Craig Middleton Btec Music - Online Portfolio

Character Theme

The Character I picked to write a theme for is a character from an anime called “Cowboy Bebop” called Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, known mainly as Radical Edward. Here’s a picture.

In the show Edward is a 13 year old Computer Hacker with animalistic traits, and a huge amount of energy. This is reflected in what I wrote with several thing, firstly the fast and driving pace which the music is at, the bass line is relentless in it’s playing, reflecting hopefully the driving energy of Edward herself (yes her).

Secondly in the use of some of the instruments, most specifically the use of African drums as the rhythm. She is also very childish at times, represented by the miscellaneous comedy sounds used; the easiest to spot is the cartoon laughter.

On top of all this she is an eccentric genius and it’s almost impossible to predict what she’s going to do. This is reflected in the choice of time signatures, 5/4 and 7/4. They also represent the clumsiness of Edward, as these time signatures give a stumbling feel to the music. This is accented even more with the sudden changes between the two time signatures.

Most of the instrumentation is kept in theme with the anime, by which I mean jazz influenced. This is true of the key too, which varies between a C Blues scale and occasionally a G Blues, as well as the type of bass, guitar and type keyboard that are used. Finally, since the show is set in a sci-fi scene there are a few inspired sounds used throughout the piece, including the intro and outro as a way of leading the piece along.