Playable Music Demo!

Alright, friends, I've got something new and exciting for you! I made a "game" in Stencyl to demonstrate how some of my adaptive music tracks work, allowing you to control it, rather than just showing you a video.

There's two flavors: One is a playable platforming game. Time your jumps well, and stomp on the little dude at the end. The other is a very simple demonstration, with some text to explain what's happening, just in case the platforming stuff is a little too intense for you.

I suppose I should put up a disclaimer, huh? My only contribution to this demo is the music, programming, and level design. All artwork, including actors and tilesets, were pre-loaded in Stencyl, and are therefore not my original work. But this is about as non-profit as it gets, so it shouldn't be a problem, right?



Enjoy!

Assassin's Creed: Revelations - Chase Music Analysis

I decided my next task in gaining a better understanding of the Assassin's Creed: Revelations soundtrack was to take a very in-depth look at some of the chase music. It's not terribly complicated, but I didn't let that stop me from doing something a little excessive; I mapped out an entire track in Excel. Insane? Probably.

Here's the track I used (which is fantastic):

And here's my map, so you can follow along:

Here's why I did this: Chase music is all about texture. At some point, it's dense (there's a lot going on), and suddenly it's all open (very few instruments playing). It never does the same thing for too long, even though there are some elements that are almost always present, and carry on throughout the near entirety of the track. So this Excel sheet maps out what instruments are playing, and when, so you can see how it works.

But it also illustrates the four major components of AC:R's chase music.
1. Percussion
Obviously, there's a lot of it, and it's varied in order to maintain interest. It's a mix of taiko/Godzilla drums, ethnic instruments, and electronic drum sounds. Look how much of it there is! But notice that only a small portion of it is playing for very long, besides the hi-hat and pulse elements (they're special). Sometimes the percussion is used melodically, but only in very limited ranges (like halfsteps). This track doesn't do this, but others do, and it's pretty cool.
2. Melodic Elements
These are actually very sparse. Any melodies are very slow, and very subtle. These are usually strings, maybe horns or ethnic instruments, and occasionally gregorian vocals (because, you know, Templars). You know what's nice about this map I made? You can actually see the counterpoint in the melody elements. Look how they trade off throughout the first half of the track!
3. Chordal Elements
I'm talking about the low strings, rhythmic strings, harps, guitars, and instruments that suggest chords. These are usually synched up with the percussion, and are pulsating/rhythmic rather than held out. But notice that there really isn't much of a chord progression, here. It's very static. That's important.
4. Weird Stuff
Nonsense singing, shouts, atmospheric effects, strange metal noises and whatnot. It adds a "what the hell was that?" factor. It's a hook to catch your interest and keep you in to the track, and add individuality.

So it's all laid out for you up above, but here's a few other things to take note of:

• These texture changes, where instruments drop out and new ones come in, they aren't gradual. They're very sudden, very punctuated. 
• To me, the most interesting part of this track is at 1:41. The composer's really trying to throw you off your timing, which is a really neat thing to do considering what the track is being used for. Go ahead, try to keep your timing through that part. It's actually pretty tough, but it keeps you interested, right?
• Also look at how measures are grouped. 3 measures, then 4, then 2, then 8, then 12.75, then 12 (4 + 8 or 8 +4?), then 8 (and the melody suggests subdivisions of 3 + 2 + 3 ). Basically, it's not 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 the whole time, like nearly all songs on the radio are.
• Did you notice the even larger groups? It seems like there's 4. Segment 1 (up to 1:00) is melodic, and building. Segment 2 (up to 2:16) is nearly all percussion. Segment 3 (up to 2:44) is more chordal. Segment 4 (to the end) is all weird junk. Hey, doesn't that sound familiar? Oh yeah, it's the same 4 components I outlined above! Neat how they each seem to get their own little segment in the track, huh?

I have one other little tip, but I'm not going to share it just yet. Mainly because I have to see if it actually works or not, so when you see some more Assassin's Creed style chase music from me, I'll let you know.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the read, and maybe even learned something. Stay tuned for some more new music this Friday from the Sagramore OST!

Goldrim

Happy friday! Here's a new track for you, from the Sagramore soundtrack. Goldrim is a steampunk style mining town. It's dirty, and a tiny bit dangerous, but still home to many.

Next week I'll return with some more analytical posts, because I know some people have been craving them. See you soon!

Some New Music for Your Wednesday

Earlier this year, I was working on an online RPG called Sagramore. I realized I never really released any of those tracks, so I might as well do it now. This is Kamenna Town, the town you start your journey in. It's a very peaceful, folky town.

Oh, and I remastered that Assassin's Creed chase track from last week. It sounds so much better, now.

Taking a Closer Look at Assassin's Creed's Action Music

I felt that my copy of the Assassin's Creed: Revelations soundtrack wasn't giving me quite enough insight in to how the series handles its action music, so I looked back on the other games in the series. Now, I've played all of the games save for the one that came out recently, but I've realized that one simply doesn't catch on to as many musical themes and ideas when playing the game, assuredly because one's mind is a bit preoccupied with controlling the character. I noticed that while there are structural similarities between the action music in the four Assassin's Creed games, each game also has a bit of its own "flavor," so to speak, and that is what I wish to talk about today.


Assassin's Creed
The original, very genre-(re)defining game from from 2007 is also very different, musically, from the other games. It's colder, harsher, and incredibly intense when compared with the music from later games in the series, and allow me to explain why.


Despite the flighty flutes and occasional bongo percussion, the instrumentation in this game is decidedly harsh, and rigid. Mostly, it's the anvils (and other hard metallic sounds) and low piano. These two things remind us of industry, of an unmovable force. The game is supposed to be about the freedom you have as an assassin, running through streets, jumping across rooftops, flying through the air, etc, but the music doesn't always seem to reflect this. The driving harshness of the piano and hard metal sounds are incredibly grounding, and no amount of fun, flighty flutes and bongos can offset this.


