Berklee College of Music

A Diamond´s Roots:
A Journey of Introducing Canary Folklore to Film Music

Submitted in Partial fulfillment of the Degree of
Master of Music in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games

Supervisor: Lucio Godoy

by Celia Rivero Santana

Valencia Campus, Spain
July 2019

Table of Contents
Abstract

iii

Acknowledgements

iv

1. Process before Composition

1

1.1. Choosing between a Video and a Script

1

1.2. Searching Videos about Gran Canaria and choosing one

1

2. Contacting the Director and Producers

2

2.1. First contact

2

2.2. Meeting in Gran Canaria

2

2.3. Difficulties and Solutions

3

3. Start of Composing

4

3.1. First Musical Ideas

4

3.2. Analyzing the Video and Creating a First Sketch

4

3.3. Writing the Music

13

3.4. Showing the Mockup to the Director and Making Some Changes

13

3.5. Final Musical Scheme

13

4. Recording Preparation

14

4.1. ProTools Session

14

4.2. Score and Parts

15

4.3. Conducting

16

5. Post Production: Mixing the Project

16

6. Conclusions

17

Bibliography

18
ii

Abstract

A Diamond´s Roots is a very personal project, born from the merger of cinematic music
and the folklore from Gran Canaria, the place of my birth . I composed the music for a 3
minutes video-spot that shows the island in a really different way than usual, like a fairytale.
Through this paper, I would like to display the process of analyzing every little detail of the
pictures, narration and sound design, to compose the music for it, as well as how I did the
fusion between epic and fantasy genre combined with the island folklore. Furthermore, I also
explained about my experience with the directors and producers of the short movie,
explaining the problems that we had and how we resolved them. Finally, I showed the more
technical part: from mockup to orchestration, how organize we must with all the preparation
be before the recording at Air Studios in London (score, parts, conducting, etc.), during it (be
always there before your recording time, to place correctly each part..) and after it (to
organize all the material and mix it). I hope that this can help future students to be more
prepared for this kind of recording sessions, as well as to know a little how to deal with
directors and producers.

Keywords: music fusion, composing for media, recording, orchestration.

iii

Acknowledgements

I would like to thanks all my teachers from the SFTV program.
Lucio Godoy, for being my tutor during the second semester, for all the good tips and
always making me to have more confidence in myself, as well as helping me a lot in
everything that he could.
Alfons Conde, my tutor in the first semester, for all the constructive and useful
feedbacks and for helping and being able to review my London project ´s orchestration.
To Pablo Schuller, for being always available when I needed help with my mixes, and
teaching me how to get the best sound of my compositions.
To Sergio Jimenez Lacima, because before Berklee I did not have any idea about how
to conduct my pieces and also I did not feel comfortable with the idea of conducting. Thanks
of him, I could deal with it and enjoy it a lot in Air Studios with the full orchestra.
Finally to Vicente Ortiz Jimeno, because in his classes I have learned the necessary
tools that allow me to use new programs that I did not know before, and also I am really
happy that I have got a lot of new knowledge in electronic music.
I also want to say thanks to all my talented classmates. I am so happy to have known
them and I wish them all the best for the future.
Thanks to Max Moya Wright, from the ICC, for helping me a lot with my website,
searching an internship, etc. Is a wonderful person.
Thanks to Tsun-Ju Lin, from the library, for always being so kind and helping me with
this project.

iv

And to all the persons that did possible the recording at Air Studios, as well as the
producers and the musicians that played my piece and made me enjoy a lot that moment.
Finally I want to thank my family, my parents and my sister for being there during the
recording day, always supporting me and also to my aunt and uncles.
To my grandad for always trust in me more than myself and for being with me during
my recording, giving me all the strength wherever he was.

v

1. Process before Composition
1.1. Choosing between a Video and a Script
This is the first step to consider for the London recording. Since the first semester
teachers have explained us about our possibilities to compose the music, we can choose
between making music for a 3 minute video (that length is really important because in Air
Studios we can not record more than this time unless any of our classmates gives us some
seconds if he/she does not need them, that was my case because I had 3 minutes and 7
seconds and one classmate who composed 2 minutes 45 seconds gave me that 7 seconds) or
searching/drafting our own script. I have to say that for me it was really clear since the
beginning that I wanted the video option. First of all, due to the main purpose of the SFTV
program, to compose for audiovisual media, is much more attractive if I find a good material.
Hence, I did not spend much time thinking about the second option. I opted for choosing a
video.

