I needed a shorthand title, like LOTR or ST:TNG or ASOIAF.
Provisional title “Last of the 300 Worlds”
I had taken a long break from No Man’s Sky but when I found out that the game world was wrapping up in July 24th, I jumped back in for the last 2 weeks. “I’m up to 200 and some, why not aim for an even 300.” During this time I recorded about 20 hrs of footage. When I make the final videos I think it would be fine to insert some footage from the previous exploration (ex. if I want to do an episode on ALL the kinds of Gervays), but for the most part I want to rely on, well, the last of the 300 worlds.
It really was a nice survey of planets — I did find several of each type. Also, it was amazing that I FINALLY found a planet that had three of my favorite things on it — lush grasses and plants, wide oceans, and Gervays. Still hard to believe I found one like that; I doubt I will ever find another!
Dr. Greenberg defines music as “sound in time” or “time ordered by sound” — basing this on an earlier definition that included the word “purposeful”. Interesting that Greenberg took “purposeful” out.
The first unit of the course will be about the timbre of different instruments.
He begins by talking about the major classifications of instruments. The first instrument, he said, is the human voice; he won’t go on to discuss it, except to say that other instruments aspire to have its flexibility and expressiveness.
As a potential composer, that made me think about how the timbre of different instruments might remind the listener of different kinds of human voices. Childlike, wheezy-old, raging, crooning, howling at the moon. What kind of person is speaking in this composition? Do they have “friends” with them? Or an argumentative crowd?
“Anthromorphizing” the instrumentation.
Also in this lecture he talks about the bassoon and the contrabassoon; he asks “was there ever an instrument simply called the ‘oon’ ?” Unfortunately no, although at one time there was a tenoroon.
I have spent many hours in the procedurally generated universe of No Man’s Sky. I’ve spent so much time there it’s almost like having spent a month traveling around the US. Like seriously, I’ve logged more than 300 hrs. Kinda scary when you think about it. I’ve filled a terabyte of space on my disk drive with screen capture videos.
About 6 months ago there was a major update. When this happened there were many improvements. However, the update re-wrote the entire universe. My home planet was burned to a cinder; Dawnseas no longer has an ocean, Etienne Rouge is no longer red. Only a few of the planets that I had discovered, named and loved have remained as before. I’m embarrassed to admit, I cried when I saw what had happened to my home world. It’s only pixels. But…I will never be able to go there again!
As of July 24, 2018 there will be a huge update. Rumor has it that there will be a form of multiplayer and even PvP. But I’m pretty sure that the universe will be rewritten from scratch. That means I have only a short while to record footage of my favorite planets.
It also means that when that universe is gone, it is gone. That chapter of the story will close. I will have a finite amount of video footage to draw from. This puts limitations on the project (a good thing) and also gives it an overarching emotional theme. Goodbye Dawnseas, Rosperigosa, Neochadwickia. Goodbye Naguxoisanorca.
OK, so if I’m going to do an independent project totally on my own, I can take it in the exact direction I want rather than trying to meet someone else’s standards. Which is kind of a shame, because trying to meet standards & goals outside of my comfort zone could be a really good thing.
The main thing I’m interested in now is music for video games and for other virtual environments (ex. background music for a virtual tour of an architectural building still in the planning phase). One of the different things about this kind of composition is the use of “stems”. You submit not only the finished piece but also its building blocks (the bass line, the melody line, the weird sci-fi sound effects line) which can be used by the game designer at will — like toppings on a pizza. Here layer parts one, two and three; here just one, here pile them all on.
In game design this is important because the software can be programmed to react to what the player is doing and increase the intensity of the music by using more of the stems layered together. (“Player approaches monster, is attacked and retreats; cue ‘Run Like Hell’ theme”.)
I have been working on my own, posting videos on Youtube. Eight of the videos take place in the planet exploration game of “No Man’s Sky”. It would be a great project to write some additional music to capture the mood of these planetary environments, and also take the compositions I’ve already written and work with them; break them down into stems, put them in official music notation. This will be a lot of work because when I mixed the songs last year I blended all the parts — I don’t have the individual stems anymore! I’ll have to re-create them. Also, I dread working with Finale. I have done it but believe me I would much rather eat kale. Raw kale. Tough raw kale. Kale doesn’t make me beat my head on the desk.
Another project I’ve started (but haven’t posted any examples of yet) are videos that take place in the medieval fantasy world of “Dark Souls”. For these I would like to use music from the repertoire but arranged for synth (by synth I mean any electronic reproduction of instrument sounds, including the realistic samples used in Garritan Instant Orchestra). One song is based on a MIDI file of Machaut’s “Rose, Liz, Printemps, Verdure”. I used a different instrument for each voice part and used dynamics to bring one instrument to the foreground, then take it back and bring another forward. This comes under “arrangement” rather than “composition” but it’s also something I want to learn about.