Also notice how incredibly dissonant and dark the music is, in terms of melody and chords. Close clusters, clashing notes. Even the production of the music is very compressed. It's all very suffocating. Is this intentional? I'm not really sure what I believe, but think about how dark the first Assassin's Creed is (spoilers ahead). You play as a lone assassin against a entire army of targets, and even your fellow assassins and master scorn and punish you for mistakes you make in the first chapter. The world is very unfriendly in the first Assassin's Creed, and when you step out of the animus, you're reminded that you're a prisoner being held against your will, and it's not clear what will happen to you once you've outlived your usefulness. It's a very depressing game, honestly, and the music seems to reflect that. Maybe intentionally, maybe not. The hard metal sounds and piano don't make a strong return to any of the later games, but the rest of the instrumentation (heavy drums, chanting, shakers, singing, strings) become part of the staple Assassin's Creed "run/fight" sound.


Assassin's Creed II
The second game in the series fixes all the issues from the first. It's definitely near the top of my list of "greatest games, ever" in terms of story, gameplay, and even ambience and music. The story makes you care about the character, it offers glimmers of hope, and the music really comes in to its own. Like I said before, each game has its own musical flavor, and Assassin's Creed II's soundtrack is all about the addition of a new instrument: the guitar, or instruments similar to the guitar, like the lute.


The music remains rather dark, but something about the constant strumming of the guitar/lute (whether you can make out what notes are being played isn't necessary) evens out the music, and makes it a lot "lighter" on its feet. The flutes and bongos couldn't accomplish this in ACI due to the overbearing weight of the pianos and heavy metallic sounds, which you can see also didn't make it in to the new soundtrack. The use of the lute gave the game its own unique style, and also lightly adhered to where and when the game took place, as the lute was very popular in Italy in the 14th century.


You'll notice the heavy drums have carried over from the previous game, along with the spooky distant voices and singing, the strings, and the shakers. ACII's soundtrack is interesting in that it occasionally uses distorted guitars and electronic drums, which is something you'd think wouldn't mix well with the time period you're playing in, but somehow it works very well.


Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
This is where the action and chase music truly begin to shine, in my opinion. The second game has quite a few gems, but the third game introduces something that is absolutely essential to AC's musical sound: weird sound effects used melodically, or musically.


Check out those crazy scraping noises! It's such a fantastic effect, and so incredibly unique. The distorted guitars are still there, but they are heavily toned down. For the most part, it's very similar to the previous game's soundtrack (heavy drums, shakers, strings, distant voices/singing, and guitar-like instruments) but the addition of the strange noise puts it in to unforgettable territory. I also love the exclusive use of the lute at 1:17. What's really neat, though, is that those scraping noises are coming from violins. Guess where the violin more or less evolved in to its modern form? Italy. Guess when? Around 1500. This plays in to my other observation about this game's chase and action music, the much heavier use of large string sections. ACII was all about mandolins, and guitar, and it all felt very "light" and "young." ACB seem much more mature, which is why I think it adopts a more broadly orchestral soundtrack. It's heavier, but still doesn't feel weighed down. Again, this fits because the 1500s in Europe were about the time classical string instruments really peaked. Today's string instruments really haven't changed that much since then, if you didn't know. Anyway, here's another great example of using sound effects, and more of the same instrumentation I've been mentioning this whole time:



Assassin's Creed Revelations
At this point, the game pretty much has a signature sound. There isn't much that's really added in ACR, it's just more of the same, but somehow it still remains pretty fresh. Even if it's rehashing old themes:


The bell motif should sound familiar, you just listened to it up top. But now it's mixed in with all the evolved ideas that make AC's music great. Here's another great example of strange sound effects used in a musical way, mixed in with the usual heavy drums, shakers, and strings.


If there is anything about ACR that gives it its own unique sound, I'd say it's the chord progressions and some of the melodies. They're much more memorable, and less stagnant. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with chase music being stagnant (i.e. revolving around one note/chord), it's clearly been effective in the past. Perhaps the more outward expansion of the chords and melodies is Lorne Balfe's influence, as this is when he assisted in writing the soundtrack with Jesper Kyd. Maybe that's the very reason why Lorne was pulled in to work on ACR. Maybe Jesper's style had hit a peak, or to put it nicer, maybe he perfected it but the soundtrack still needed to evolve, to become more "epic," and epic isn't really Jesper's bag. I did mention in a previous post that Lorne also worked on Inception, which has a soundtrack that's just about as intense as they can possibly be. Anyway, here's one last video. It's one of my favorite tracks.


So you can see, each Assassin's Creed game has its own unique ideas. These ideas are mostly centered around instrumentation, and later around melody and chord progressions. But what of the overarching style that all these tracks use? The music is very texture-based. It's thin in some places, and it suddenly (or slowly) get heavier, busier. Then it suddenly drops down to just a few instruments. There's definitely a technique or special approach to writing this kind of music, and that is what I'll be talking about in my next update.

Alright, friends. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned later this week for some new music!

Templars! Run!

Not to be confused with Temple Run.



Here's another track from my study of the music from Assassin's Creed Revelations. In a few days, I'll make another post with a lot of juicy details about how to write this kind of music. I have to edit a few things, first. Don't want to give away all my secrets, do I?

Style Copy: Assassin's Creed Revelation's Theme

Okay, so ages ago I set out to try a new compositional technique. Practice, I guess you'd say. Basically, I'd have a listen to a popular soundtrack, and say "I can do that," and do my best to mimic its style. I figured this would come in handy, since maybe some day a client will ask me to write something that "sounds like _____," and then I can say "I can do that. Actually, I already did."

It didn't actually take me ages to do this. Working 40 hours a week, moving, building a new PC, and getting way too in to Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 3 Portable set me back quite a bit. But here it finally is!



Well, the main theme, anyway. I got a little impatient at the end, because to be honest, this wasn't that fun. I really wanted to get in to writing some of the chase/action music from Assassin's Creed, but I HAD to do this first because it's the main theme (damn OCD). So excuse some sloppiness towards the end.

Anyway, in the interest of keeping this short, here's my notes:

Overall: It has to be memorable, and in order to be memorable, it has to be simple. Fragments of the main theme's melody have to be memorable by themselves, so they can be used quickly, later (in cutscenes, etc). This is not easy. I made MANY rewrites before I came to what I have. I would be thinking about it at work, and the first half of my melody would easily pop in to my head, but I couldn't remember how I wrote the second half. So the second half was out! Basically, don't be afraid of complete rewrites. Go ahead and read my previous post for more on writing melodies. Moving on!