1.2. Searching Videos about Gran Canaria and Choosing One
I knew that I wanted something related with my island, Gran Canaria. That is because I
had in my head the idea of combining the cinematic epic orchestra sound from London with
some elements from the canary folklore. I started searching different videos about this
thematic and there were a lot of materials, but all of them were pretty much the same with
nice images but nothing different or special for me. I continued searching, and suddenly I saw
one that captivated my eyes from the very first minute until the end. This one is called: Gran
Canaria, Fairytale Island, and it shows the island from a totally different perspective with a
“Storyteller” that is guiding us to different magical areas of the island, submerging us in a
fairytale full of emotional and epic moments. This one, because of the emotional burden and
1

the beauty of the pictures, was clearly for me, it fits perfect for this unique recording with a
full orchestra in Air Studios .

2. Contacting the Director and Producers
2.1. First contact
My first intention was trying to contact the producers of the short movie to ask them if
it would be possible to have the video file, the narration, and sound design wavs for doing the
mix after that with my music, only with academic proposals. Coincidentally, a friend of my
family knew the producers and spoke with them about it. Through him, I get their contact and
sent them a mail explaining my project.
After talking a lot during some days about the project, they told me that they really
liked the idea and they would like to participate in creating a making-off of the process and
doing a kind of relaunch of the video. I was very happy with this news because it was totally
unexpected for me. After that I travelled to Gran Canaria to have a personal meeting with all
of them: the producers, director and the representative from the government entity that
promotes the tourism of the island, that is called ”Patronato de Turismo de Gran Canaria”.

2.2. Meeting in Gran Canaria
When we had the meeting, I was explaining them deeply about my project. After that
the producers and director started explaining their intention to the representative from el
Patronato: to make a new video that would have shots from my recording in London (of me
conducting, the musicians playing, etc.), and some new shots with new characters and new
pictures from the island, with the message of how our island can inspire people, like in my

2

case composing a musical piece for it. Everybody was really exited with the idea of this new
project and they finally got the approval from our government to go ahead with this project
and went to record new materials in London. This means that they also needed another
approval from Air Studios to record there.

2.3. Difficulties and Solutions
After great enthusiasm with all of this, we had a lot of difficulties to close the project
until the last day before recording in London. It was basically for a few points. First of all, it
was a little dangerous of having two or three people there with cameras and moving around
while I was recording. Since any little noise could destroy my recording, I carefully explained
this to everyone and they told me that it was not going to be any problem with that. They
were serious and professional people and Lucio and I trusted them. So after that they were
waiting a response from Air Studios during a huge time. It was a delicate situation because
the proposal of the recording was promoting the tourism in the island, and the contract that
Berklee Valencia has with Air Studios clarify that we can not use our music recorded there for
lucrative purposes. It took a lot of time to explain to Air Studios this is not pure tourism that
was going to be shown on the TV, it was something different, another way to approach
people to Gran Canaria, in a creative way. Finally, Air Studios accepted the project, but
telling them that they will have to buy my piece from a musical library store (in Air Edel), for
a little price. It was a really tedious process and I was a little stressed about it, because it took
all the time that I was composing and preparing all my material until the last day. But, it
finally worked.

3

3. Start of Composing
3.1. First Musical Ideas
As I wrote before, my first idea with the video was making this music cinematic epic
fusion with canary folklore, so I started investigating about my own folklore by going to the
library of my city, asking teachers from my conservatory, reading and listening canary music,
etc. With all this information collected, I had enough materials to go ahead and inlaying them
with the video, giving them a meaning.

