It might be interesting to share the process and workflow we use to create music or any interesting info you consider.
Let's take this opportunity while we listen to each other's music to share more about it. I'm sure many of us would find it useful, and it could inspire the comments on the submissions
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How do you compose your music?
In my case:
For this specific jam, after I wrote about the story based on the theme, I chose to go for a genre I like. First, I listened and analyzed the most emblematic osts of the genre. Then I took elements from them that I had interest to explore and I started making sketches based on a leitmotiv that I previously came up with. Those drafts helped to shape the ost's concept and then I started to deepen with them and put aside the ones that I considerate far away from the concept and come back later to them. I composed each track from start to finish, then I did the arrangements and the time left I focused on the mixing
The melodic aspect was the starting point, and during the composing I took interest on the horizontal aspect of music, to think each line by itself.
After that, I made the decision of adjusting them to a specific harmony or keeping the dissonances created by the overlapping layers. I wanted each voice to be as free as possible because the music in this kind of games tends to be quite simple in terms of harmony so I was looking for something of higher complexity that was able to portray the world of the protagonist.
Only one of the tracks was created starting by the harmony because it needed to evocate a very different emotion of the other moments of the soundtrack.
Thanks for sharing! I honestly can't clearly remember the process I used for my composition. Lol.
I only remember when I finally had a melody I liked, I changed the rhythm a little and put some variation in the chord progressions to create a second track based on that same melody.
I also know I wanted to showcase my metal background, so I found a way to work in a drumset towards the end of one of my tracks.
That's a great topic!
In my case:
In this jam i worked with my 3-piece music band.
Evening after theme reveal we started brainstorming story and plot ideas. Next morning after theme reveal we set ourselves 3-5 minute timers for like 10 times. Every 5 minutes you should come up with musical idea. Chords/melody/whatever. We worked on this separately. After few hours we came up with a lot of music ideas. Almost every one of them was little piano part 15-30 seconds. Then we gave each idea description like what emotions we feel about this sketch, what it can tells us. And those descriptions also helped us to build fuller story.
Next step - we organised our sketches in order according to plot and emotions. And when it's done - i started to expand them, with emotions and dynamic, that current scene is needed. Also in that step i started create sound palette that is common for all of the tracks. I came up with few leitmotifs, and in that step started to add melodies from one track to others, that share some common parts of a journey. Some of them share melodies, other - arpeggios and chords.
Next step - we recorded vocals and Voice for songs that needed them. Then looong couple days of arranging all of the tracks.
And... It's done. Dark story about one more journey :)
ENTIOX is waiting for you, stranger...
At the start of this competition, I decided to take inspiration from just the picture. I looked at the colors, the environment, the characters and elements, and started brainstorming ways to convey those aspects through music. For inspiration, I listened music from games or movies that I thought fit close enough to the themes I gathered from the image. Stuff like Finding Nemo or Ponyo which capture the essence of underwater in their scores.
Afterwards, I started thinking of a melody; something that encapsulates everything that I have collected so far alongside my personal tastes and experience. For this competition, I started with choosing the key of Ab, since I though any of the black note keys would create a majestic feel to the piece. When building the melody, I wanted to convey the slow, beautiful and peaceful nature below the sea. The chords for me mostly come second to melody but that is just my preference. However I wanted to use sus chords to represent the feeling of suspension when your underwater.
The piano instrument I used was Spitfire LABS Soft Piano. In addition to the spacious reverb to represent the span of the ocean, the piano created a nice, deep and moody ambience. I also used sine pads to create a deep atmosphere. Some sound effects I thought would fit were also thrown in there for emersion (like bubbling water). Lastly I brought in strings to add variation to the piece as well as add a few more chords in for color. Also, those strings were using either legato or portamento to represent the flow of water.
After everything was written, I added dynamics, changed volume, shifted the equalizer, and did other technical methods to capture the vibes I was looking for. I tend to take a break from working and come back with fresh ears to hear something I miss when mastering or within the composition itself. In the end, I think my pieces turned out great and I'm glad for the feedback everyone provided. But yeah, that's one of the processes on how I write my music!
The Equalizer (EQ) allows you to control the emphasis of the highs, mids, and lows of an instrument. So say you want to make an instrument sound darker or softer. You can shift the left-most icon up to deepen the sound. I shifted the bass of my synth pads to give that deep underwater emersion. Conversely, if you want a brighter sound, shift the right-most icon up.
This is what FL EQ 2 looks like but your EQ would look different deepening on your DAW. Regardless, they all do the same thing.
Edit: image not showing : |
I usually start with the intent of the music, and slowly work from there. For example, very early on I already planned my premise of a dreamy like world, juxtaposed with a much more solemn reality. From there, I would pick the genre, the two emotions I wanted to evoke in different tracks, the recurring motifs, and start gathering ideas. Sometimes I'll try to find other songs that have the vibe I pictured, and then I'd try to emulate that sort of style. I usually make the melody first, then the chords, embellishments, tweaks and polishing come later. Mostly cos I like to write tracks with heavy motif referencing (thanks toby fox), so I tend to come up with that and then write the other parts around it.
In retrospect, planning out what songs I needed, as opposed to writing the pieces as the inspiration came, would've benefitted me in this jam, especially since I was really short on time haha. My original plan was to make at least 5 tracks, but due to a lack of organisation, I only managed to write 3. One of my main regrets is that I didn't have the time to write a "main menu" theme, which would've helped to tie my tracks together. Not sure if that is out of topic, but putting it here anyway cos I think when it comes to making an OST, planning the skeleton out would make the workflow more streamlined, and wanted to share that thought.
I chose to have significant limitations on what the music would be, given that I was restricted to my harp as a melody and harmony instrument, and my voice, and my own physical abilities to play what I wrote. I also don't have a recording setup at all, so each piece had to be recorded in one straight take (as a video on my phone), with no editing after the fact.
