My focus lately has been on writing material that I will be able to experiment with in FMOD, using looping, layering and sequencing techniques to create music that will respond to parameters from the game engine. With this in mind, I thought I would start with the combat sequence, which could perhaps become the main theme of the game, or a hypothetical main character.
Lately I have also been taken with a very short piece from Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The fourth variation “W.M.B.” intrigued me with the way that it turned so quickly from one mood to another:
“Variations on an Original Theme ‘Enigma’, Op. 36 by Edward Elgar – Variation IV: “W.M.B.” (Allegro di Molto)” performed by the DuPage Symphony Orchestra is licensed under CC BY-NY 3.0
I have also started to think seriously about the challenges posed when plotting transitions for horizontal resequencing. I have sketched out a plan below that illustrates my thinking on how this music might flow. Each box in the diagram represents a small, loopable sequence of music, perhaps two bars. The boxes of four are intended to represent themes which sound pleasing when played out, and whilst playing uninterrupted by changes in the game state they would play through all four segments before looping.
However, should the player achieve a certain level of success in the battle, perhaps dictated by game stats (or alternatively by narrative plot points), then the music will at the first opportunity move to a transition bar and then quickly into a different theme.
The dice in some of the boxes represent the notion that randomised alternative versions might play, or perhaps some vertical element might be randomly present or otherwise, to prevent the repetitiveness of the exact same audio perpetually looping.
So to bring these strands together, I want to be able to convey a similar kind of sudden transition as is evident in the Elgar piece, with the music able to move from a sense of urgent struggle, danger and imminent risk of defeat to a feeling of taking the “upper hand” in combat, and the associated rewarding emotions of heroic triumphalism.
I set myself the task of composing an adaptive piece that might evoke, if not the exact sound, then some kind of interpretation of the spirit of the Elgar piece.
Inspiration, not imitation!
In the end, I didn’t rely very much at all on Elgar for guidance as to the orchestration of this fragment, which is much to its detriment I suspect as Elgar was clearly a master of orchestration.
I have provided the score and the audio below – the piece is the first backbone for something which I hope will be much more. I took the approach of notating the use of the sample instruments, rather than attempting to write an orchestral score and then emulate in samples.
My future direction on this will be to explore implementing versions of this basic theme in FMOD/Unity using adaptive techniques, looking at ways of preventing repetition fatigue and finally coming face to face with the question of how to make this piece sound pleasing in the way that I want it to with a structure determined by chance or the whims of the player!
I will also need to explore techniques for mixing and mastering this which I see as another huge area for future development in my learning.
I am going to turn away from this section of the score and return to it later to explore all of those vital directions. For now I would like to try something a little bit different. My current intention is to attempt the “exploring the forest” part of the project so watch this space!