First 1/3!
I noticed that, in the first run of the main melody in the original AC:R theme, the backing strings expand. It starts out very close together (pitch-wise), and slowly expands outwards, reaching both deep down and up high, and becoming more "full." Also, it expands in a more sonic way, with the backing strings muffled and subdued in the first run, and (very) slowly expanding and becoming more "up-front," and by the second run everything's out in the open, and in your face. To counter this, the voice is ALWAYS out in front. Listen to how it contrasts to the backing chords in the first run. The chords are muffled and subdued. The voice is right out in front, loud and clear. Gotta make sure you hear that melody real good, yeah? Or else how are you going to remember it?

Second 1/3!
Well, it's just the same material, except filled out with chords. And how those chords fade in and out is important. They breathe. Oh, and they have some very light counterpoint. I did use some tricks for fading in instruments, using not only volume but also movable low-cut EQs (allowing lower frequencies in over time). This is where it needs to build, and in order to do that, more instruments fade in and support what's already there. New parts aren't really necessary, you only need to back up existing parts with new timbres. Except for marcato strings. They just outline the chord that's happening at that moment, it's really the sound of the scratching strings that's important. This is an overused technique in today's theatrical music, but whatever, I can't deny how effective it is. I also tried to keep an electronic element present with the low arpeggiator because, you know, Animus and all that.

Final 1/3!
This is where the second theme comes in, and I didn't realize it at first, but this is actually FAR SIMPLER than it appears to be! It's comprised of only 5 or so elements.
1. Percussion. It is constant. It is exciting. It is essential.
2. Melody. It is simple. It is one line, unharmonized. It is backed up by strings, and an entire choir, but only in octaves, not harmonized. It needs to scream.
3. Marcato strings. You don't even need to hear the notes! All you need to hear is the scratching sound. Think about the last 3 Batman movies. That DUNDUNdundunDUNDUNdundun thing the strings do. It really doesn't matter what notes they're playing, it's the rhythm and the constancy that really sells it.
4. THE BRASS. Shockingly, it's only two notes! Generally, it goes like this: Horn #1 plays 2 notes, first one, then another. Horn #2 plays 1 note, held while horn #1 plays its two. Repeat. That's IT! No complex chords, no other instruments filling things out. Listen to the AC:R theme on YouTube for yourself. This is the part that really surprised me. I was expecting more filling, more complexity, but it simply isn't there, or necessary.
5. LIGHT counterpoint/harmonization. VERY light. Just enough to keep interest, because the theme is so simple you're really just repeating the same 8 seconds over and over. The counterpoint is subtle and simple enough to retain interest.

That's all there is to it. Now you can write your own Inception soundtrack!
(I swear that's the last of my cynicism of western cinematic music for now.)

Anyway, I'm done trying to promise you guys "hey there's totally an update coming in a few days," because we've seen that this doesn't pan out well at all. So just stay tuned. Some action music, and maybe some city and cutscene music is coming up next. When, exactly? It's more fun if it's a surprise ... right?

Compositional Breakdown! Assassin's Creed: Revelations (Part I)

Alright, so now that I'm finally finished with school (Master of music, yeah!) and I have some more free time (actually, not that much!), I decided to devote some time to studying musical scores. Specifically, video game scores. Why study video game scores? Honestly, to better myself as a composer, and because I'm pretty damn good at analyzing and picking music apart like this. While I'm at it, though, I might as well share my findings, right? Sure, it might be completely counter-productive giving potential rivals in the video game music market this kind of edge, but hey, maybe I'm just that confident.

So the first score we're going to take a look at is from Assassin's Creed: Revelations. This score has two composers, Jesper Kyd (from previous AC titles, and also Borderlands) and Lorne Balfe (he tends to work with Hans Zimmer a lot). These two have very distinct styles, Jesper being more ethnic and exotic, and Lorne being more emotional and, well, BWAAAAM (ala Inception) (I wonder if it was really Hans Zimmer that came up with that BWAAAM idea, I hear it every now and then in this soundtrack). The score is 3 CDs long, about 3+ hours of music, and I've listened multiple times in order to come up with the following breakdown.

There are 5 game scenarios that the music applies to:
1. Cutscenes (Scripted Music)
2. Cities (No Action)
3. Low Intensity Action (Sneaking)
4. Medium Intensity Action (Chases / Easy Battles)
5. High Intensity Action (Battles / Emotional Moments)

But first, we need to talk about the main theme first. And here it is, have a listen:

But hey! Down here! Keep reading, because I know you can multitask. This theme is actually TWO themes! Now, I can't say this with 100% certainty, but I'm pretty damn sure one of them was written by Jesper, and the other by Balfe. Why do I think this? Mostly for stylistic reasons. Jesper's theme, the first theme, is so damn lyrical and pretty. Balfe's theme, the second theme (at 3:50) is very, well, Inception-y, and we know from his work history that that's his kind of style (the same applies for Jesper).

By the way, I threw together a score real quick, if you're interested:

So what makes a good main theme? In short, simplicity. Both themes use very few different pitches, and movements between pitches is usually by step, and very rarely by a large leap. This makes it simple, and easy to memorize, and even more importantly ... easy to sing. Both are strong themes in this way, and also in differing ways. Jesper's theme (the first one) is strong because it uses such short phrases, such small fragments. It's like when you're trying to memorize a speech, and you work through it 3 or 4 words at a time, by phrase. It's memorable because it mimics human speech. Lorne's theme is memorable in a slightly different way, in that each note is on a strong beat. It's melodically and rhythmically simple, which again makes it easier to memorize, whether you want to or not. I could get in to harmonic analysis, and talk about chords, but I laid it all out for you in the score above. Yeah, Jesper does that neat key change from g minor to c minor, and it's so damn subtle and barely noticeable, and amazing, but you can work through that on your own. I'll give you a hint, though. There's no pivot chord, it's a technique called "parsimonious voice leading." (Have I linked you to this page, yet? I think I have.)

1. Cutscenes
Scoring for cutscenes in video games is virtually identical to scoring for film. The action and dialog is scripted, so the music should directly reflect that, and should do so at very specific moments, to capture/enhance specific emotions. This isn't what I really wanted to talk about, what I wanted to bring up is how pretty much every cutscene track in Assassin's Creed: Revelations is a variation of one or both of the main themes. Seriously, listen for yourself. Notice how fragments from one of the themes gets used, perhaps in a different order, or perhaps over slightly different chords, or with different instruments. Definitely more the first theme than the second, I guess, but I know I heard that second theme once or twice when I listened to the whole soundtrack.