In terms of the creative process, I had an idea of the feel I wanted to convey, and basically sat down at the harp to improvise. I got a repeating bass riff which formed the underlying backbone of both instrumental and the song pieces, then started playing around with harmony and melody lines on top. It was then a matter of layering, and getting the fingers to play what I wanted them to, while remembering what bits of improv sounded good.
For the song I had the same chord sequence, and I wrote a poem to go with the theme words. The poem got turned into lyrics when I began singing it, as the accents and the melody have different emphasis when words are sung rather than spoken. Then it was a matter again of coming up with a melody for the song on the fly, then remembering it so I could record it. The accompaniment for the song was chosen to be something that I know I can reliably play while singing (multi-tasking!)
The end result is very different to the vast majority of the submissions to this jam (which makes me feel a bit out of place), but I had fun with it.
I've got myself a go-to ensemble that I use which is a six-piece rock band (2 guitars, 2 keyboards, bass, and drums), string section, and electronics - it's the ensemble I use for Verdris Moth, a studio project of mine. I play with the instrumentation a bit - sometimes I add an extra keyboard or an instrument I don't use all the time like a koto or harp or whatever, and sometimes I strip it right down and just use piano and strings for example, or keyboards and guitars only. Like for instance I didn't feel like drums would have worked on my music for this jam so I omitted those, but if it was for an album for its own sake, I might have stuck some big drum fills in there or something. Depends entirely on what the project is!
I've been mucking about with all of these different instruments and styles and techniques for years, since well back into my teen years, deciding what musical things I really like and would regret not including. For me personally I'm into things like weird chord sequences, memorable melodies, recurring and developing motifs, unexpected structures, and style-wise I'm most influenced by prog rock, film music, jazz, funk, ambient electronica, and a few other things. But it's taken ages to get to a stage where I feel comfortable just coming up with a melody and knowing what sort of things I might do with it.
So for this jam a melody came up, I tried it on piano first, then tried a built-up version with my usual ensemble, and I had something basically there albeit in need of a good polish and fleshing out.
Going on instinct and not thinking too hard about what I'm writing tends to work best for me, then later on I can screw around with my ideas, or shelf them and wait for a more appropriate project to use them on, or indeed just get rid of them altogether if they're not working at all!
Great topic! The first day I didn't even touch the DAW, I just looked at the theme and wrote down notes about what I was seeing and what kind of story could be made from it, determining that I wanted an intro (the girl's theme), a conflict, a theme for the ancestor, and a resolution. Then the second day I decided the orchestration, which was a lot of just looking into how classical Thai music is orchestrated and what instruments are used so I could try and incorporate that. Then once I started, I knew I wanted to highlight the resolution with the girl acting as the melody and the ancestor as the counter melody, so I sort of wrote that as its own thing so I would have their melodies ahead of time.
After that, I just sort of went section by section, voice by voice, using a melody-first take. With this, if I didn't already have a melody in mind, I would just sort of play around on the keyboard until something sounded fitting. Then adding harmony was a mix of creating chords that move according to music theory and just making chords by what sounded good due to time constraints.
At least for this concept album, I tried to imagine the experience of players entering a biome, exploring the space, and finding themselves in a boss fight by splitting the composing into three parts:
1. Establish an evocative setting through sound design, ambience, and instrumentation.
2. Add main melodic lines to reflect the mood/atmosphere the player character has found themself in.
3. Twist both of the above when facing combat by adding electric guitar and heavier drums.
The meat and potatoes of the actual composing was just finding instruments that reflected the image I had in development (in the case of Strange Tides, mandolin and synthetic waves to evoke surging waves or stacks of transient pitched percussion to evoke a deep cavern), expressing a melody that fit, then of course the BOSS FIGHT TIME!
The picture for the jam reminded my team of the Studio Ghibli movie aesthetic, so we drew our inspiration from the music of those films. We aimed to make music that was dreamy, fantastical, playful, childlike. One goal I had for this jam was to experiment more with orchestral arrangements and make music outside of my rock/pop/electronica wheelhouse, so I emphasized variety in our OST. We decided we were going to use orchestral instrumentation and went for a breadth of different timbres. I tried to use a variety of drum sounds to fit the various moods, like jazz brush kits for the more downtempo tunes, some of the quirky drumkits in Ableton Suite like the water bottle kit, and taiko drum for the bigger sounding tunes.
My game compositions tend to be very melody and rhythm focused, so I usually try to get these components down first. I compose most of my music in Ableton’s session view. Usually I’ll start by creating a drumloop to establish the rhythmic feel of the song, and then I’ll try to come up with a melodic idea or a harmonic accompaniment that I will support a melody. Once I’ve built enough loops to establish different sections of a song, I’ll start copying and pasting those pieces into arrangement view and work on the layering of the instruments, transitions between sections, getting volumes and eq mixed properly, adding effects, etc.
I stream music production on my Twitch channel on the weekends, feel free to pop in to see what my process looks like!
Postmortem here for easier reading: https://indiekev.itch.io/tsuya-ost-jam-07/devlog/771078/tsuya-postmortem
I saw the picture and theme but couldn't work on my submission before the weekend. Having around 24 true hours to work on this jam, I decided that I would probably be doing one piece that had to have multiple beats on the same track, as I wasn't sure I would be able to do more than 1 track.
As for ways of working, my process was to understand what the theme meant to me personally, and understand the emotions that I am feeling.
From there I start sketching out the idea for the story of what and where this song is supposed to be played, and also visually imagine the scene.
The goal then is to write the melody and a few chords that would translate the exact feelings I want to express in the song. At this stage there is no need for me to work linearly, but really dig into the emotions until i have a few motives that work to express the feelings I want the song to express.
So I feel emotions, be it happy, sad, melancholic, euphoria, a mix of those... Letting them bloom feels like the process that is most natural to me.
Once I have a few motives that feel the closest to the emotions I want to express in general with the piece, I go from there and just build upon the idea that feels the best and most expressive and that would fit the lore and theme I'm working towards.