So here we go.
Take notes on Emily Reese’s “Top Score” series. React to them.
COMPOSE more music — for the sci-fi world of No Man’s Sky
Take already composed music and make stems and scores
ARRANGE music for the fantasy world of Dark Souls
Read Winifred Phillip’s book A Composer’s Guide to Game Music
I’m beginning to have mixed feelings about taking “composition” for credit. If I understand right, Dr. Composition hasn’t been in charge of an independent study student before, and doesn’t know if he has time for me in his schedule. I don’t want to put him on the spot. Better to work on my own, and meanwhile scope out the environment this fall semester, see if there’s any faculty who are willing / able to help me.
The areas I will need help are
1) someone who will note that I did, indeed, submit X amount of work this week and
2) someone who can help me write things out in standard notation. I get so far on my own and then get stuck.
3) Critiques of the compositions (“Hey, you might want to think twice about putting parallel 5ths in the baseline”) would be great, too.
By Donovan Govan. – Image taken by me using a Canon PowerShot G3 (reference 7877)., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=118178
And — I had lost touch with Mike Rugnetta’s work several years ago. I’m excited to discover that he has continued his podcast series, called “Reasonably Sound”. One of the old episodes, called “The Drop”, turned me on to EDM and Paul van Dyk. Now I’m listening to Deadmau5, so that podcast made a big impression!
One of the free courses I signed up for at Coursera was a beginner’s course on the programming language Python. The reason I did this is because the two other courses I was specifically interested in had sections where they used Python to manipulate audio data.
Once I had signed up, I realized that I really WOULD like to learn some Python. I would like to write a program that generates random chords and notes that I could then use as “noodles” to base music compositions on. I already do this with my Korg Karma, which has different kinds of arpeggiators and randomizers. It would be fun to “get under the hood” and write some noodling software from scratch. It would be an opportunity to put my music theory to use. What kinds of parameters would generate music that sounded normal (ex. 3-chord rock and roll)? What parameters would expand the sound palette? What would generate musical gibberish?
I know that many other people have worked with randomly generated music and procedurally generated music, but it would be cool to try it myself.
Here’s my fall curriculum, centered on Music Theory but touching on other topics too.
Main Text The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music Theory by Michael Miller
Supplemental material Music Theory Comprehensive 2, 4 taught by Jason Allen through Udemy (behind a paywall) Understanding the Fundamentals of Music — recorded lectures by Robert Greenberg
One on One Instruction — “Miss Muse” 🙂
Exercises
post summaries here!
analyze music ex. songs from choir in church, folk music ex. 121 Favorite Irish Session Tunes
Also
the occasional “trip down the rabbit hole” on Youtube
A while ago my sister and I were talking about “what would we do differently if we could do it all over again”. She said that with the confidence she has now (now she knows she is smart!), she would go into nursing. I said that I would try for a degree in music and aim towards 1) composition and 2) music technology — synthesizers, samplers, recording; sound effects, backgrounds for films and video games. Back in the ’80s we didn’t have music for video games the way we do now (it was “chip tunes” — monophonic — only one note at a time!). Now, music for video games is composed using complex software, and the games themselves have enough storage that the music can be recorded by an actual orchestra and it will be played back with CD quality.
Composing music for games is an extremely competitive field. I don’t have the ambition to study cutting edge technology; I don’t have the energy to get another college degree!
However, I would really enjoy studying on my own. Maybe I could compose for an indie game. The composer I am inspired by is Ben Prunte, who was self-taught (much of that time while working as a janitor). Here are some of his interviews. I first heard him on the NPR show “Top Score”.
Here is his cheerful, retro soundtrack for the game FTL (Faster Than Light). I really like it because it reminds me of some synth music that was popular when I was in high school. I like to put this soundtrack on when I need to focus on writing.
Ionian is what we think of as the “major scale”. Lydian and Mixolydian also sound like major scales because they have a major third. Lydian is a sort of “super major” — it sounds extra bright because of the raised 4th (– Jason Allen)
ex. “Theme from the Simpsons” Mixolydian — flat 7th — blues
Aeolian is the same as the natural minor scale. Dorian and Phrygian also sound minor because they also have a flatted third in the scale. Dorian — Raised 6th — ex. plainchant; Kyrie by Josquin (– Jason Allen) Phrygian — Flatted 2nd — which means your first step of the scale is a semitone
Used in flamenco (Spanish & Islamic culture fusion) (– Robert Greenberg)
Locrian is the odd one, off by itself, because it has a flatted fifth (“Tritone”).
Tritone is THE most discordant interval ( — Robert Greenberg)
Used in crazy compositions
ex. Mark Applebaum, see TED talk “The Mad Scientist of Music”