The Mentors Return
Passing the Torch
You Have Earned Your Rest

If it's not re-working one of those two themes, it's just playing chords, and barely or no melody. This is all to reinforce the main themes, can't have new melodic material being introduced and confusing us, right? No, stick with those two themes and beat them in to our minds. And I absolutely love it. And you know what else I love? The Abstergo Industries "cutscene" music. (Okay, I lied, there's actually 3 themes, but this one doesn't turn up quite as much. Go back to the first YouTube video, above, if you want. You know that part where the first theme ends, but before the second one starts? Well, it plays the same chords as the track you're listening to now, in the Abstergo Industries track. Neat, eh?) What's even neater is at 1:27 in the Abstergo Industries track it plays the first theme ... but it's twisted, and deformed. It has such a powerful effect on me, especially after hearing the first theme in all its purity so many times. And the AI version is warped, has leaps, and is a bit dissonant? That's just awesome. And doesn't it just make perfect sense, in context with the story?

Alright, that's all I'm going to share for today, but soon I'll be posting some new music based on my findings while studying this soundtrack. What's the point of doing all this work if you're not going to use it, right? Stay tuned!

Eh, here's the whole damn set.

Starting this week (hopefully), there will be some meatier updates, so stay tuned for that. You'll like it, I promise.

More Ratchet & Clank Music!

Here's another one! This one's more intense.

Ratchet & Clank Music!

I'm writing some Ratchet & Clank style music. Check it out!

Adaptive Music In Action!

Yeah, I know it's been forever, but my graduate thesis is being a pain in the ass. But here's something that I was able to use ON my graduate thesis that's incredibly relevant and really cool to see on a blog like this, so here you go!

It's my layered tracks, set up in FMOD so you see how well they fade in to one another! The little slider I'm moving back and forth changes the intensity of the situation, and fades in the next layer of music.

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One - Scorch Minion Re-Score!

More work from the class I'm in. We were given a gameplay video, and were told to score it. Here's how it breaks down:

0:00 - 0:03: Normal level music. It's not that important, I just threw something in for immersion's sake.
0:03 - 0:09: Camera pans away, and the seemless cutscene takes place.
0:09 - 0:16: Boss gets his introduction, and makes scary noises. Still part of the cutscene.
0:16 - 0:19: Player regains control, and begins boss fight. Again, additional music is added for the sake of immersion.

The real meat is from 0:03 - 0:16, but I'm pretty happy with the bookends as well. I also added the sound effects myself, and the robot noises are original effects.

Enjoy!

History of Video Game Composition: Generation II

Welcome back! Today we're gonna dive in to the second generation of video game consoles, where things start to get (a little) more interesting in the music department. Namely, there's actually music! There were actually quite a few consoles released in this generation, but I'm only going to cover what I've gathered to be the top 4: the Magnavox Odyssey2, Atari 2600 (and 5200), Mattel's Intellivision, and the ColecoVision.

The Atari came back swinging in 1977 with the 2600 model, boasting colors and better sound. It was an incredibly popular console, but compared to other consoles of this generation, I personally think it's a bit lacking. It had two monaural monophonic channels. Let's clear this up now; monaural, or mono, means not stereo. Monophonic means one sound at a time. A flute is a monophonic instrument. You can't play chords on a flute, you can only play one note at a time. A guitar is a polyphonic instrument. You can play up to 6 notes at a time. Anyway, it had two monophonic channels, so that means it could only ever play 2 sounds at once, and it only had 4 bits of audio control (meaning 16 volume levels). It had 5 bits of pitch control (32 values), 4 bit control unit to change the timbre of the sound, meaning all sounds were pre-programmed, and you would simply switch between the two you wanted (two channels, remember?). Here's a gameplay video, and here's a list of those sounds, which I found on this great website.

In 1982, Atari released the 5200, which basically included ports of the old games with updated graphics and sound (here's the same game from above, but on the 5200), but it was pretty much a failure because it was difficult to set up, and had a horrible controller. I mean, look at this thing. What the hell? Anyway, the sound is pretty much the same as well, except it had twice as many channels.

This is the Magnavox Odyssey 2, released in 1978. I'd talk more about it, but who cares, it didn't really bring anything new to the table and ended up being Magnavox's last moderately successful home console (Nintendo and Sega pretty much take over in the next generation). Alright, if you really wanna know, it did have a wider pitch range than the Atari 2600, but it could really only handle one sound at a time. That, and it had some serious color and only-so-many-moving-things-on-the-screen-at-once limitations. Check out Killer Bees! if you want to see for yourself.

Okay, now things get interesting. This is Mattel's Intellivision, released in 1979. Yeah, Mattel made a video game console! Who knew? (I did.) It didn't have as many colors as the Atari, but it had no problem displaying all of them at once, and the sound card? Oh man, now we're getting in to some cool stuff. The card had 3 monophonic tone generators, and one noise generator (I never really went in to detail about the noise waveform, but just head back here to find out for yourself). With more channels at the system's disposal, it could actually provide a soundtrack to the games you played on it! Notice how the noise channel is being used to emulate drums, isn't that neat? And notice how the music is written around the technological limitations! With one channel on drums, what remains is one channel for the main melody, and one channel to play bass ... and then switch out to play the harmony for the melody. The bass can't be constant, because there's not enough channels.

So yeah! Music! But there's more! This console also introduced a technology known as Pulse-Code Modulation. I know I just linked you to the wikipedia article, but it's still difficult to understand, so let me take a crack at it. PCM is a way to digitally represent an analog audio signal. Analog as in the human voice, or an acoustic instrument. This is done by taking the analog signal, slicing it up in to segments, and approximating its waveform. The older the technology, the less accurate the approximation (this takes a lot of data space to accomplish), and the human voice isn't simple like a sine wave is. Here, check out this picture:

The red line is a sine wave. Remember sine waves? I hope so, I only told you about them a week ago. Anyway, think of the sine wave as the analog signal. The grey squares are the digital representation of the sine wave. It's rounded off, in small slices, to the nearest value. This results in something close to the original signal, but ... bitcrushed (it's absurdly backwards using that word to describe this process). A great way to think about this is imagining a smooth curve in a jpg file. If you open it in photoshop, and zoom in, you notice it's not actually a curved line, but a collection of small squares (pixels!) that are small enough to fool us in to thinking it's actually a smooth curved line. Now, imagine if the pixels were much, much larger. It would look less like a curved line, and more boxy, right? Well, there ya go. And here's what it sounded like (back then). As the technology improved, more and more data space was able to be devoted to this, meaning playback become more and more accurate, more believable. Anyway, that's the Intellivision, and here's a gameplay video for kicks.

