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CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL MUSIC ON RPG GAME.
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turkeyDawg
195
Posts like these tend to get lost in the shuffle pretty quickly, so don't get discouraged if no one comes to you! Keep an eye out on the Help & Requests forum and the Blogs/Announcements and you'll be sure to see someone looking for a composer eventually.
Ephiam
8579
I'd absolutely love to have original music in my project, however I'm unable to offer any kind of payment, so this may not be of any interest to you. Not only that, but because the game I'm concerned with at the moment is being made using RPG Maker 2000, it is only able to support MIDI files and not MP3s.
Aside from that, your compositions are spectacular! Such amazing talent at a very young age; you're going great places, my good sir!
Aside from that, your compositions are spectacular! Such amazing talent at a very young age; you're going great places, my good sir!
TheNecromancer
3160
While fairly technically proficient, I find that these songs lack soul. The first one is definitely the better one, but it feels too jumpy and random most of the time.
Housekeeping
3571
No disrespect, Link, but the "these songs lack soul" comment is striking a nerve with me. "Soul" is such a poorly defined term that I see in arguments like "who's the better guitarist, Slash or Buckethead?" where there's always a Slash contingent that talks about how Slash is better because he has more soul. What kind of crap is that? Both guitarists are playing with feeling, but Buckethead uses more advanced techniques in order to express himself. Neither has more "soul." Frankly, I find Buckethead's work to be more honest, as Slash relies on blues cliches, but people find those cliches to be "soulful" because that fits their preconceived notions of what "soulful" is based on the music they're used to. Comparison aside, it's bullshit and an insult to an artist when you tell them they have no soul, when all they're trying to do is express themselves in the first place.
I actually found these pieces to be expressive, but they're just expressing a different emotional landscape. For a seventeen year old, you're producing really high quality work. However, the problem you're going to run into is already becoming evident: outside of academia, it's going to be difficult to find an audience for contemporary classical music, and that includes video game soundtracks. You're going to have to write more tonally and with an ear for pop if you're wanting to write for videogames--unless you plan on working on a soundtrack for a horror game or a more introspective indie game.
I actually found these pieces to be expressive, but they're just expressing a different emotional landscape. For a seventeen year old, you're producing really high quality work. However, the problem you're going to run into is already becoming evident: outside of academia, it's going to be difficult to find an audience for contemporary classical music, and that includes video game soundtracks. You're going to have to write more tonally and with an ear for pop if you're wanting to write for videogames--unless you plan on working on a soundtrack for a horror game or a more introspective indie game.
Housekeeping
3571
I guess I can't argue with that.
Let this be a lesson that regardless of how much thought is put into your music, if you don't have pop sensibilities, you'll run into a brick wall in more mainstream ventures.
Let this be a lesson that regardless of how much thought is put into your music, if you don't have pop sensibilities, you'll run into a brick wall in more mainstream ventures.
TheNecromancer
3160
That doesn't make any sense. Pop sensibilities? You pointed out that soul is a poorly defined term and yet you seem to know exactly what it means to me. You're making assumptions based on the opinions of other people who have used the word soul. You've made that fairly obvious.
Music, like art, is subject to personal taste and experience. Having any kind of argument like "who is a better guitarist" or "what is soul" is pointless. There is no right answer. I don't know why you are acting as though you can define things so clearly.
This music feels lifeless. I don't care if you disagree with that. It's simply my opinion. I'm not going to change it because you disagree or don't like the words I use. You may find other people who like to argue/discuss musical opinions, but you'll find that I'm not one of them.
Btw, posting on RMN is hardly mainstream.
Music, like art, is subject to personal taste and experience. Having any kind of argument like "who is a better guitarist" or "what is soul" is pointless. There is no right answer. I don't know why you are acting as though you can define things so clearly.
This music feels lifeless. I don't care if you disagree with that. It's simply my opinion. I'm not going to change it because you disagree or don't like the words I use. You may find other people who like to argue/discuss musical opinions, but you'll find that I'm not one of them.
Btw, posting on RMN is hardly mainstream.
turkeyDawg
195
Well, on the whole "souless" issue, your primary problem is that your genre of choice is one that sampled/sequenced music is very unkind to. Classical music is heavily dependant on the performance of the musicians, especially when we're talking about slow pieces played by small groups of soloists.
If you're going to pursue this style of music, you'll really have to learn how to micromanage MIDI data to achieve a more convincing, "human" performance. Some of your pieces seem to at least have volume dynamics, but you also need to keep in mind the timing and pitch of the notes. This is especially apparent when you have runs of 8th or 16th notes. When they're all played with perfect timing and pitch, it sounds extremely robotic, and when you have instruments playing the same note multiple times in a row, you absolutely need to vary their timing, pitch, and volume/velocity, otherwise it sounds like machine gun or a hardware malfunction.