3.2. Analyzing the Video and Creating a First Sketch
I started analyzing the video through the special website that they did for this
shortmovie (http://grancanariafairytaleisland.com/). They divide the story in four chapters, so
what I did was searching in what specific place of the island happened each chapter, and after
that I searched a song from our folklore that represents each place:
Table 1.
CHAPTER

AREA WHERE IT
HAPPENS

SONG RELATED TO
THAT PLACE

ORIGINAL AUTHOR
OF THE SONG

The Perfect Guardian

Roque Nublo Natural
Monument

Sombras del Nublo

Néstor Álamo

The Legendary
Dragon´s Tail

Visible from Mirador el
Balcón, Agaete

La Rama (song
performed by a street
band because of a
typical celebration in
the village of Agaete)

Unknown

Verdant Splendour

Tamadaba Natural
Park

Tamadaba

Néstor Álamo

Swim in Sand

Dunas de
Maspalomas, Special
Nature Reserve

Maspalomas y tú

Néstor Álamo

4

I analyzed each song, and extracted the musical cell that I considered more
representative of each, and then I did some changes adapting them to my orchestration and
the mood that I was searching for. I will explain this more detailed in the next point.

3.3. Writing the Music
In this section, I will explain the important musical motives and elements that I used
along my piece. One that I totally created from zero and another ones that I modified from the
canary folklore songs.
The very first motive that I want to introduce happens in the very beginning, totally
naked with a flute solo in a middle-low register:

Figure 1.
I created this motive through all the other ones (the folklore song melodies) , and what I
did was taking an specific interval of each song and bring them together to make this new
melody. This motive is appearing along the piece with little changes and variations in
harmony, rhythm etc. played by different instruments from the orchestra. I will show all the
examples by the order in which they appear along the piece:
Violin I, horns and oboes:

Figure 2.
5

Trombones and trumpets:

Figure 3.

Violin I starting with a fourth interval instead of a third:

Figure 4.
Trombone:

Figure 5.
Horns, Violin I and II:

Figure 6.

6

Violin I and II:

Figure 7.
After this motive and the variations, I used an important element from canary folklore:
the “timple sound”. The timple is a typical canary music instrument and I wanted to emulate
the sound with the orchestra. Some people told me the option of recording a real timple after
the orchestra and then mixing it, but as I explained at the beginning, for me the challenge was
doing this folklore-cinematic fusion just with the orchestra. So I decided to use violin II for
this effect, and what I did was, first of all writing the chords using all the strings and trying to
get a comfortable position for them with the harmony that I was searching for. After that I
wrote the arpeggio indication and also the movement directions (up and down with arrows)
emulating how a timple player usually plays the instrument, I also indicated to play in
pizzicato and in a “guitar position”. So finally it was something like this:

Figure 8.

7

Further on, I use the first motive from the song Sombras del Nublo (by Néstor Álamo).
In this section, which is The Perfect Guardian chapter and section A in my musical scheme
(attached in the point 3.5) the video shows our most emblematic natural monument: Roque
Nublo. So I chose the song Sombras del Nublo because as the title says it is dedicate to this
monument, like it will happen with the rest of the places and songs related to them. The
original motive by the original composer is this one, usually played by a timple player:

Figure 9.

I changed the seventh of the chord by using the eight. I introduce this motive in the celli
and bassoon first, into a really delicate way with a high and soft strings accompaniment,
while the narrator is talking about how the man is in his way to the Roque Nublo, running,
jumping and climbing:

Figure 10.
Also in this specific moment of the video (00:32), we can see a grandiose landscape
shown through a really long shot, and I wanted to play with the contrast of suddenly making
really little and subtle orchestration but espressivo, to catch the spectator attention when they
listen for the first time this melody.

8

After that I made a crescendo that ended with the same motive in violins, in a epic and
espressivo mood, because in this scene we see the man finally arriving to the Roque Nublo,
and observing that “Protector of our Land” so I wanted to make this moment full of emotion:

Figure 11.

