My Composing Process: "The Hilldale Grand Prix" (2024)

Dear Readers,

“The Hilldale Grand Prix” began as a Logic project titled “FunNew1.30Thing”. I had decided to compose a piece of music that was short enough to be a Reel on Instagram (less than 1 minute 30 seconds) and planned on filming a cool video to accompany it. That was the starting off point and what the project became was wholly unexpected and thrilling.

Let’s drive into it… shall we? (ugh, that was a bad car pun).

Instagrammable Music

I recently have made an effort to be more present on social media as a composer. In February, I posted a video breaking down how I composed a short piece titled “Field of Water Towers” (you can watch it here) and I also posted a Logic Session Tour of my new piece “OSLO” (WATCH the film and TOUR the Logic Session). In both these videos, I discuss my composing process, demonstrate my methods and walk the viewer through how I craft scores.

I’ve posted works of mine on my Instagram before (you can follow me @nickesco42). But this project is different. My goal was to create a piece FOR Instagram, that would be engaging from the start, hold viewers’ attention and be relatable, cool and sharable. This was my challenge and I met it head on.

Starting With The Sonic Components

I began this piece like I begin every piece: with a blank slate. Since starting with sampled sounds worked so well in “OSLO”, I decided to do the same thing here. I sampled a horse kicking a bucket, a horse halter and a horses hooves trotting on asphalt and created this rhythm which became the sonic glue for the score. I set the BPM to 90 which just felt right:

Now that I had my sonic glue I added in the drums. Using the Spitfire LABS 1975 Kit and Animal Kit, I played in a driving kick/snare rhythm and then a pulsing hi hat rhythm and then a half-time kick/snare rhythm and it turned out like this:

Perfect. Now I needed a melodic element. So I dove into the Logic instrument library (there is an especially fun collection of synths) and discovered the Aquatic Voices instrument.. It had a cool choir-esque sound that undulated with a little distortion. I played on my keyboard the following the chord progression: Ebm - Gb - Ab - Ebm - Gb - Ab - Bb. This progression is in the key of Ebm and travels from the Minor 1 (Ebm) to the Major 3rd (Gb) to the Major 4th (Ab), repeats those three and then travels up to the Major 5th of Ebm (Bb). The usage of the Major 4th is especially fun because in Eb minor the 4th would usually be minor (due to the presence of Cb instead of C natural).

Then came the bass line which also functions as the main theme for the piece. I played it on the Buzzy Pluck synth from Logic and the doubled it with the same instrument but pitched down an octave with a ton of subbass and the Warm Bass from Spitfire LABS.

This bass line follows the chord progression but also has some heat and intrigue. This is brought on by the fact that it uses the up-beat a lot (the & in 1&2&3&4&) which in the case of this piece in 90 bpm, are up-beat sixteenth notes. You can see how the Gb at the end of measure 1 actually falls on the upbeat right before measure 2. This causes that note to land a sixteenth note before the kick drum on the down beat of measure 2. It makes the bass line feel spontaneous and alive and fun.

To punctuate the bass line, I added in the Demented Percussion synth playing erratic sixteenth notes. I also added the Decrepit Mariner synth from Logic on the fourth and eighth measures of the bass line. The dotted quarter notes add momentum leading into the next measure (and also dissonance and distortion).

And with that, basically all the puzzle pieces were in place on the table, ready to be put together.

Crafting 168 Wheels
Like with OSLO, I created a looping pattern in Logic to create all the sonic pieces and then I began to build up the pieces into an actual piece of musical storytelling. I made sure that the sketched out length of the piece was under 1 minute and 30 seconds. I started with Demented Percussion, the Hoof on Asphalt sampled sound and the Kick and Snare line. That is what you hear right at the start. I build up the other drum and sampled sound textures leading into the first appearance of the bass line. I add in the Aquatic Voices in the second half of the bass line (measures 5-8) to build up into the next repetition. This is when things got really fun. Using the Floating Sensation synth from Logic, I played a crazy solo with eighth note echo triggered. It sounds like this isolated:

Underneath that the Bright Synth Panning synth from Logic builds, doubling the Aquatic Voices chords all the way up to the climax of the piece. From that point, the Floating Sensation synth plays the bass line (love how the Echo adds to it), the drums are biting, I do a crazy fast solo with the 80’s brass (listen in the low-end of the track) and then it builds and ends abruptly.

I knew I had a complete musical thought. It just felt right.

I only added one more element to this, and it was after I had started work on the film. I used recordings of my father’s 1960’s Karmann Ghia and placed recordings of the engine starting up at the very beginning and leading into the beginnings of each bass line repetition (they worked well with the Decrepit Mariner synth hits). At the end of the piece, you can hear the Karmann Ghia’s engine running (I used the pitch shift to add more low end). In my mind, it is as if the whole piece revolves sonically around the Karmann Ghia trying to start up.