There's a whole bevy of things you can do to liven things up, such as making all the notes a tiny bit off-timed so that players aren't triggering their notes exactly simultaneously. If you can control the vibrato of the instruments, then you definitely want to have that changing all the time, as well as their playing volume. Being able to make the tempo fluctuate is also helpful.
If this all sounds incredibly tedious, its because it is. I was about your age when I started realizing that these were things I could, and should, do, and was surprised to end up spending hours on what seems like trivial crap. However, when samples are all you have, taking these steps makes a world of difference.
If these don't sound like things your program can even do, which could be the case if you're using a notation program instead of a normal sequencer, then you might want to consider investing in a program that can.
Hopefully this was helpful. Best of luck to ya!
If you're going to pursue this style of music, you'll really have to learn how to micromanage MIDI data to achieve a more convincing, "human" performance. Some of your pieces seem to at least have volume dynamics, but you also need to keep in mind the timing and pitch of the notes. This is especially apparent when you have runs of 8th or 16th notes. When they're all played with perfect timing and pitch, it sounds extremely robotic, and when you have instruments playing the same note multiple times in a row, you absolutely need to vary their timing, pitch, and volume/velocity, otherwise it sounds like machine gun or a hardware malfunction.
There's a whole bevy of things you can do to liven things up, such as making all the notes a tiny bit off-timed so that players aren't triggering their notes exactly simultaneously. If you can control the vibrato of the instruments, then you definitely want to have that changing all the time, as well as their playing volume. Being able to make the tempo fluctuate is also helpful.
If this all sounds incredibly tedious, its because it is. I was about your age when I started realizing that these were things I could, and should, do, and was surprised to end up spending hours on what seems like trivial crap. However, when samples are all you have, taking these steps makes a world of difference.
If these don't sound like things your program can even do, which could be the case if you're using a notation program instead of a normal sequencer, then you might want to consider investing in a program that can.
Hopefully this was helpful. Best of luck to ya!
Housekeeping
3571
author=Link_2112
That doesn't make any sense. Pop sensibilities? You pointed out that soul is a poorly defined term and yet you seem to know exactly what it means to me. You're making assumptions based on the opinions of other people who have used the word soul. You've made that fairly obvious.
Music, like art, is subject to personal taste and experience. Having any kind of argument like "who is a better guitarist" or "what is soul" is pointless. There is no right answer. I don't know why you are acting as though you can define things so clearly.
This music feels lifeless. I don't care if you disagree with that. It's simply my opinion. I'm not going to change it because you disagree or don't like the words I use. You may find other people who like to argue/discuss musical opinions, but you'll find that I'm not one of them.
Btw, posting on RMN is hardly mainstream.
I agreed that I wasn't going to change your opinion, so you don't have to convince me that I can't. I'll say, though, that there are some terms that I should clarify:
1) By calling something "soulless" I can recognize that it's not connecting to you because of your sensibilities (forgive me if I'm wrong in this assumption), but, to most people, calling something "soulless" makes it seem as if the composer didn't put any of their own feelings into it. You probably didn't mean it like that, but that's how it comes off, and I'm just saying that that's insulting. This is more of a general gripe that's stemming from seeing the word "soulless" pop up in musical discussions--your post was just the spark that got the fire going.
2) When I said "pop sensibilities" I meant in comparison to academic sensibilities--in other words, pop music is what people listen to for enjoyment rather than critical thinking. So, everything outside of academia. Like, even death metal or jazz is pop music by this definition.
3) RMN is mainstream in its taste for music. By "mainstream" I mean the opposite of academic music.
4) I recognize that subjective tastes are at work here, but there are objective qualities to good music: craftsmanship, nuance, expressiveness, and communication with what's come before it.
Anyway, I hope this post isn't too off topic--we should probably be discussing this guy's work.
TheNecromancer
3160
Those newer songs would be more fitting for the average game. The first ones might be good for horror games or maybe surreal games, but typically devs want songs that match the feeling or atmosphere of that part of the game. If you want to make a game you should show as wide a range as possible that you're able to create because games tend to require a wide range of feeling. Such as a happy tune for a town, a sad tune for when someone dies, or something tense for a boss battle.
Few people are musically trained so all this academic talk is kind of pointless. It doesn't matter if it's tonal or atonal, all that matters is the feeling the dev gets from the song when they decide if they want to put it in their game. It depends more on the game and person, rather than the technical choices of the composer.
Few people are musically trained so all this academic talk is kind of pointless. It doesn't matter if it's tonal or atonal, all that matters is the feeling the dev gets from the song when they decide if they want to put it in their game. It depends more on the game and person, rather than the technical choices of the composer.
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