Orchestration starts taking place here and i structure the song with different phrases like AABCCD in this case, where repeating a phrase is not exactly just the same as the previous one, but builds upon it. Chords in repeating phrases can be similar but usually the first phrase of a repeating sequence does not end the same way than the second one. The goal is to create enough tension on the first phrase so the release on the second phrase is that much more rewarding.
In Tsuya (link: https://soundcloud.com/kevin-fernandes-878873752/tsuya-main-theme) this can be heard on the AAB pattern, where the repeating A phrase doesn't end the same way. The first one is stripped off and ends with tension, the second one is fuller and keeps the momentum of the and ends differently. In Tsuya I decided to have the release of the tension on the start of the B phrase instead of closing the tension immediately at the end of A. So actually the second A phrase in the repeating sequence ends with even more tension. This is on purpose as I want the B phrase to be the big emotional overwhelming phrase of the piece. Building that much tension I feel helped overwhelm the listener when volume, instrumentation and general orchestration all work in tandem to provide a huge relief, even if that relief happens in sadness. My mental image here, is when you start crying and try to hold tears, but the tension at some point becomes overwhelming and you are flooded by all these emotions that can sometime even contradict themselves. This image is purported by the fact that this is the moment the little child feels this exact thing happen to them. While they were drawing their deceased mother into the drawing and trying to hold the emotions, they end up breaking up.
The B phrase is meant to not just be full of despair, but transition in 8 Bars from Sadness, to incredible melancholy to despair. The chords and melody support that choice and I think I did a good enough job where the listener might feel almost confused by the different emotions that happen almost simultaneously. The most important thing to me was to work with the melody and chord progression that would flow through all these emotions one by one naturally and without hiccups. It was important to build a progression that would naturally fit how our emotions can go from one to another in a moment's notice with us being really aware of the transition.
I was adamant in having some sort of troughs and valleys to the song. I felt that after the B phrase was done, and because I ended in absolute despair, with the chords and melody building tension, but also the general full orchestra being present, I needed to give a moments respite, for the listener, and the little girl.
The C phrase doesn't have the exact same melody on both repetitions, and like A, they do build up as we go. In the first instance, we have piano and cello, like mother and daughter, despair and hope being represented. I knew I wanted to have this moment of respite yes, but I wanted to express the despair in that moment, as a contrast to the piano which sounded like it was trying to comfort the listener and the child. At 1:45 we hear an incredibly dissonant pitch from the cello against the piano melody, that was purposely set up to create immense tragedy and tension. And because there is only 2 instruments playing at that time, the feeling of despair and loneliness felt that much more impacting. I also tried to have the piano play chords in a stable tempo, and let the Cello play a ton. This was important to establish the dynamic between the stability in a way of the mother figure in a children's life, and the almost erratic and infinite questioning and sorrow a child would have on a moment like that one.
The second C phrase, the Cello supported by the piano and some other instruments that fill up the sonic space, seems to morph a tiny bit. Like the efforts of the mother to soothe her child didn't fully work, but still had the tiniest of impact to change the mood from despair to sorrow. This second C phrase ends with again some tension so the final D phrase that ends the piece in a somewhat hopeful manner can be as rewarding as possible.
D phrase I haven't talked but is exactly like the intro but with piano instead of a flute like we had at the start. This was the main motive I worked with when I started the piece, and is supposed to be the lullaby the mother used to sing the child. In the intro, I actually purposely didn't end the lullaby in a proper way, cutting it off as I way to start to build tension. We as humans feel when something is incomplete, even in a passive way, so I wanted to tap into that feeling of uneasiness and tension! The chords are mostly quartile voicings and using colour notes to add tension and mystery. The fact that I have in a way adding the exact key I'm going for makes the listener confused. This is a technique used a lot by japanese musicians and of course Joe Hisaishi which is a big inspiration. These chords built usually in the same way a jazz player would in some ways, have a really huge blend of emotions attached to them due to colour tones and the quartile voicing own quality. I look at quartile voicings like playing mostly a sus4 chord in a way, which is a chord that blurs the exact emotion a traditional chord would have.
I'm using this at the start and at the end to build uneasiness and tension in a softer way that typical super demonstrative chords like i used for the whole piece.
I don't want the whole piece to fully resolve, but to still have this sense of resolution, I actually ended up in a way the lullaby melody. This is my gift to the listener, and a gift to the child. There is hope! Better days will come, it might not be right now, but they will come. now sleep child...
SORRY FOR THE LONG POST: this is the whole thought process I had. It's funny I didn't think of really documenting it but maybe I could put it in a devlog, maybe that would help others like me to find some footing in this realm.
This is my first piece since I started learning piano, music theory (and japanese music) and orchestration, etc... There is a lot of work also on trying to show impermanence but I think that was also a tying theme for other pieces that never happened. If you read all this, ping me @indiekev I'd love to chat <3
I, personnaly, sit at the piano and improvise a lot! I record, cut, keep, throw. And when an idea that I improvised begin to become a real track, I tried to rattach it lorewise. When I began to have the first track, I listened to all the little pieces I had improvised and some inspired me the next track.
Also, for my melodies and rhythm, I find it really important to sing and mimic the instrument I write for! It permits to humanize and add respirations in my tracks!
For pretty much for every OST Composing jam my process has been the same:
I put the prompt photo on my second monitor with the text prompt, then i load up a piano sound in my DAW (usually an acoustic piano sound) and start improvising stuff while "passionately" staring at the prompts. Usually i record 15 minutes or more of material, then depending on what time it is, i go make a cup of coffee or tea and after that i listen to the recorded stuff again and if something sounds good to me, i start working forward from that sketch, but i usually end up trashing the first idea the next day and going with another idea from the same improv recording, or from some other improv i recorded later on the day.
When going forward from the piano sketch, i don't really have a defined "ensemble" or "palette" of instruments that i use everytime. I usually take these jams as a opportunity/motivation to practice/try different genres/styles, since normally without a goal or deadline i won't actually get anything done.