Then, I arrive to chapter 2: The Legendary Dragon´s Tail, where I use the motive from
the song La rama. This is because on the video, in this part the narrator guides us to a place
where we can see grandiose rocks from Agaete, and that song is the most representative of
Agaete village. The original melody is this one, that is normally played by a street brass band:

Figure 12.
In this case, I kept the original one, changing the key, instrumentation (I wrote it in
horns) with an epic mood and I did not use the last two notes:

Figure 13.
Chapter 3: Verdant splendor. In this section, that shows Tamadaba Natural Park, I took
the song Tamadaba, as the title says it is about this magical park. So what I did was taking a

9

specific part from de song where the singer is telling: Ay pinar de Tamadaba (he is talking
about an emblematic tree from that park). I show the original melody in here:

Figure 14.

I made some changes in this melody. First, wrote in a oboe solo. In this case I did not
use the two first notes, then the third note (in the original melody the fundamental, D) I
changed it using the seventh of the chord (in my case the note E, because I am in C#m, but I
am doing the melody on the IV grade Major, this is : F#-A#-C#). Also I did not do the three
notes following exactly like the original I used a “passing tone”, because in my opinion is
more melodical than the option of maintaining the same note three times. So this is the result:

Figure 15.
Then the oboe continued his solo and I did a little counterpoint repeating the motive in
violin I, another time without writing the two first notes but this time, starting with the same
note than the original (in my case, with my harmony that note would be G#):

10

Figure 16.
Next, we are near to the end of the piece and we arrive to the climax, where all the
orchestra is in tutti. Violin I is doing the main motive a little bit transformed (the one that I
presented with the flute at the very beginning), and at the same time, trumpets are playing a
contra-melody which is from the song Maspalomas y tú, with a little different rhythm and
different context of course. So knowing the song we know that we are in the final chapter:
Swim in Sand that shows Dunas of Maspalomas. The original melody, which says:
Maspalomas y tú (in english Maspalomas and you) like the title, is this one:

Figure 17.

The one that I wrote in trumpets is this one:

Figure 18.
Finally, we are in the end of the piece, last bars where we can listen to different
elements. First one, a familiar melody on all violins, firsts and seconds, that we listened to it
during chapter one: The Perfect Guardian (see Figure 9 and 10), but this time I wrote the
11

melody like the original one because it is the last time that the Roque Nublo appears on the
video, for doing that node more obvious:

Figure 19.
Last nod but not least, is one musical motive that we can listen in horns. This motive
was extracted and changed in meter and rhythm, also context and harmony from another
important song from our folklore called Gran Canaria by Manuel R. Melián. I chose this
song for doing this last nod because I think it was the perfect one. Like the title says is a
tribute to our whole island Gran Canaria (not only to a specific place like all the other ones)
so I though that a nice way of ending was with this little detail. The original melody singed
by a famous music folklore group called “Los Gofiones” (the lyrics mean: “I hold you in my
heart”):

Figure 20.

I did meter and rhythm changes, writing the melody in horns:

Figure 21.

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3.4. Showing the Mockup to the Director and Making Some Changes
After finishing my first and full version, I sent the mockup to the director and producers
explaining what is a mockup, that obviously it would sound quit better and more “human”
with the orchestra. At first they liked it but also was a little difficult because they were more
used to the original music that they had, that it was library music that was not composed for
that video. After listening to it more times, they really liked it and gave me a few suggestions
that they considered appropriate for the story, such as the need to have more basses in
general. So I did that in specific moments, giving more emphasize to the basses and
duplicating to low octave. Also, in one specific part that the narrator was talking about
dragons tails, at first I had a flute doing the melody but it was so sweet, so I changed that
melody to horns and I added some bass drum and a little ostinato in violins one. The same
idea totally changed the mood like they wanted, making the melody more powerful. After that
little changes we were ready to record.