A bit of bonus information I learned: the sound card in the Intellivision wasn't even designed to do PCM! But some crazy computer guys apparently found a way. And that's interesting to me.

Alright, last stop for the second generation, and ... well ... it's really nothing new, after the Intellivision. This is the ColecoVision, released in 1982. So 3 years later and the technology didn't change much, except now sound cards are meant to have PCM. ColecoVision games had soundtracks, and in 3 channels, like the Intellivision. Though I should mention that full soundtracks were still kind of rare. It was much more common to just have short jingles before play, and this is because, again, there's only so many sound channels. Can't forget about sound effects, can we!? If all 3 or so channels are dedicated to music, then the game's not gonna have any sound! Or the music will have to cut out every time a sound is played, and when there's only 3 or so channels that becomes very noticeable. For example, in Donkey Kong.

You know what's really odd about this generation, though? Really strange, and something that would never, ever happen in today's video game economy? The Intellivision and ColecoVision could play Atari 2600 games. Cross-platform backwards compatibility! Mind blowing! (To me.)

Well, that's that! Thanks for reading, and stay tuned because I'm gonna take this history of video game music all the way up to present day! Cheers!

Sagramore!

It's a bit late, but.... Sagramore is a project I've been composing for over the last couple months. It's an online RPG, and you can find out more by going to http://www.sagramore.com/. This is the main theme I composed for the game.



Good night! And stay tuned for monday's video game music history part 2, now featuring actual music!

History of Video Game Composition: Generation I

So I'm starting a new little mini-series on video game music, where I'll talk about the limitations of the hardware, and the challenges the composers had to face. Why am I doing this? Because I think it's really interesting where video game music came from, and it's fascinating to compare the old with the new, even just between 4 or 5 years.

So today we start at the beginning, the first generation of video game consoles, spanning more or less the years between 1972 and 1976. Popular consoles included the Magnavox Odyssey, the original Atari, the Coleco Telstar, and the Nintendo "Color TV Game."

This is the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972. The unit displayed no colors (instead one could purchase a translucent overlay to place on the TV), and it produced no music or sound. Most of the games were sports related, as were many of the first video games, mostly because with limited technology it was very difficult to convey any kind of story or dialog in a game, so instead game designers stuck with what most people already understood how to play; sports. It also had stored its games on removable cartridges, and was the only one of its kind to do so in this generation. All the other consoles simply released a whole new damn console with a new set of games. How expensive. Since this is a blog about music and sound, there's really not much more for me to say about the Odyssey 1, except this: Check out this amazingly hilarious commercial from the 1970's! Listen to that music that's on the commercial! Look how every single game displayed looks EXACTLY the same! Absolutely Priceless.

Now here's a console every gamer should be familiar with (I hope). This is the original Sear Tele-Games Atari. This is NOT the Atari 2600, or Atari ST, it's the old, old, very old Atari (sorry, old readers) from 1975. Ever heard of Pong? Well, this is where it started. Sure, the Odyssey's games all pretty much looked like pong, too, but the Atari also displayed the score and *gasp* had sounds! Holy crap, right!? How was the sound made? Well, remember trigonometry? Sine waves, square waves, triangle waves, and all that old stuff?

Remember this formula?

Well, in the interest of keeping this blog approachable for most readers, I'll just say "those things make noises." This is an amazing page on an amazing site. Experiment on that page for a bit, and you'll begin to understand how these shapes (sine, square, etc) make different tones. It's a little tough, but try drawing your own square wave. Notice that, the more complete "loops" or repetitions you fit in, the higher the pitch of the noise is! Each of these consoles had a sound engine or some sort, and the game designers would (in some way) program in that formula above to output a certain wave at a certain moment (like when the ball hits the paddle on the screen), and the sound engine would interpret that forumla as a noise and send it out to the speakers on your TV! Now, the technology was incredibly limited back then, so they could really only produce one sound at a time, making music, well, not that feasible.

Alright, this is the Coleco Telstar 6040, the first model of its kind, which came out in 1976. It was very similar to the other consoles, in that it was basically the same game (pong) with slightly better controls and graphics (sounds like today's first person shooters HIYO please don't hurt me). Here's a commercial you can check out. You'll see that, while it's faster and a little more advanced, it's really just more of the same, especially audio-wise. At least to the extent of my knowledge, it is. It's surprisingly difficult to find more information on this console. All I really know is that this console was very popular (over 1 million sold, which is pretty great for 1976), and a TON of different versions were sold over the years featuring new games, and new peripherals, but again ... to a music blog, there's not much else to say. If anyone has more information, I'd love to hear it! Leave some comments!

Which brings us to the Nintendo "Color TV Game." Gotta love those Japanese names. It was released in 1977, and as the name would imply, it was in color! And as this entire blog post would imply, it let you play pong (sigh). But it had color! And okay, new models came out over the next couple years introducing some new games, like birds-eye racing games, and it's own version of Atari's breakout. In audio news, it's really just more of the same, but here's another commercial complete with a hilarious jingle at the end that will show you some gameplay, and what it sounded like (exactly like all the others).

Well, that wraps up generation I for us. Stayed tuned for next week which will be, quite obviously, generation II. Also, it will be a little more interesting. But you can't expect me to cover a somewhat thorough history of video games and completely leave out pong, can you? Come on.

Thanks for reading, and have yourself a good week!

Sneaky Little Update

So I totally forgot to upload a new track earlier today, so I'm sneaking it in now. It's sneaky music! For a retro-1960's-style sneaky game!



(have a nice weekend)

Lost Planet Set

So I've been on vacation, and don't really have anything new I'm ready to share just yet. Nothing big, anyway. So here's all the Lost Planet tracks in a set. There's two very short little stingers at the end that are new, but that's it for now.



Well, stay tuned, next week I'll return in full force, I promise!

Have a wonderful day!

Mass Effect Mockup! The Whole Set!

Sorry for being a little late on this update tonight, but here's how I'm gonna make up for it. Here's the whole damn Mass Effect set I've been working on!