I went with mostly orchestral instruments for this jam, since i've had the EastWest Hollywood Orchestra library for some years now and those samples are very dry without much reverb, so i've had a lot of issues understanding how to apply reverb to those samples without overdoing (which is what usually happens to me with them). I also recorded some vocal stuff with the intention of learning how to blend dry recordings with other stuff, so that they sound like they are in the same space. The vocal recordings turned out a bit so-so, but i feel i'm beginning to understand applying reverb to dry sounds and making things sound in the same space with this jam.
After i chose to go with the orchestral sound route for this one, i started thinking of the arrangement.
I had done a Joe Hisaishi/Anime inspired track for the last jam that sadly ended up being just the initial piano sketch, since i was too lazy/slow on doing an actual arrangement of it, i had decided that for this jam i would go a different route in the harmony/style department even though the image has a lot of Asia influence in it.
So from that, the initial theme sketch turned into the sort of generic starting the voyage sounding track "Daydream", which is probably the polar opposite of the picture theme to most people, but oh well.
After i felt reasonably happy happy with "Daydream", i started working on a second track with the intention of having it be a sort of action track, since the main inspiration i had for the game setting was some sort of kingdom hearts style game. where the player enters different dream worlds during their daydreams.
I started the process again by improvising on a piano sound, this time using "Daydream" as sort of style guide during the sketching process. Then i did the same old long ass improv recording, made something to drink, came back, chose an idea from what i recorded earlier and started arranging the track.
For the second track i was a bit out of ideas for a while, until i remembered recommending the trial of the Musio subscription service in the jam discord. So i went ahead and got the Musio plugin set up, found while browsing that they had a collaboration library with the cello metal band Apocalyptica, downloaded those and after playing with them for a bit, got the inspiration/idea for what turned out as the second track "Twisted Dream".
After that it was just mixing and mastering the tracks, trying to not squash the dynamics too much and submitting the project
This ended up as a big wall of text, but hopefully someone gets some use out of my ramblings.
I've always wanted someone to be interested in my creative process, even though I can't explain it all that well, haha. I know it's not the norm—most people start with the melody or rhythm, but I prefer starting with the chords. I don't play piano, but many of my songs feature it. And I compose mostly with my guitar, so that might be the reason why harmony sounds a bit off or unconventional sometimes. But I think that's what gives my music its unique character!
Once I have a solid structure for a song, I experiment with different instruments and textures to develop melodies. I constantly rearrange the structure, guided by that little inner froggy voice that tells me what sounds cool and what doesn’t.
That's basically it.
I work 8 and a half hours a day for my summer job so my main focus was maximizing time while also trying to go to new places with my music and step outside my comfort zone. I was originally planning on doing a more electronic submission (I used to make more electronic music but somehow I ended up switching to more orchestral stuff) but nothing was really sticking so I messed around on guitar and added strings and synths and created the sound that I would end up using. Once I had that sound I wanted it was mostly easy coming up with new tracks. I had a lot of back and forth on whether or not I actually liked them or not, but I'm really happy with the end result.
I spent the first day at work thinking about my idea. Inside my mind, what if you can go inside minds? What if you can go inside god minds? What if gods are basically just people (like greek mythology but less) with guilt that builds up so much it kills them? What if that guilt ends up ripping apart reality after it kills a god? What if certain special people are tasked with entering the god's mind world to alleviate that guilt to prevent it from destroying reality? That was basically my thought process of coming up with the basic story/plot. For the story around the music I wrote, I came up with it while writing the music so I could fit it in how I wanted it to.
Writing the music was mostly straight forward, for the two area themes I pretty much just made/recorded the guitar part, then built around that using strings and synths and other orchestral stuff. I don't really follow a good structure when laying out my music, I just sort of see where the music takes me and add B, C, or A sections when it feels right. I don't plan ahead at all other than "Oh I want to mess around with this synth patch/sample library". For the Boss themes I started out by focusing on SFX and sound design. For "False Sun of Shadow" I really wanted to make something weird and unnatural so I used my fretless jazz bass that I bought recently, distorted it to hell and back, added like three different reverb plugins, then played a bass line and played in between notes when possible (so I guess it's kinda microtonal). Then I duplicated the effect rack and played a melody over it with the same in between note concept. Then I started adding choir to it then thought, "hey why don't I turn this into a Yuka Kitamura-esque dark souls boss theme?", so I switched up the vibe to be more orchestral in the second phase. For "She Who Planted The Flowers", I ran out of power at my house because of a massive storm when I got back from work. This sucked because I couldn't charge my laptop inside and work. So I brought my laptop to my car so I could charge it in there and work. I couldn't bring my midi keyboard in the car so I focused on using samples and sound design instead as the main part of the music. I was making an eerie bell atmosphere and it was very dark and scary in the car because I live in the middle of nowhere in a very foresty area so this was terrifying. Around midnight I decided that I should go to bed and continue working on it the next day when I have power, so I turned on some Casiopea to hype myself up then ran inside. For the last track, "Guilt That Fades Away", it was the last day of the jam and I still had to finish mixing all the music, upload the music to youtube, and make the jam page so I had like 3-4 hours to compose and mix it which resulted in it being a bit rushed but people seemed to like that track though so I'm happy!
It depends, when I have more time and freedom I like to experiment with different instruments first and create the idea behind the music as I experiment, as long as it doesn't stray too far from the theme requested. But when there isn't much time or the request is more specific, I already plan what tone and instruments I will use beforehand, trying to streamline the process so I have more time to focus on the arrangement. For this jam, I did a mix of both.