3.5. Final Musical Scheme
When I compose a new piece, I usually do a final scheme with a musical analysis to
clearly understand what I did in each moment. Here I am going to explain a little my way of
analyzing the music before showing the scheme.
I have included the different sections of my piece. In Table 2 you can see an Intro,
different sections and the Coda. I divided it in different sections because they have different
moods and instrumentation following the story, but they always have common elements
through different music motives. Also, the color choice for each section is not selected
randomly. If we read each cue´s title and see that part in the video (following the timing

13

section that I wrote in the scheme) we will understand why each color for a certain section
was used.

Table 2.
Section

Gran Canaria, Fairytale Island - “A Diamond´s Roots”: Musical Analysis
Intro

A

Once
Upon a
Time…

The
Perfect
Guardian

Tongues of
The
Flame
Legendary
Dragons
Tail

Time (on the 00:00 video)
00:32

00:32 00:46

00:47 01:09

01:10 01:22

Instruments
used

Flute solo
-> Strings
without
basses ->
basses and
woodwind
s to add
color

Celli,
bassoons
and high
strings ->
Strings,
timpani,
cymbals,
bass
trombone,
tuba,
horns and
flute

Strings
plus some
woodwind
s-> get in
horns and
percussion
and then
trombones
and
trumpets

Strings,
one
trumpet
and two
horns

Gm -> C
Maj -> Cm

Cm

Cm->A
Maj

F Maj

I -> I -> VI-I

VI-V6-IIV

IVM-VI -> I
(with Major
sixth)

I-III

Cue´s title

Tonality
Harmony

B

C

D

E

F

G

A´

Coda

Held the
Sky in his
Hands

Verdant
Splendour

Walk on
the Water

Swim in
Sand

Come…

Fairytale
Island

01:23 01:37

01:38 02:05

02:06 02:31

TUTTI

Oboe plus
strings -> I
add some
woodwind
s and
trombones

Strings ->
horns and
timpani
get in ->
orchestral
crescendo

Am

C#m

C#m->Dm

IV-III6-V- IVM-I-III-VIVI-IV-I- IV
V6

VI -> VII-VI

01:32 02:42

02:43 02:54

02:55 03:07

TUTTI

Strings,
percussion
and some
woodwind
s -> horns
get in

Strings,
chimes
and horns
fading out

Dm

Dm->Fm

Fm

I-V-VI-I-V IV-V7+ -IV6 -> VI

VI

4. Recording Preparation
4.1. ProTools Session
It is extremely important to bring to London a clean and clear Pro Tool Session, with
everything in the correct place to avoid spending unnecessary time during our recording. I
always insist in checking each marker, carefully with the general score and also with each
parts. The same with bar numbers, tempo and meter changes and check that the mockup work
14

with all this elements. Is important to follow Berklee instructions and put two bars before bar
one, where music starts. And finally we check all the rules that our mixing professor, Pablo,
has taught us, such as the sound of the click (it should be MPC classic click). Also to activate
the grid, to have the main big counter, etc.
If we consider all this points we will have a perfect Pro Tool Session that will help us to
have a nice recording and not losing time.

4.2. Score and Parts
It is crucial to have a clean score and parts, with a nice layout for the musicians
comfort. We must take into account to prepare the general score for the conductor (in this
case we are conducting our music, but it is the same process): big meter numbers and bar
numbers in each bar and everything with a big font and enough space between elements to a
visual comfort.
About parts is more o less the same, to keep important elements with a big font that
musicians can easily read (for example, percussionists and bass players need a bigger font
than the rest of the instruments), also to indicate the mood that we want in specific places.
With bar numbers we have different options, like writing one on the beginning of each system
(which I prefer it, because like that the part is not overcharged) or writing all of them.
Finally we must always check that we have all our parts correctly transposed and
doublecheck all instrument´s register, just in case we made an error that we did not realize at
the beginning.