This is a collection of tracks that were inspired by the Mass Effect series of video games. The first track is a main theme, meant to be played over the "press start" screen of the game.

The second is a layered track, which is designed to change based on the situation you're facing in the game!

Ambient layer is ambient, the safe layer.
Light combat layer is where enemies have engaged, but you are behind cover.
Heavy combar layer is where you're actively engaging enemies, rushing in and being proactive/awesome.

The remaining two tracks are stringers; tracks designed to cue when the player wins the overall battle, or is killed in action.

Please note that this is in no way affiliated with the actual soundtrack to Mass Effect. These are personal mockups for my own portfolio, not meant to imply I ever worked on said game. All logos, music, are names are used in a purely non-profit manner.

Red Dead Redemption: Behind the Music

Hey everyone. So things have been super busy, lately, so instead of a lesson of music theory or composition this week, I'm just gonna share this great video a friend of mine (shout out to DVG Music!) showed me about the music from Red Read Redemption. It's kind of like when the substitute teacher comes in and you just watch videos all day in class, instead of actually learning anything! Well, not exactly, this video is pretty great.



Stay tuned for Friday's release! It's another layered set of tracks!

Main Menu Music! Mass Effect Style!

Here's this week's new track!



This is my vision for the main menu screen in the upcoming Mass Effect game. I tried to create a memorable theme (the 5 note upward climb), and since the line itself was very simple, I chose to work the chords around them in a unique way. But it also needed a bit of electronic flair, so I threw in some (very subtle) effects.

I'm also trying out the new html5 embeded players. Now you iPhone fans can listen on the go! I can't imagine why you'd ever need to listen to video game mockup music on the go, but hey, now you can!

Enjoy!

Valentine's Day!

So no theory update from me this time, I need a week off. Instead, I guess I'll share something I wrote a few years ago for my girlfriend. It is Valentine's Day, after all.

A LifeLike Dedication by ryanleber

Enjoy!

Layered Video Game Music!

Here's some new music for you! It's 3 tracks, but actually it's just one! It's meant for a video game where, depending on your situation (safe, near enemies, or engaging enemies) the music changes!

Layers Mockup Set by ryanleber

Enjoy! And have a lovely weekend!

Western Battle Music Breakdown

Western as in "American" or "not Japanese," not as in the wild west and all that. Fact is, western video game music is starkly different from Japanese video game music. I grew up on the later, so this (actually very recent) transition in to a more western style of music was a bit difficult for me, and I took some extensive notes.

Extensive notes that you would perhaps be interested in seeing?

There's plenty of great examples of western style cinematic music, but the references I worked from were 1.) John Powell's soundtrack from "Green Zone" and 2.) Lost Planet.



First thing you notice is effects. Electronic sound effects are fantastic for filling in space where a melody would normally be. Because, unfortunately, melody isn't what intense western music is about. A Final Fantasy battle theme would have a crazy catchy melody and all that, but not here in 'Merica, I guess (haha). Well, there are some fragments of melody in this track, but that's all they are; fragments. And usually very dissonant fragments. The melody is angular, strange, and a bit jarring. All of this plays very well in to creating intensity and emotion, though.

Second thing you notice is the percussion. Just LISTEN to those layers! There's at least 4 or 5 different tracks just for percussion! There's a shaker, there's wooden hits and effects, there's taiko drum-like beats, there's OTHER taiko-like drum beats, there's a big electronic drum on the downbeat, there's deep bass drum hits, and probably some more things you can't even really hear. All this creates rhythmic variation, and a lot of syncopation, and putting these "conflicting" rhythms against each other is a great way to build intensity (and interest). So if you're going for this style of music, experiment with layering a metric ton of percussion in, and having tracks fade in and out. Can't have all 6 tracks going 100% of the time, after all, that's pretty boring. Just a little side note, the time signature isn't really that important. The layering and syncopation of the percussion creates the interest, regardless of whether you're in 4/4, 5/4, or even 7/4.

Third thing you notice is the Hollywood orchestral sound effects. I'm talking about the horn bends you hear all the time in Lost, and the clustered chords in the strings. One thing this particular track doesn't have much of, but the rest of the Lost Planet soundtrack (and most of John Powell's work) has is stabs. Orchestral hits. You know, those sharp and sudden BLURTS of sound from the horns and strings, usually on off-beats. This kind of music is big on those kinds of effects, because again, it's less about melody and more about emotion. Very primal emotion, at that.

Fourth thing you should notice is how there's really only one "chord" throughout the entire track. There's pretty much no chord progression at all, which is fine, because the intensity is built without it. The percussion, horn/string effects carry the piece along, so there's not as much of a need for an interesting chord progression, though that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to fit one in, if you can, and it works. But if you do, let me give you a tip. Focus less on chord changes, and more on key changes. And do NOT approach your key changes at all. A lot of really intense music tends to stick on the tonic of the key it's in, and if it does change to a new key, there is NO transition. It's just happens! BAM! Go ahead and try it! Try jamming over an A minor chord for a while, and then, very suddenly and without any transition or lead in, jump up to a C minor chord and start jamming on that. That's how it's done! No transition = sudden = more intense. And moving up by a minor (or major) 3rd works wonders.

Honestly, that's about it. It's a little disappointing sometimes, because it's really easy to make this kind of music once you break it down in to what it's made up of. Japanese battle music is an entirely different animal, it's about melody and crazy chord progressions, and unique instrumentation. Sadly, most western battle music is sort of bland, and all kind of sounds the same. (DISCLAIMER: I said MOST, not ALL.) There's a great interview (which you can read here) of some well-known Japanese game composers talking about Western music that pretty much echoes everything I've already said in this post. People seem to love this kind of music, though, so being able to produce tracks likes these can be a very valuable skill to have.

Well, I hope you learned something. Stay tuned for the usual new music update this Friday. I'm not sure which track I'm going to share, but I know you'll love it. :)

Have a great week!

Intense Battle Music!

Happy Friday, everyone! Use this new original track to prepare your mind for the weekend, and whatever that might entail.

Battle Mockup 01 by ryanleber

I have no idea what I'm going to do for Monday, but I'll think of something. Thanks for listening, and stay tuned for more!