Normally I'll start by laying down a few measures of a rhythm and playing around with instrumentation. At this point I'm not worried about whether any of what I'm playing will make it into the actual song, I'm just looking to see what sounds good together and get an idea for what kind of tone/genre I'm going for. Then I'll just jam out for a bit with various instruments until I find something I want to use for a melody. Sometimes I'll use these test measures in the song, sometimes not, but I find it easier to develop musical ideas by gathering together the instruments I wish to use first. Plus, I can save time and maintain tonal consistency through the album by saving the instrumentation as a preset.
open vital, consider style, pick waveform and apply envelope and filter, turn on bit crusher, pick a random tempo and start playing notes until i find nice chords or an interesting arpeggio, loop it while i make a 2nd synth which can be turned into a pad or a lead or a bass depending on stuff, play random stuff over the looping pattern until i make something good, add a bunch of effects and automation clips, unison detune for wide sound full mix, and then done. in all fairness i didnt have that much time to put into stuff because i went on vacation but i finished one song and wrote another with no midi keyboard so i resorted to a randomized melody for one song and minimalism for the other but people have liked it so i think it workd
For this jam, I wanted to use a lot of my new instruments and sounds in the Komplete 14 Collector's Edition, specifically their solo string quartet, action drums, and BEAUTIFUL plucked nylon guitar. I use Ableton Live 11 Suite and made roughly one track per day. My composition process was mostly the same for each track:
This is a very scuffed and lighthearted take on my composition process, but it's honestly not that far off. I always start with a solid loop and continue to add instruments to create a bunch of dynamic levels that would hopefully phase between each other as the track evolves inside of a video game. I leaned into my strengths with this jam, all while utilizing my infinite new Kontakt libraries and instruments. Overall, I'm happy with what I've been able to accomplish. If you're interested in rating my project, please check it out here, I'd love to hear your feedback! :D
Ok here is a novel on my entire thought process of my entry basically:
Jofes Devlog for Queen Bubblene Blast!
I had just finished writing a 10 song series of my own original Banjo Kazooie Worlds so the Grant kirkhope style was freash in my mind so I wanted to stick with that style for this jam.
To start with, I needed a concise set of instruments to work with to make a believable OST that flows well.
I took inspiration from one of my previous works that was based on being underwater where I used a lot of auxillary percussion to kind of portray the vast quantity of fish and coral and such.
I wanted to do that again but for a different reason, The theme being "Inside My World" I thought I should incorperate that into my music with more than just the vibes of the song. By purposefully avoiding traditional percussion such as snare, kicks, or cymbals, I wanted to sell the idea that this is someone elses world, not yours.
So my percussion was set, I would use tons of auxillary percussion to fill a lot of space and I could take them away or introduce them to change the feel of the different tracks. They were also very syncopated to keep the songs interesting and bouncy.
Going forwards, I wanted to keep each song relatively short for a few reasons. 1, I didn't want to intimidate anyone with an overly long submission since I knew that happens to me. I also wanted to make sure that everything stayed fresh and interesting to prevent boredom and waning interest. almost every song is less than 2 minutes and had at least 2 unique sections where if they repeated, there would be some sort of variation in the melody or counter line.
Now to talk about the theming real quick. The picture is obviously an underwater vibe and I of course saw the bubble like person along with the little girl who wasn't a bubble. I came up with the idea that the little girl was the villain of the story becaus eshe is smiling at the bubble person. Why? Because SHE is the one who turned you into a bubble! Inside my world is in reference to her. You are inside her domain, her kingdom, you are inside her control since she turned you into a fragile bubble.
Making fun music is what I like to do. As such, I wanted to keep things light and well BUBBLY! the instruments I chose were picked for a few reasons. To sell the underwater atmosphere, to provide a regal aura at times, to provide a goofy aura at times, and most importantly, Because I like them!
Steel Drum, Marimba, Xylophone, Bassoon, Tubas, Horns, Aux Percussion, Bass Guitar, Harp, Sub Bass, Strings.
These were all picked according to the criteria I listed above.
Now lets go track by track and I will explain my thought process.
Queen Bubblene Blast!:
This is the title track and my main concern was making as strong of a first impression that I could. That is why I tried to make fast and potentially make it the most fun song of the bunch. I did this by using the Vibraslap. That is a goofy instrument and would set the tone for the entire OST. Steel drums are the most perky instrument I had so that was the leading melody.
Partway through I made room for the harp to take over to slow things down a bit and get more of that title screen feel with the strings. and calmer atmosphere. That then cuts back to the more involved part now with goofy bassoon to back up the steel drums implying that we are headed underwater with the timbre. Then the final section has tubas leading to signify we are underwater and near queen Bubblene now with the low timbre and regal tubas.
So You've Been Turned Into A Bubble:
This was the first song I made for the jam.
It begins with an intro with bubble noises to imply the magic happening that is turning you into a bubble and muffled bassoon is being played and unmuffling to show the magic is working. then the main section starts.
The vibe I wanted to go for in this track is a regal trickster. Like if the ruler of the kingdom was also the jester. Lost of regal tubas with harps for the more royal sections of the song. Then it goes into the darker section with the bassoon which is still light and goofy but it is playing much lower and more sinister notes alongside the tubas showing that the Queen is Devious.
After that section ends it plays the main section again but this time with the bassoon countering the harp showing that the Royal side and the trickster side of Queen Bubblene are 2 sides of the same person. Then the final section plays which is the devious section but now the bassoon is higher and playing more melodic ideas to implicate that her devious personality is still goofy but also annoying.
The H2Zone:
This is the town theme and as such I wanted it to be very lighthearted and bouncy. I didn't use the tubas in this song as I wanted it to feel like a safe space from Queen Bubblene and I associate the tubas with her. The bassoon is playing the melody but more goofy than how it was in the last song. This is also the only song that uses the xylophone for part of the melody in the second half as in every other song the xylophone provides texture and backup chord hits rather than the melody.
I made a fun call and response with the xylophone and the steel drums both because it sounds really cool and since it works in a hub area type place since you are making decisions like what stage to begin your journey with.
NonStopped UnPopped:
This one I started with the intent that it would be one of if not the fastest/most intense song since it is the fast paced stage theme. It honestly didn't get all that complex to me since I just wanted it to be a fun yet intense stage theme though it is the song I had the most trouble making. The first main section of the song was harder to write than several of the other pieces entirely and I honestly have no clue why but I like how it turned out.
Taking In Some Air:
I knew the pause them was gonna be super simple. Just the bass, the strings, and the percussion and nothing else. Take away all melodic instruments to sell the idea that the main attraction is on hold for now. As such, the percussion takes on the role of melody with alternating cowbell and Claves for a sort of blip menu noise feel.
