Unwilling Hero

Another theme idea for a the list of character archetypes that I found. This time it's the Unwilling Hero. It's another self evident one but I'll explain my thought process for it. I figured that someone unwilling would probably have a darker and softer tone to their personality than the willing hero would. That's why I chose to use a piano and a minor key.

Willing Hero

I found a list of character archetypes that I'm going to be using for awhile to base some motifs off of. The first one on the list is the Willing Hero. It's pretty self-evident what it means so here is a short interpretation of a theme for a character of this archetype.





Here is the site that I will be finding the archetypes:
http://www.listology.com/list/character-archetypes

Still Writing

I don't have a recording for the stuff that I'm working on but I am still writing. I have an initial idea for where I want but now I'm just looking for a direction to take it. I'll keep this updated as I work on it. I might continue some small stuff on the side or give snippets of the one I'm working on now.

High Seas!

Whenever I want to do a piece inspired by sailing or pirates I always fall back on the same or similar rhythms and usually the Dorian mode. I would probably use the same orchestration too, but I decided to leave it with piano. Can you let me know whether I got the rollicking feel I was going for?



I hate to use the word "rollicking" but I can't think of anything else for it.

Back!

I'm back from almost a week off of this site. I didn't intend to not post on it, I just got frustrated after not liking any of the things that I had posted a couple of days before it happened. This is much better than those, in my opinion, although I feel it lacks direction sometimes. Still I hope you enjoy it.



11:11! Wish!

Quicker!

This is another old one. Like a lot of those ones I feel like its an intro into something longer.

Chaotic

I really had no idea at all where to go with this one. No initial harmonic or melodic idea. It literally started with random notes. Usually when that happens it becomes more rhythmic than anything else, which this one is.

Sick

Not feeling too well so here's a quick one.

Change

This was originally going to be a choral piece before I even wrote a melodic line but I decided to change it. I don't really know why I change my mind, but I like it this way.

Oboe Theme

This is something I was working on. Basically just an oboe motif that I just messed around with adding blue notes. It's not finished yet but I don't know where else to go with it right now.

Slow

I decided to do something minor today. I usually don't use sharp keys but I did this time. It may not seem any different to listen to but it was different to work out on the piano because I don't usually work with those. Besides that it was pretty much the same as usual, working out the harmonies first then the melody. I feel like I could have done more with the bass but I couldn't think of anything at the time.

Tuba Duet

Not much to say about this one. I just need to schedule more time for myself to do this.

Flash Back

I hate doing this but I got preoccupied and forgot to write today so here is a short piece I wrote probably when I first got Finale. I guess it's good that I'm doing this so that I can actually keep track of the dates of future things.



The piano here was originally organ but that took over the tuba too much.

Flute Choir

This is my try at a flute choir. It's split into 4 parts (SATB) using piccolo, flute, alto flute, and bass flute. Thinking back on it now the piccolo probably should have been an octave higher. I know for next time though.

Once More

Quick and moderately folksy (if that's a word) was my aim for this.

Flight

I had an idea of what I wanted to do today. I was originally thinking of a bird or someone at the edge of a cliff. This was my interpretation of the bird standing at the edge. The majority of it is before the actual flight with hopefully what comes across as tension rises. The actual flight is much shorter than the rest. I don't know whether or not it should be longer or not.

Sweet Dreams?

This is my attempt to write a lullaby type piece. I wanted it to have a turn as if someone was having a bad dream. Not a nightmare, just something darker in tone.
I was thinking about this idea after reading a Neil Gaiman short story. It's in his anthology called Smoke and Mirrors. It's the last story.




I might try this again later after I take more composition lessons. I like it and I have a lot more ideas that would go well with it that I just don't know how to pull off right now

Slack Waltz

Well my internet went out for a couple of days. I kind of used that to as an excuse to slack off until now. Here is something that I hope makes up for the days I lost. It was inspired by the game Bioshock.




More of an homage really... if I'm using the word correctly.
I don't care

More Modes

Once again I was messing around with modes. This time I chose mixolydian. The scale is really close to the major scale stepwise. But with a few steps from the minor scale. To aid this sound I added chords with a good mixture of major and minor intervals.

Quick!

A quick one since its another day that I've been out of the house a lot. There are a couple of things that I like about this that I may deal with later.



And by a couple I mean like two measures.

Happy Independence Day

Happy 4th of July!

This piece is something that I've done earlier this year. I wanted to do something original today, but everything I wrote down was just crap. Crap that I'm sure that would sound better with more time but oh well. At least I have some ideas for other times though.

