The piece I’ve chosen to share is my Hip-Hop cue. I’ve chosen to share this track because it very much aligns with my personal interests and career aspirations, as it could very easily be used as an instrumental for a hip-hop song, rather than simply an audio cue. This cue came most naturally to me and, as a result, was the most enjoyable cue for me to compose.

 

The idea behind this piece was to evoke feelings of confidence and power, which I believe I achieved mostly through sound selection, the melodic progression, booming 808’s and a hard-hitting kick and snare combination. I wanted to keep it simplistic and tonal, which I accomplished by repeating the i chord in three different inversions over the first three measures of my repeating phrase. To include a little more tension as well as prevent the track from sounding too dark, I utilized the harmonic minor, raising my v chord in the final measure of the repeating phrase into a major chord. I used the harmonic minor within the melody as well, to not only match the harmonic chord tones, but also create more tension resolution, going from the leading tone back onto tonic.

 

While this track was made as an audio cue for a production library, I quickly converted it into the format of a hip-hop instrumental intended for an artist’s use, which is why my tag is present throughout the track.

 

I really enjoyed making this cue most, and was most pleased with the end result.