Let's Write Something Sad

This one's gonna be a bit long, so set aside some time before you start. So let's say you're a composer working on a video game score, or maybe even a film score, and your client wants something "sad." Maybe a main character dies, or a war is lost, or something important to the protagonist gets destroyed, or whatever. How do you make something really sad, like a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 sad? Well, it's always best to find a reference track first.

When it comes to sad music, there's one track that has always stood out to me. City of Flickering Destruction, by Yoko Shimomura, from the 1999 PSX title Legend of Mana.
Here's a later-recorded full orchestral version (which is absolutely amazing).



What makes this so incredibly sad?

Let's start at the core, the chord progression. The intro pretty much lays out what I'm going to talk about, right from the get go. The chords are Db major, Eb major, and then F minor. In F minor, this is the VI - VII - i diatonic progression. In the relative major, Ab major, it's the IV - V - vi diatonic progression. If you don't understand that yet, don't worry, I'll make a blog post about diatonic theory and parallel keys some day soon. Just understand that this progression of chords, or the use of those three chords in general, is absolutely clutch for making sad music. The piece quickly switches to Bb minor (awesome), and once it's there it stays there, and continuously dances around the Gb major, Ab major, and Bb minor chords. Again, this is VI - VII - i progression, but now in Bb minor! Listen to the track, and notice how often it dances around those three chords.

Beyond that is the instrumentation. The flowing nature of the strings in the beginning is very evocative, very touching. Even more evocative is the sudden drop of all instrumentation after the intro, and at other moments later in the piece, where it leaves the piano to carry the piece on by itself. The emotional effect is one of loneliness. We keep expecting it to pick up, and a whole orchestra to come in, but we are dismayed as it returns to a very quiet piano instead. The idea of an instrument being all alone is very powerful in music, which is why a solo violin or a solo cello is absolutely perfect for your sad melodies. Pizzicato strings punctuate this effect, at times. A friend of mine once described the use of pizzicato strings as "falling teardrops," which I feel is very applicable.

An easy way to make your music more heart-wrenching and depressing is to add tempo changes. Slow it down at the end of a phrase every now and then, so it feels like it's struggling to continue (because it's sooo sad... haha). This piece actually doesn't use too many tempo changes or slow down, but whatever, just keep it in mind. Be careful, though, it's easy to go too far with this idea. It takes a light touch.

Which brings us to the biggest point, the melody. It's very touching, and explaining why is a very difficult thing to do, but there are two things that I can explain fairly easily.
1.) Suspensions. A suspension is when you have two chords, and a melody over top, and the chord changes but the melody changes a bit later. It creates a somewhat dissonant effect, and it's very poignant. Take a look at the example below.

And here's what it sounds like:

You see, in the first half, the melody changes exactly when the chord does, and it changes to fit over the chord perfectly by landing on one of the three notes the chord is made up of. In the second half, the melody lingers on the B, even after the chord has changed to A minor. This note doesn't fit perfectly, so it's a bit jarring, but it eventually resolves down to the A to fit in. This happens twice in a row in the reference track at 0:28, and a bunch of other times throughout.

2.) Extended Chords. If you don't know about Extended Tertian Harmony, I highly suggest reading up on it. Or you could wait for me to make my own blog post about it. Anyway, this piece is riddled with major and minor 7th and 9th chords (usually the Gb major chord, or the Bb minor chord). Extended chords are, well, pretty. They just sound beautiful, and using them can really add depth and emotion to your music. But there is one more interesting thing that occasionally happens in this piece. Sometimes the melody extends the chord it's played over. Let's start after the intro, where the piano comes in and the piece really starts at 0:19. On the first 4 chords (F min, Gb maj, Ab maj, Bb min) the melody lands very safely over notes that are in the basic, triad form of these chords. BUT, once it gets to the 5th chord (Gb maj again) the melody lands on an Eb. Gb major is spelled Gb, Bb, Db. There's no Eb, so this is a bit dissonant. However, this isn't a suspension, because instead of resolving down to Db, which would fit, it goes UP to F. This is a Gb major 7 chord! Play it on your piano, or guitar, it's just lovely. Gb, Bb, Db, F. Instead of the left hand of the piano simply hammering out a major 7th chord, it lets the melody do it subtly. It's a very nice effect, and something I never really noticed until I start writing this entry.

Well, that's that. Sorry it's so long, and sorry it's also a bit late, but I've been a little under the weather lately. I have something awesome to share with you on Friday, though, so stay tuned for that. As for next monday's update, well, I'm still not sure what I'll do. Diatonic theory? How to write sneaky music? Extended chords? Who knows. Thanks for reading!

New Mockup: Sad Theme

This was also part of the homework assignment for that video game composition class I keep mentioning. It was (heavily) inspired by a track from Legend of Mana, which will be used in Monday's compositional breakdown of sad music.

Sad Mockup by ryanleber

There's some fun key changes in this one, too, one of which is similar to what happens in the heroic theme. If you listen carefully, you may notice that the melody is actually, well, the same melody, as the assignment asked us to create a motif between the two pieces.

So that's that. Hope I don't totally bring your weekend down with my sad music! See you Monday!

Heroic Key Changes!

So I had a few people (technically true, it was more than one person!) asking me about the key changes and strange chords in the track I shared last Friday, so I thought I'd make a (not so) quick update on some of the ways I change keys in my music.

In case you missed the track, here it is:
Heroic Mockup by ryanleber

Now, it all starts with a very simple progression. It begins on an A minor chord, and moves to an F major chord. In the key of C major, that's vi (the A minor) and IV (the F major). This is an extremely common progression, you hear it all the time. What you don't hear all the time is where it goes next. It returns to the A minor (iv) and then there's a really bizarre chord (contextually speaking), an Eb major (right at an0va's first comment). There is no Eb major chord in the key of C major. So how did I end up here?

Well, the solution lies in the melody (the male choir), which goes like this:

So as you can see, the melody is in two halves, which more or less repeat. While over the A minor chord (labeled Am, above), the melody plays the notes A, E, D, and G. Now, all of those notes (except for D, D's a little dissonant, but whatever) fit very well over an A minor chord. When it switches to F major (labeled F, above), it sticks on that G, and then moves down to C. Again, both are notes which work very well over the F major chord. Now, on the second pass, I repeat everything verbatim over the Am chord, and again stick with the G in the melody at the next chord, but this time the chord is an Eb major chord (labeled Eb, above).