Something Different - Nabari no Ou

Slight segue from the usual, but just finished watching an anime series called Nabari no Ou. Decided to talk about the score a little. The composer for the series was Michiru Ōshima who has composed music for one of my favorite video games of all time, Ico. Just like in Ico, the music is very minimal and simple. Some of my most favored scores seem to be like that. I've been listening to the original soundtrack and each piece, especially the main theme, seem to encompass the tone of the entire show completely. This is a great achievement and something that I'm going to strive to do on every score that I work on.

Fuller Sounding?

This was an attempt to make things sound a little fuller while still trying to keep it light in tone. I didn't do anything to the actual mix except change the around the orchestration a little. I did the original composition in the standard way, on the piano figuring out the chords before the melody.

Tenor and Vibes

Busy Friday running around doing errands, so I'm showing this. This is one of the first things I've ever written. I still kind of like it, let me know what you think.

Folkish

This is something done in a folk-ish style that I'm probably going to expand on later. For this one I just set up a chord progression and had a guitar play through it. The melody followed afterwards. I'll update on the progress.

In a Phrygian Mood

I set out today to write something in a particular mode. So on the piano I was messing around trying to choose which one I wanted to pick. I didn't want to use something too common so Ionian, Aeolian, and Dorian were out. (Hope that those were the right ones, I meant because I suck at remembering these) I settled on Phrygian because it had a sort of sentimental sound to it that I kind of liked.

Composing this was stranger than normal. Both the chords and the harmony seemed to come to me at the same time. It was weird.



Bonus Points given out if you can name the song and composer that the title alludes to.

Music Theory

This is based off of an idea I was messing around with in music theory. I just expanded it a little further today.



Sorry for the short post today. Things don't get done for me at this time of the day I guess.

Cave

A theme for a cave. Specifically created for Therion Online, an mmorpg currently in the works. This was kind of an experiment for me. I was looking for a way to make the cave unsettling without making the music itself too dark. I tried to do this by introducing a lot of different musical ideas that don't really seem related and then bringing them back at unexpected times. Can you let me know if I achieved my goal or does it just seem too random?



BTW: If the abrupt ending seems tacked on that's because it is. This is supposed to loop, so I just quickly added on a final chord on the end.

Swing it!

Well, I don't think I can really explain what happened here but I'll try. I first came up with this basic melody on the piano. After that I kind of just fit chords to it which is backwards from what I usually do. Most of the time I try to fit a melody with a chord progression instead of a chords to a melody. This worked out kind of well, I don't like how some of the chords sound in the first part of Finale with the clarinets. I'm not sure if that's bad orchestration on my part or just the sampling of Finale's instruments. Probably both, lol.

The second half of this short piece was really unexpected for me. Halfway through my original idea of the flute with clarinet accompaniment this just sprung into my mind. I knew I wanted to contrast the first half, but originally I was just going to transpose it into its relative minor key. I think I like this better:




I guess I could explain it.

a rosen summer evening

This is an uncharacteristically busy Saturday so instead of posting a short theme that I wrote today, I am actually posting a choral piece I wrote inspired by a poem of the same name by Joey Weast. Because Finale Allegro doesn't allow actual vocals and even as tempted as I am to record myself singing all the parts (sarcasm) this mp3 doesn't have any of the actual words. So you can just read the original poem at his blog here:



http://opaquewriting.blogspot.com/2010/06/one-rosen-summer-evening.html

First Official Post

Ok,here is the first official post. That still doesn't mean I'm not done testing things though. I'm not sure if I still want to actually record my voice giving an intro for each individual post. I might just do all my explanations on here.

Anyways, back to the original topic. Today's post really just started with me messing around with extended chords on my piano. Eventually I did come up with a progression that I thought sounded nice and a melody followed after that actually really easily. But of course the hardest part for me was actually extending it past the first few measures.




BTW: Why did I choose a violin and harpsichord to play it? I have no clue. lol

Audio Test 2

Alright, in the previous post I originally put the link as the title in order to make the feed more podcast feed friendly. This restricts the original use of the title link to go click and place a comment. However, you can still get to the comments by clicking on the link below the post with the number of comments. You can also do so clicking on the individual bookmarks after subscribing to the rss feed if you wish.

Thanks for letting me know about this, if there is anything else I can do to make things easier let me know.

Audio Testing

Testing the actual podcast part of the blog now using a really short and simple file.
For right now it will be not only available for download but also streamed through the actual blog. Depending on if this affects the speed of the site, I might take this out.




Notice how the slightly deeper voice I accidentally did in the beginning evened out a little. I'm so lame :)

Text Test

Ok everyone, the journey begins! Well, officially not yet because this is just a test for my subscription feeds. However, after testing this and then my actual audio uploading, the music should start on Monday!

In case you don't know this blog(podcast) will be my attempt at composing a short theme or motif daily in order to track my progress as a composer. Hopefully this will become a good source of criticism and inspiration for me.