Octo-Popper Supreme
The main thing I wanted to do was go from 100 BPM to 188 BPM since an octopus has 8 tentacles so going from 100 to 188 felt like a fun way to incorporate the tempo into the theming even more.
I didn't however want the boss to be 188bpm fast so I kept the actual melody and feel at half tempo so it feels like 94 BPM. Since this is the climax song I thought it appropriate to add a new instrument to freshen things up and add excitement. Hence the horns came in. Similar to the Tubas they keep a regal feeling for the Queen while being better suited to action music. The song is in a blues key to feel extra funky and in game the boss bases the attacks around the beat of the music so a jazzy freestyle back and forth gameplay for a boss encounter fit a jazzy back and forth song which is why the melodies repeat and layer on the horns after playing once on a different instrument.
Surfacing:
I wanted it to feel relieving and light. I made the harp arpeggiate upwards and pan from left to right to really push the rising up feeling and used the strings a lot for the ecstasy feeling they gave of finally beating a boss.
If you read through all of this thank you! I had a ton of fun making the music and I love it so much!
Well this might turn into a long essay so like... we shall see
A lot of my music writing is incredibly spur of the moment, half of the process for writing music is about the pre-game... recording every single idea and concept i come up with somewhere! I have all sorts of random project files, notes app pages, and voice notes filled with little snippets of ideas, maybe a theme i want to write around or a melodic idea, or maybe just a whole beginning/hook of a song i want to experiment on! But almost all of my songs start this way, for example one of my entries to this, Stuck In Time started from a recording I took on my phone in the waiting room before I had a meeting with one of my music teachers! This step is especially important as I am incredibly scatterbrained and having the ideas to start with makes the process a lot easier. It doesn't matter how strong/weak they are, they get recorded!
These ideas then often end up as the base for my projects, I put them in and start envisioning what harmony would look like for them, picking out individual notes i want to highlight and deciding how to shape everything around that. When I approach song writing like this, it tends to result in much more organized i guess more "poppy" structures centered around this main idea, with some B content before coming back to it. I also put special emphasis on coming up with some sort of contrasting line, whether that be an arpeggio or in the case of stuck in time the combination of that and some high pitched 8 bit swells to provide a rhythmic and melodic contrast to my main idea, as Im a firm believer in experimenting with how to use space. Adding something else for the listener to listen to that adds to your melodic ideas will make it even more impactful when you decide to take away, and helps to create a sense of movement and drive in even the slowest pieces!
However sometimes I dont start with a melody, i often start with more of an arpeggiated idea or a chord progression, and my challenge becomes "how do i turn this relatively abstract idea into a full fledged song"? This was how i started with my second (and arguably favourite) of my two entries, THE EARTH CAN'T HOLD ME. This idea started just with the main arpeggio that permeates the entire being of the piece, the looping thoughts that you just cant seem to make away, and around that I sat trying to figure out exactly what i wanted the audience to think when they hear it. Do I want it to instill fear? wonder? curiosity? I finally settled on more of an anxiety ridden feel, which is what lead a lot of my harmonic choices in this song. My harmony writing tends to be a lot more of individual lines then a bunch of thought out chords, every note is part of another "melody" line to provide contrast to my main ideas. This opens the door for me to more easily create very "dissonant" ideas with the explicit idea of driving forwards an idea because each line in the chord is meant to guide you to the next note, not necessarily the next chord. Im sure someone could tell you the harmonic purpose according to musical theory of the progression at 3:01 in TECHM, but this was made using this process of note by note chord composition, creating it so that every single changing note in a chord is part of a larger melody and not just thinking about "well i want an f major here, what extensions do I think are best to support this"? Obviously I tweak things up afterwards and clean things up a bit, but I think this process has been a huge staple in how I've made some of my favourite stuff to date.
Another thing im very much thinking about is how i want to develop my ideas, as dont in THE EARTH CAN'T HOLD ME I have a lot of repeated ideas that i spend a lot of time ruminating on, and I take an approach that I have learned from C418 that i call a more compositionally minimalistic approach, in his album Excursions C418 has many songs that revolve around a simple melodic fragment, repeating over and over again, and their development and intrigue revolves around the development of the sound itself and rarely the actual melodic content of the piece! Using shifting textures, dynamics, and timbres you will find you can create a lot more interest for an otherwise stale concept and then give it an entirely different feeling and emotion to it. I like to think in TECHM this develops from Unnerve -> Desperation -> Acceptance, with a slight somber undertone as the protagonist comes to terms and overcomes their looping spiraling thoughts.
This was just a lot of rambling but I hope it gave some insight into random pieces of my compositional process, specifically relating to my submission. If you have any questions always feel free to ask!
Thanks Layla for coming up with such a cool post!
For this jam, I knew I wanted to try and make a 'complete' sounding OST, so I spent the first few days of the jam really planning out the story beats, thinking about what kind of moments would be needed to make something feel like a fully fleshed out game narrative.
I then planned out how I could most efficiently hit those story beats with the least amount of tracks, wrote out what kind of emotions and atmospheres each track would need to deliver, then wrote an estimated run time for each one to make sure everything seemed to be in scope/doable in a week.
Once I was happy with my overall story and track list, I sketched out all of the character themes, and planned how I could incorporate them throughout the OST. Coming up with the themes beforehand let me cut down a ton on the time I usually spend blindly looking for good melodies, which in turn helped me finish everything on time.
After all of this, I finished my planning phase by writing out a composing schedule for the rest of the week, writing out by which days I would have sketches, then rough drafts, then final versions of each track. Whenever I fell behind schedule, I either downsized the scope of the piece, cut a track/story beat, combined pieces together, or as a last resort, worked a bit later into the night to make sure I was on track.