The entire Logic Session for “168 Wheels”

Crafting the Film

Before I had finished composing the music, I was already hard at work on the film. I crafted it with Instagram in mind, planning on having it be in Portrait mode and making use of the framing with increased space above and below. My subject: Hot Wheels cars.

This necessitates some explanation: over the last few years I have gotten somewhat into collecting Hot Wheels cars. I buy them for my parents and my brothers and also myself, as fun little gifts. I get Mustangs for my dad, pick-up trucks for my mom, majority blue cars for my brother Alec and fun/quirky cars for my brother Gabriel. For me, I collect a wide variety and gravitate towards interesting and unique designs. I also collect Batmobiles. I find the Hot Wheels at my local Giant grocery store, Target, Acme, TJ Maxx, etc. So, I have amassed somewhat of an eclectic collection of cars.

I had the idea that I could film show clips on the 42 Hot Wheels (coincidentally the same number that is in my Instagram handle) in different parts of my family’s house (on a road called Hilldale) and then edit them together with the music.

So I walked around my family’s house with phone and Hot Wheels in hand. I filmed at least one video in every room in the house (minus the attic and garage) plus the front and backyards and the fish pond. I tried to pick locations that were personal and unique to my family.

Some of the locations/sights include:

Our gourami in the family fish tank
A squirrel jar that holds tea (I bought it at Home Sense and even though it is winter themed it is out year round)
Our family vinyl shelf (featuring some of my favorite bands: the Doobie Brother and the Eagles)
A Botero poster in our foyer (of the Mostly Mozart concert series)
A 19th century collection of Shakespeare with wooden mice from Florence
Pokemon toys from when I was a kid
My father’s owl figurine collection
My original artwork on my art table in the basement
The copy of Mario Kart that my brothers and I have played since the late 2000’s (we are very good)
A lamp that was the first purchase my grandparents made after they got married
The bookshelf in my bedroom, complete with Fahrenheit 451, 1984 and a Polaroid of Taylor Swift from her 1989 album
My great grandmother’s music stand
My Derek Jeter and Aaron Judge rookie cards, along with a wooden box that I purchased in Nice, France.
My family’s Blu Ray Shelf with “I, Daniel Blake” “Imitation Game” “The Incredibles” and “Inside Out” in view.

The editing process was intense. Frequently the individual shots would be a little over a second and under a second long. Some shots were only 0.1 seconds! This was because I wanted to time the editing exactly with the music so that the film and music danced together. I wanted them to become one. For example, I timed the shots to match up with the Decrepit Mariner synth hits.

Like with a number of my previous video projects (‘Cacophony’ and ‘darts’ come to mind), I utilized the filter feature in iMovie to change the color and saturation of the different shots of the cars. This gave the film an even more dynamic look. It also felt like I was painting in many ways. The quick cuts between drastically different colors truly complemented the rhythmic music and made the film visually engaging. For specific sequences, I built up or took away the color in a sequence of photos so that the color grading was a storytelling feature too.

Why I Made This Film About Toy Cars

There is a main reason why “168 Wheels” came to be. This month I am relocating to Los Angeles with the goal of networking in the entertainment industry, getting attached to score new projects and elevating my career to the next level. My parents and I are going to do the cross country trip in the Mini Cooper Clubman that is featured in the video.

I have been living at home here in Villanova, Pennsylvania for the majority of the time since March 2020 (minus three months in Europe doing networking last year). The goal of this film was to capture vignettes of my family’s house. Nostalgic pieces from my childhood, family heirlooms, objects that mean a lot to me personally and comforting rooms are captured here in kinetic detail. It is a log of my family’s house and a piece of it that I can carry with me while I am in Los Angeles.

I’m going to miss being with my parents everyday, walking around my neighborhood and Villanova’s campus reading the New Yorker, biking on the Radnor Trail and into Wayne, exploring Philadelphia and traveling to Doylestown, West Chester and Chestnut Hill on fun day trips. I’m going to miss being close to where my brothers live. And I’ll miss this house.

So “The Hilldale Grand Prix” is an archive of my family’s home. It is a personal film that means a lot to me, and I’m excited to share it with you.

Conclusions

While the film was the main focus of this project, I’m very pleased with how the music turned out. It was fun to experiment with Logic instruments, there really are some gems in there that I don’t utilize nearly enough. I see “The Hilldale Grand Prix” as a companion to “OSLO” in its structure and style. I’m enjoying the process of drum programming and creating driving and energetic percussion lines that inspire catchy melodies.

This project was a pleasure to work on. I will be bringing fifteen of the cars featured in this video with me to Los Angeles, so expect more Grand Prix videos in the future!

Your’s Musically,

Nicholas

P.S. Here are stills of all 42 cars. Feel free to examine each one closely, there are some fun hidden details. Also you can watch the video on Instagram at this link.