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!
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