15

4.3. Conducting
I think the most important issue to conduct in Air Studios with this orchestra is to show
the emotions that you are searching for. They have a click so there is not big problem with
the conducting in that respect (of course we must know really well our meter to not do a
different one and confuse the players), so is more an introspective work of trying to make the
most of the musicians. We had a 15 minutes session with Sergio, the conducting teacher,
before our recording. In my case he gave me some advices such as control a little bit more
my face expression, because I was not smiling or showing any emotion. I worked on that
before going to London because it was not an easy thing for me, I usually do not enjoy
conducting while other people are looking at me, but in this case I finally achieved to enjoy
the moment. It was also really easy because I saw the musicians faces enjoying a lot playing
my music, and that motivated me in that moment.

5. Post Production: Mixing the Project
I had to follow two different steps in my mixing process for the London piece. First one
mixing the music itself, and then mixing it with the dialogue and sound effects.
For the music, first of all, I organized all the session. I took the good takes, importing
the template that Pablo taught us to have an organize an clear session and put tracks groups
by different colors for a better visual comfort. Then, I did the panning and I started working
with automatization after deleting the microphones that I did not want to use (I did not use
surrounds). I put the volume a little bit up to some solos and some percussion (the attack of
the bass drum was not clear at all). I also put a reverb from Altiverb and start testing the
amount of sending to have a good balance.

16

After I did this I had my mixing session with Pablo. He add some plug-ins from Ozone
such as equalizer and limiter, to make the mix bigger and with a cinematic sound. I was really
happy with the final mix because it sounded big, with space and understanding every
instrument and solo passage.
After this I made a little mix with the dialogue and sound effects. In this case I was
basically working with automatization, searching a final good balance between all the tracks
together.

6. Conclusions
This year has been full of a lot of work but also a lot of emotions. I have learned a lot of
new programs and technological knowledge that I did not know. I have met a big amount of
talented people from different parts of the world, different cultures and backgrounds, not only
in my program but in the whole campus. I have deal with deadlines and with all the
assignments, learning something different of each one. I have conducted different ensembles
with a huge variety of nice players, that in the most part of the recording they came to me to
told me that they really liked the piece and they enjoyed to play it a lot, I was amazingly
grateful for that details.
I had the opportunity of preparing my final project to record in Air Studios in London, a
project that has emotionally touched me a lot, because is the mix of my passion, composing
music for media, with the traditional music from my place of birth, Gran Canaria. I think that
the music that I wrote for this project is the one that I can more identify with, and represents
me as a composer better than any other one piece.

17

The day of my recording was a difficult day for me because of an unexpected an
personal issue that broke me. But I had to deal with it and finally it was a very special
moment that happened thanks of all the persons that were there to support me: my family, my
friends and my teachers, as well as the musicians that I felt them really kind with me. For me
It has been an unforgettable recording and year.

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Bibliography

Alonso, Elfidio. Estudios sobre el Folklore Canario. Edirca. Accessed March 2019.
Betancor, Antonio. “Algunos Apuntes sobre Sombras del Nublo.” Revista Folklore, nº445.
Accessed March 2019.
Cabrera, Benito. Va por el Aire, Apuntes sobre Cultura Popular Canaria. Le Canarien.
Accessed March 2019.
“Gran Canaria.” Performed by Los Gofiones. Youtube video, 3:21. Accessed May 12, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82mliPJLM9w&t=67s.
“Gran Canaria, Fairytale Island”. http://grancanariafairytaleisland.com/
“La Rama.” Performed by La Banda de Agaete. Youtube video, 1:52. Accessed May 12,
2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1XNpiR6tKA.
“Maspalomas y tú.” Performed by Mestisay. Youtube video, 3:56. Accessed May 12, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e57TZgL7nZ4.
“Música Folclórica de Canarias.” Wikipedia. Accessed May 16, 2019.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BAsica_folcl%C3%B3rica_de_Canarias.
Pérez Vidal, José. Los Estudios del Folklore Canario. Excma. Accessed March 2019.
“Sombras del Nublo.” Performed by Alfredo Kraus and Los Sabandeños. Youtube video,
4:10. Accessed May 12, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w02hFMo9b2A.
“Tamadaba.” Performed by Mestisay. Youtube video, 2:43. Accessed May 12, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8yVm6TFznc.

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