try to kind of pull off some of these things, he'll say Dave, I love it, but it's too hip for the room.

Speaker 1: 6:47

It's too hip for the room. That means that it's just a little too advanced and it's going to pull focus and editors are going to absolutely need a tonic which is grounded. There needs to be a home base and before we talk about mix and instrumentation and all of that, what we have here, it feels like we're cycling through different chord progressions and the tonal center becomes completely untethered, which is working as intended. Now, the first part of this, I think, works really well. You know, we're kind of moving through some chords and we're kind of coming back to a home home base, right, that major versus minor. I think that's really cool and that could work. But if we go forward a little bit more, all right. And so now we're like maybe in a B section or something like that, but we're spiraling further outside of tonal center, but we're still pretty. It feels like tonic but, and so we do a lot of harmonic off-roading here, which, again, the music theorist in me loves it, the composer nerd loves it, but I think editors would turn their nose up at it, especially if we were going for hip hop to use under sports. It needs to be a lot more predictable.

Speaker 1: 8:31

Laying in the background. The challenge is can we incorporate some of the concepts to help drive some creativity? And really I mean anytime I see these types of theory concepts with the belief that music theory isn't a set of rules to obey but rather a way to understand music principles that are already in place. So using this Neo-Romanian theory, we can shortcut the creative process, because it's helping us make creative decisions, if that makes sense. Using closely related chords, just moving one chord tone each time and just kind of going off-roading with it, it shortcuts the creative process, cause now we don't really necessarily think it's not what chord comes next.

Speaker 1: 9:27

The decision is what one note can I move to create a new chord? And so here, at the beginning I think it's okay. We haven't completely divested much from, or, let me say, diverged much from the tonal center, but by the time we get here, we're way outside, and so it feels just like kind of a steady increase of harmonic tension, which can be cool, but for a sports cue I think it's a non-starter. It would be interesting to try these types of ideas in a tension kind of way, but even still, even still, I think you'd want to at some point return back to one. Yeah, I was popping in earlier in the cue and the cool thing about this is you've done a really good job of making this feel like one. But it feels like key change after key change after key change after key change, and I think it's gonna be a tough sell, especially in the sports broadcasting. So that would be.

Speaker 1: 10:55

My first note is I feel like it's a little bit too much harmonic off-roading. Looking here. Let's trim up the intro. We really only want about 200 milliseconds or so. So I would. And if we were going for hip hop, I think we could bring the hip hop elements out a little bit more, namely the back beats, the drums, those could be front and center.

Speaker 1: 11:26

Again, with sports, we probably need this to be a little bit more aggressive. I'd also watch some of the panning. The organ feels a little right, heavy and a little kind of dark. It feels like we have some stacked thirds in the bass class. I like the vibe of this. Yeah, I almost think that if we smooth out some of the harmonic stuff, this could almost be like an intrigue tension cue. It's just a little bit too mellow, a little bit too laid back to work for sports broadcasting. But yeah, you take some of these pulses and and it could almost work Even. Still, tension cues tend to be much more harmonically stable and I wonder if this, if that would be an issue. These types of harmonic shenanigans could work for theme music applications where it's title cards and everything and the cue itself is much more front and center. But for anything that we're expecting to kind of sit in the background, I think it's gonna be a little bit too much.

Speaker 1: 12:56

As far as our loudness, we're in pretty good shape, maybe a little, maybe a little low, and I would tamp down, tamp down the choir just a little bit. Anything that's sustained. I would pull down in the mix and let the percussion come out. We could use a little bit more bottom end right around 60 hertz, 50 to 60 hertz. We could use more bottom end there. And then, if we're looking at form. If we're thinking sports broadcasting, the form as far as the energy levels are okay here, because in sports broadcasting you don't wanna go way down and then go way high. But if we were to push this into tension territory or intrigue territory, we would probably want to break down the energy right around the minute mark or so, pull the energy back just a little bit and just kind of let it simmer and then turn around and give things back.

Speaker 1: 14:04

But as far as the title, I think we're in really good shape chromatic climb to conquest and you gave me some homework. I'm gonna have to go research this some more. And now the challenge is going to be can we introduce this? And I love these types of things. Like, yeah, I'm really looking forward to exploring more of this, but thank you so much for sending this along.

Speaker 1: 14:32

This was sent along during our week 50, weekly feedback threads. We put weekly feedback threads together every single week over at 52 cues, and we'd love to have you. It's free to join and you can also become a member subscriber of 52 cues and get access to other benefits like live streams, workshops, feedback sessions and a ton more. Membership subscriptions start at just around four bucks a month. But once again, ms Juju Beats, thank you so much for sending this along. I really did enjoy it and if you want to find out if your cue is ready for sync, then you can head over to ismycuereadycom and order up your own feedback video.

Speaker 1: 15:15

But to answer the question is chromatic climb to conquest. Ready for sync? Probably not quite yet. It's got a little bit of an identity crisis, not quite sure where it's going to fit in For sports broadcasting. No, it's going to need a lot of work for intrigue, tension, maybe. I think we've got some really good ideas that we can start with. But that's going to do it for me. Thank you so much and we will see you next time. Until then, peace Music.