House Piece

Research

For my research for writing this track I wanted to look into 90's piano house to get inspiration and learn more about what sounds and the different types of instrument's that are used, when piano is used in house music it has a very distinctive sound thats not used in any other genre using my research for my essay in project 2 i found out that what is used to make the famous piano sound is the Korg M1.

The Korg M1 was made in the early 1990's, and is advanced for its time. it has many different features that makes it unique and that helps create the piano house iconic sound. "The M1 features a 61-note velocity- and aftertouch-sensitive keyboard, 16-note polyphony, a joystick for pitch-bend and modulation control, an eight-track MIDI sequencer, separate LFOs for vibrato and filter modulation, and ADSR envelopes. Data can be stored on RAM and PCM cards"wikapedia. “Korg M1.” Wikipedia, 1 Dec. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korg_M1.

The best way to get inspiration in my opinion is to listen to different house songs from the 90's era. In most house tracks the piano plays a key role in shaping the song, giving the song a rememberable sound, the way house pianist do this is by having chord melody's where instead of having single note melody's they use chords that are normally repeated throughout the song, this video demonstrates this and proves how chords can make the song rememberable. carr, Starsky . “How to Play the Best 90’S Classic Piano House Tracks.” Youtu.be, 2025, youtu.be/6KWtv_cfetg?si=3IPgSGTPrCl_43wg&t=309. Accessed 22 May 2025.

Planning

For this track I want to start by finding the correct sound for the piano, using my research I know that the Korg M1 is one of the best sounds for writing house music so I am going to try download that plugin. I have never written a house track before so I am going to find writing this track a challenge, I also struggle writing drum tracks and the drums in a house piece are very important and helps shape the song, to make sure i have the drum sound i need I will ask for advice from other classmates who have more knowledge in writing drums. I want to compose this piece to be more in the sub-genre of minimal house, which is much more calmer and has less dramatic changes in. I chose to do it in that sub-genre because in my original plan for this FMP was to have piano has the key instrument and i feel that if the piano only played chords it will take away from my original plan, so instead writing this composition in the genre of minimal house will allow me to write a melody thats not in chords because the melody and the chord melody would clash together. For this piece i want to use different instrument's for example synths, bass drums and the piano. To get insperation for writing this track im going to listen to different minimal house tracks, I found this video that has songs that I like and that I want to get insperation from. illumINNATE Music. “Minimal House Set.” Youtu.be, 2025, youtu.be/y3JFB-H8EaI?si=aMGu6d0_3_eTqGmw&t=2629. Accessed 22 May 2025.

Finished House Track

house track - FMP.mp3

This is my final house track, at first I struggled with composing this i kept changing my ideas and restarted the track many times. I also wasn't able to download the Korg M1 plugin for my piano sound so instead I looked through logic to get a similar sound to try recreate the Korg M1 sound. I was struggling writing the drums so my classmate helped and we managed to write a drum track that I liked. In my plan i decided to write a normal melody on the piano instead of using a chord melody but when composing this piece i wrote a catchy chord melody that i decided to use in my track. To stop the chord melody and the other main melody clashing I used different instruments for each. I used a soft synth sound for the chord melody throughout the song and the more of a house piano sound.

I used a tape delay effect on the piano and synth to create a softer ambients wich helped make this composition fit my plan of composing it in the sub-genre of minimal house. I feel like I could of added more effects to this composition to give more of a house sound but overall i think that this composition still fits my plan of writing a minimal house track.

Works Cited

carr, Starsky . “How to Play the Best 90’S Classic Piano House Tracks.” Youtu.be, 2025, youtu.be/6KWtv_cfetg?si=3IPgSGTPrCl_43wg&t=309. Accessed 22 May 2025.

illumINNATE Music. “Minimal House Set.” Youtu.be, 2025, youtu.be/y3JFB-H8EaI?si=aMGu6d0_3_eTqGmw&t=2629. Accessed 22 May 2025.

wikapedia. “Korg M1.” Wikipedia, 1 Dec. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korg_M1.

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