So, why does this work? Because there's a G in an Eb major chord! How is an Eb major chord spelled? With the notes Eb, G, and Bb! So G fits perfectly over the Eb major chord. Once we're on this Eb major chord, I simply treat it as the IV in the new key, which is Bb major. IV (Eb major) goes to V (F major) goes to G minor (vi), which is where all the more rapid chord changes happen. At this point, the new key is well-established, and what follows is just standard chord changes in that new key, nothing special.

If I had to give this technique some kind of name, I'd call it an "expected melody pivot," or something like that. Because after hearing the melody once, we know that G at the end is coming, That G in the melody can be applied to various chords, so I then use that G as a pivot point to work myself in to a strange out-of-key chord, and then in to a new key where the out-of-key chord makes more sense (moving out of C major, and in the Bb major, in this case).

[UNNECESSARY EXPLANATION:] If you're wondering why I chose to explain this in major keys, choosing C major instead of A minor, and Bb major instead of G minor, it's because of the progression that is used. If it was V - i in a minor key, then yeah, I'd explain it in a minor key, but it's not. It's IV V vi, which is VI VII i in minor keys, and that just looks weird. It's a personal preference, and I'm sure if anyone was wondering, they weren't confused by it. If you're confused now that you've read this paragraph, though, don't worry about it. You don't really need to understand the roman numerals to get what I did to change keys.

Well, I hope that sheds some light on what I did. Stay tuned for a new track on Friday (sad music!) and another compositional breakdown next Monday (again, sad music!). Also, be on the lookout for more serious music theory posts in the future, from basic stuff like diatonic theory (i.e. those roman numerals I was using) to more crazy stuff like other ways to switch in and out of different keys. So yeah! Tell your friends, keep up to date using the links to the right, and, uh, have a wonderful Wednesday! Thanks for reading!

Let's Write Something Heroic

So last week I shared a heroic theme I wrote and mentioned this class I was in about video game composition, and I promised I'd share some insights and discoveries I'd made on this blog. Well, here goes nothing.

DISCLAIMER: This information may be derived from the class I'm taking, but I'm not stealing from my teacher's lesson plan. He pointed us in a direction, and I was inspired to go the extra mile and do a bit of my own in-depth research, that's all.

So let's say you're working for a client, and the client wants something heroic. Like, on a scale of 1 to 10, he wants at least an 8. Well, the first thing I would always suggest is finding a solid reference track to work off of. When it comes to recent heroic video game music, I'd be a fool not to bring up Skyrim. I mean, come on, listen to this:

What makes this so ridiculously epic and heroic?

First, there's the shouting. A choir of manly men, shouting and grunting all manly like. It paints a mental picture of vikings or sailors, banded together on a ship, fighting against the elements. Or getting drunk and singing drinking songs, but that's awesome, too. What can you do to harness this? East West's Goliath VST has some pretty sweet shouts, but it is a bit pricey. Honestly, though, if you're serious about pursuing this line of work, you should probably pony up and get most of the East West samples anyway, they're killer, and they're what I use (check out the East West Composer's Collection, one of the better prices for all the sounds you get). Failing this, you could always get your buddies together and record the shouting yourself!

Second, listen to that percussion and rhythm. It just slams in to you, you feel it in your stomach. Not only is it loud, and powerful, but it's also makes you think of a march. So what? Well, it's motivating! The music is taking you in to battle! Hit those downbeats hard, and pretend you're stomping along with them towards your enemy! There isn't much syncopation, or off-beat rhythms, because that would detract from the constancy of the march-like percussion. It's all about constant momentum, which is also why the tempo is generally pretty slow, and the meter is a simple 6/8 (4/4 and 3/4 also work well).

The rest of the instrumentation is also very strong. There aren't many sustained, flowing, pretty sounds in this track, except for the drop in the middle (which is more about being dramatic and a tad introspective than being heroic). The strings are all very sharp and strong (it's called marcato), heavily attacked, and the brass is played the same way. Everything is very sudden and detached (like the shouts and percussion, it all ties in!) and you just can't help but put on your serious face when you hear the strings and brass like that.

The strings in the middle range are very important. Their steady rhythm is great for building momentum and excitement in the track. It doesn't matter that they're just playing the same note over and over, or occasionally outlining chords, it's the rhythm that creates interest and movement (notice the constant hemiola), which keeps the music going forward. It makes you think of a train, you know? Locomotion, movement, excitement. If there are any sustained notes, they're usually in the brass, and usually low, because low, droning, earth-shattering bass notes pretty much scream "serious music."

The chord progression plays a great part in all this as well. It remains relatively simple, because simple is better. Yes, that's right, keep it simple. I believe the main progression is:
i - VI - VII - iv(sus) - VI - iv - v - i
No crazy alterations, no key changes, no secondary dominants. It's very simple, and very clean. My piece from last week doesn't really follow this, though, I just couldn't help but do something weird.

What remains is the melody itself. You'll notice two things that generally make for a good melody; 1.) it's easy to sing. The notes are all close together, there's few to no leaps, everything is in step-wise motion and the highest and lowest points of the melody aren't very far from each other (i.e. it's in a range anybody can sing). 2.) There's repetition. The melody has a 3 note figure ("do-vah-kiin") that repeats, and then a longer figure. Then it does it all over again. You see, if you hear something happen more than once in rapid succession, you're more likely to remember it, you're more likely to remember it, you're more likely to remember it. There's more on this, and some examples of it, in my first blog post, so check that out if you're interested. I didn't follow this as much as I should have in my track from last week, but hey, I'm still learning myself.

Well, that was a really, really long post. Thanks for reading! Next, we'll be moving to the opposite end of the spectrum; sad music! Stay tuned! And remember, you can find my music and tons of other stuff by following the links to your right!

New Mockup: Heroic Theme!

Greeting, friends!

Today I have a new track for you! See, I'm taking this amazing, absolutely awesome class this semester on Video Game Composition, and part of the first assignment was to compose a heroic theme less than 75 seconds. He said "on a scale of 1 to 10, shoot for at least an 8."

Well, here's what I came up with:
Heroic Mockup by ryanleber

At the beginning of next week, I'm going to start putting up my notes on what makes a theme heroic, and also start making some new and interesting posts on music theory, compositional theory, music tech stuff, and maybe even analyze a few pieces. You know, really break down what makes music what it is.

I'll turn this into a real blog yet!