For the actual composing, I usually start with improvising melodies on a keyboard, which can take some time to get right. Since this jam had pretty tough time constraints, I took a different approach and instead composed by writing out the accompaniment, percussion, and other rhythmic elements of the music first, to make sure that even without a melody, the tracks were 'breathing' at the right pace, and hitting the emotions and atmospheres I was going for in the overall scheme of things. I then looked for places where I could fit in the themes I sketched beforehand, adjusting them as needed to fit with harmonies or rhythmic patterns. I also kept a basic list of instruments and sounds used in each track, and did my best to minimize overlaps between tracks, especially ones that play right after another, to keep everything sounding texturally different and interesting.
I think a very unique aspect of game music that really sets it apart from any other kind of music is its ability to be interactive, so I also wrote a few tracks that were designed to be integrated with gameplay systems, like my 6th track, the combat theme, and the 7th track, an area theme that's supposed to grow grander as you complete quests for a certain faction in the game. My hope was that doing so would make my submission sound even more like a 'real' game OST.
I hope something I wrote was helpful for someone! Also, I'd be super happy if you checked out my submission, thanks!
Well, for this project it was kind of a happy accident I suppose. Sorry for the long post ahead. I already tried to shorten it down, but I’m kind of a blabbering monkey when getting to the itty bitty stuff. If someone likes to discuss the process or want further information, feel free to contact me.
The original theme Havet og Marah was firstly only written for Synths and wasn’t intended as part of the Project. Also the project then was named “Carried by the wind”. I only wrote the first half of the song to try out my new midi-controller with poly aftertouch and was trying out an emulation of an Yamaha CS 80, promptly after the moto for this jam was announced. After some consideration I’ve added the second part with only a harp as an ostinato. The main melody came only a few days after. Afterwards I decided to add a full orchestra and wrote the additional brass, woodwinds and strings.
Rolig sjødans was only written after I decided to use the first song for the jam. I wanted, besides the main theme, something to represent that this is part of a game. So I chose an overworld theme and something like a boss or chase theme (that was becoming to be Det skremmer meg). I already knew three things for the overworld theme. First of all, the theme should start with the main melody of Havet og Mara to tie it in more. Secondly, the theme should be structured in different stages represent the different stages of waviness the character can encounter while crossing the sea (still water, rippled water, big waves). Also I knew I wanted a bassoon to play the melody. Since I’ve already established the size and assembly of my orchestra, I’ve used that as a starting point. Also the strange noise you are hearing in the beginning and end of the song are meant as a que für when the user is able to control Marah or better to say when she spawns in and out of the full view.
Det Skremmer meg was only written in about five to six hours and was almost cut, since the time was running out. I already knew what I wanted to describe with the music but didn’t hat a melody or theme in mind yet. But after some experimentation in the earlier songs I had already established some synths and Sample-libraries I wanted to use. After some experimentation the song was born.
For mixing I always try to get as close to the real world as possible. For orchestra I always consider the standard semi-circle. Also for microphoning the different sections I have my established workflow. Strings always heavy on the Decca tree, add some close mics for details and set the ambience mics low. Woodwinds heavy on the close mics with a little Decca tree and some ambience and additional reverb. Brass always set the close as low as possible, set Decca tree fittingly with ambience and outrigger to get the full room sound. Every instrument gets some EQ-treatment but never more than 3 dB to not change the original sound. The whole orchestra then gets its own mix bus with some compression and some additional reverb and distortion (tape emulation). Also if necessary some stereo enhancer. It is also the same for the master bus. I mostly used a parallel compressor with only a few dB of compression, a reverb with only 10-15% mix and also some tape emulation.
I lack knowledge to write what I want, but I had an overall idea of nerve-wracking badly played violin sounds. Construction in my town was a bonus, I recorded some sounds that after editing turned into atmospheric background noises. I have been participating in jams so far with silent games (because I had no time to include any sounds), it helped me to think about sound design in games. I also prefer realism, so ambient genre as a baseline felt better for a non-existent game. The theme and edited recordings helped me to form the final idea. I had something in mind before that I wanted to imitate (you can see my inspo in devlog), and the theme happened to be very close, if interpreted under a less positive angle (the picture is a delusion casted on the player by hypnosis or similar, not the reality).
Despite my original desire to go with DAW and write a melody, the edited recordings in Audacity felt complete, so I felt satisfied.
The feedback I got so far is very surprising, I didn’t expect my entry to be noticed and praised :)
Thanks for such an interesting post idea! Sorry if the post is long, I wanted to explain basically the devlog of my submission in somewhat extensive detail.
(The Idea)
Coming up with ideas for projects and jams has always been the hardest initial step for me, so for a while I was kinda lost on what I wanted to do and just procrastinated (I have a bad habit of procrastinating and only doing stuff in the last few days ;-;). The idea of my OST only came to me after I found myself once again interested in RPG games such as Undertale and OMORI. I definitely knew I wanted my game to be set in an RPG land with a vast array of areas and characters to interact with. So from there, I started listening to a lot of RPG music such as Pokemon and Undertale to really give me a proper idea of how I wanted the tracks to feel and sound. Funny enough, I was actually planning on making the game have psychological horror elements much like OMORI, but I decided not to go through with the idea due to it being very difficult to pull off well and because I wanted the game to feel more uplifting rather than dreadful.
(The Actual Process) - Read this part for how I actually made the tracks
(I'm not that good at composing so my process might be a bit bad lol) Once I was finished listening to my selected reference tracks, I actually started making the tracks. I composed the songs by just playing random chords and melodies into my piano until I thought it sounded interesting enough. I then recorded the MIDI of the piano playing and just continued tweaking it from there. After that I thought about what instruments I wanted to accompany the track and starting placing notes relevant to the chord progression. From there I tweak the mixing and mastering to the best of my abilities.
I started with the first song "The Past is Best Cherished" (Fun fact, the track was originally called "The Past is Best Forgotten" before I dropped the psychological horror. This is also why the track sounds more ominous compared to the rest). From there I started constructing the other tracks. I didn't really have a linear order for which ones I made first, I just did what I felt like making at the time lol.
