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Description
The genre of the soundtrack is thematic contrapuntal Baroque-inspired writing. I composed for a RPG-like video game where you play as Locke, the main character, as be ventures away from his homeland of Alban in order to stop the King of the Land from destroying his town. On his journey, he finds a lady, Malinda, who is picking flowers off the countryside, wanting to help Locke with his journey.
Locke's Theme represents his relaxed, pensive, emotional characteristics while Malinda's Theme reflects her outgoing, energetic personality. However, both their themes come together after their first meet-up, which they harmoniously fit together, representing how well they work together. The Town of Alban theme represents the town's communal, but worried feeling of the impending doom from the King of the Land, using one of Locke's motifs to represent that this is the town Locke lives in.
I composed in Dorico because I am more familiar with the program, and trying to learn a DAW, like Cubase, would've been a daunting task to complete in the limited amount of time allotted.
Message from the artist
I hope you like my soundtrack!
Theme
How does it fit the theme?
When I think of forgotten, my mind went to Baroque contrapuntal music. Most music today are homophonic: a melody against harmonic chords, whereas in the Baroque period, composers frequently composed multiple melodies that were designed to harmoniously fit together, creating musical genres like fugues and canons. I decided to compose in the contrapuntal style, along with using period instruments, such as the recorders, harpsichord, and the string trio/quartet set-up.
Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://youtu.be/oEeM97btFBE
Number of tracks4
Genre
Soundtrack use permission
Any non-commercial project
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Comments
Nice job on your compositions, liked them very much !
I think I liked Town Of Alban most, the variations in it flow pretty nicely I feel, and I feel that you did well with the theming (musically and storywise) that you chose .
I'm not sure about the limitations of the software that you are using but maybe I would have liked a bit more variations in the articulation of the notes played to have a bit more variety and more life, with it I think that the depth of the arrangements would be more noticeable.
Great job overall, congrats for your work !
Locke's Theme:
Great composition! As a pianist who has dabbled in classical for 12 years, I will gladly tell you how to improve your baroque sound. Bach was one of the biggest artists who is well known for his two-part inventions, which is similar to the style that your music is heading in. You have the two-part writing in the left hand and it is incredibly similar chord-wise to an actual Bach song. The main thing I'm concerned about is articulation. Baroque music was all technical with their articulations and ornaments as needed, switching between staccatos, legato, tenutos, turned endings, rests, dropped marcatos, trills, etc. (i could go on an on). This will dramatically improve the believability of your harpsichord writing and keep the recorder from filling up the entirety of the song with its mid-treble frequencies and add some ornaments to the harpsichord to provide an interesting background foundation for the recorder to build upon. Also, I'm glad you included the PDF scores in the ZIP folder, thanks!
Malinda's Theme:
This composition was a tad dicey in some areas, but it was great nevertheless! Learning baroque takes some time and practice, especially when you want to compose it because there's so much behind it than simply the notes on the page. You are on the right path! - just some things need to be polished. For example, try to avoid offbeat rhythms as baroque composers loved their fast runs and straight eighth note rhythms. Also (i'ma get a little nerdy real quick), quick tip: for extra articulation, composers would marcato the eighth notes and legato the sixteenth notes by default, which gives it that classic baroque feel. I love your usage of a B section, similar to how Bach did his: by shifting his piece to the dominant key (in your case, Fmaj to Cmaj, and then resolving back to the original root key).
The First Love:
This piece is one of my favorites so far as it displays your ability to create a compelling small trio piece while still imitating a plethora of classical styles! One thing I could suggest would be to simply remove the repeats from m13-17 as it drags on a quickly boring drone note in the cello with zero interesting details. You can still keep your break zone, but make it slightly shorter by removing the repeat there. I love the callback to Malinda's theme (I'm sure Locke's was in there somewhere, but hers was the only one I noticed), and I also love the Wedding March-esque style as well. I think you captured the feeling quite nicely!
Town of Alban:
I loved that shift from the minor to the major, and back to the minor in the first ending! The one thing I would suggest would be to change the volume of the lead instrument as it feels softer compared to the previous tracks I've heard so far. Other than that, I think you nailed the RPG aesthetic and the baroque composition overall! Just a little tweaks and improvement is guaranteed!
Thanks Jared for this amazing submission!
I love the melodies present in the track, however I feel as if they could have been mastered properly. This is due to the instruments (at-least in my opinion) sounding somewhat off. If that was fixed, this whole track would be a gem in my book.