After around seven songs into the OST I decided to actually list down how many tracks I was planning on making. Like I stated in the first paragraph, I really wanted this to feel like a complete game from start-to-finish and I thought the best way I could achieve that was by creating a lot of (for the most part) unique tracks that are set to be played for different parts of "Dream Land." After some thinking, I decided on 23 tracks in total (it was supposed to be 24 but I had to scratch one due to time constraints). I also wanted to have motifs that play for a specific place or idea such as a motif for the town themes, one for the sheep related tracks, and one for "Yourself," the main antagonist.
(Last Day)
The last day was here and yet I still procrastinated quite a bit lol. I still had around half of the planned songs left to make so I eventually stopped procrastinating and focused completely on finishing the OST. Because of the time limit (and my procrastination), some of the tracks are just repeats of previous tracks with minor changes (perhaps I shouldn't have planned so many tracks lol). Eventually tho, at around 40 mins left including grace period, I completed all the necessary tracks and published my submission on Youtube and itch.io.
(Conclusion)
Although the process may have been a tedious and somewhat draining at times, I still had a lot of fun creating the tracks and I'm pretty happy with what I was able to do with the time I had. This post ended up being a lot longer than I expected, so I thank you so much for reading!
That's all I have to say really, have an amazing day! :D
1. Think of epic melody
2. Implement it into DAW
3. Spend 3 hours sitting there doing nothing
4. Add some small minor detail
5. "Alright I am done for the day"
Slight exaggeration but procrastination was my biggest enemy, I imagine a lot of people here struggled with it too.
First thing I did was get a clipboard, and write down the names of critical parts of the story and then some smaller side track names I could add if I wanted to, and decided to focus on the most important tracks to the structure of my story (The opening, the conflict, and the resolution) . I just worked on the musical parts in the first days, adding only minimal or essential effects. Ideas mostly either come from doing improv on a piano or they just come to me. Once inside a DAW, I can then build onto those ideas. Many tracks I would do in bits as I was still finding leitmotifs, but still wanted to have a good foundation for the tone of each track I wanted. I feel it is easier to speed up the process when you learn and familiarize yourself with specific library of sounds, Usually I use soundfonts but I was unsure the legality of those so I ended up using FLEX and SurgeXT for the most part. This caused many time issues for me, but it was also a nice learning experience. One example is, I probably spent a couple of hours looking for a specific tunable "Airy blowing sound" I thought would've sounded nice, I was going through every flute synth I could find, EQing them seeing If I could achieve that sound to then suddenly stumble upon the amazing "Bottle Blow" instrument in the general MIDI library. I felt kind of dumb because many soundfonts feature a bottle blow sound and I didn't even think of the instrument. It was a nice discovery of sounds though, I found a pretty spooky evil dark bass of darkness and despair I might use again. SurgeXT is pretty nice if you like sound design as well, I found myself spending a lot of time slightly tweaking the presets since I am pretty inexperienced with that, but I imagine someone more experienced can achieve a lot through SurgeXT or just any synthesizer. I feel that mixing too early for me can lead to way too many readjustments in things like volume and EQ, or it can leave me unsatisfied with something like the melody sounding way better than everything else, making it difficult to add more. Usually I will leave mixing to once the track is done, or if it is necessary on some instruments. So I ended up doing that in the latter days.
Also for art, I am a pretty bad artist. I found a nice color palette online to use, and then I used a reference for getting the main focus of my art at least somewhat ok. Doing the art I feel is a good thing to do when you get "stuck" on musical ideas, as you can come back to your project completely refreshed while still getting something else out of the way.
Depending on the track, I'll either start with a set of chords that match the mood I have in mind (often in arpeggio form), or I might start by trying to find two or three sounds that match the mood I'm going for. Occasionally I'll start with drums and bass particularly if rhythm is the focus or if I have a less common time signature in mind.
Usually I'll start on a piano VST or Jup-8 (because I love that synth!)
While away from my computer, I write any ideas (chords, story, instrumentation) that come to mind into my notes app (for melodies I'll hum them into my recorder app). For this jam in particular, I came up with way more ideas than I could use lol.
Of course I always have the image theme open on my second monitor.
For this one in particular and many of my other songs I've done, I noodle around in my editor with differing notes and instruments, until I hear a melody/flow in my head, which is usually all it takes to start a full song. Initially I didn't really have a clear theme direction to go in, until I internalized the text theme, and made it more traditionally "Doomy". For each of my songs, I really try to make them all individually memorable in their own ways, usually I do this by employing techniques I haven't before, and several of them to get a very diverse sound throughout each song I do.
Thanks for posting a topic for this - it's always great to learn from others!
Personally, a lot of my better ideas come from improvising while studying a visual piece (such as in these game jams!), or experimenting with new plugins in a DAW. From there I try to find ways of fleshing those ideas out either with the harmony or counterpoint. I find this to be the tougher part of composing, especially if those other parts don't come organically during the improve itself. But in a way, I also find it rewarding to struggle with something to get the best parts that compliment each other and finally putting it all together.
What made composing for this game jam unique for me is that all of my ideas came from improvising on a keyboard, since I am primarily a guitar player :)
My usual process is pretty much just "think of a concept" and then "figure it out," but I wanted to push myself for this one. After brainstorming a general idea and direction, I spent most of the jam period - after I found out it existed, that is - learning how to compose. Just crammed as much practical music theory as I could reasonably understand, with, additionally, some looks into how other game composers structure their works. For one of my tracks, I started with a melody directly in my DAW but for the other, I started with MuseScore and developed my melody and harmonization via notation, which is not something I've ever done before. The actual production process was less than a day, which did not really leave enough time to layer and master the way I would have liked (not that I really feel like I know what I'm doing regarding mastering, either), but I took this jam as an opportunity to force myself to do two things: 1. learn more about the building blocks of music and how to put them together in a way that makes sense, is replicable, and isn't just "do something aimlessly until it sounds good," and 2. actually put out work, rather than leaving unfinished tracks on my hard drive. Still got a lot to learn and a long way to go, but I'm glad I found this jam to kickstart that journey!
