The melody-accompaniment continuum

In this entry I'll continue the discussion about what I call the melody-accompaniment continuum.

Basically any piece of music has a melody and accompaniment. Now, how about playing several melodies at the same time? Visit my myspace and listen to temp6_chip. This is an experiment I did long ago, when I was trying to write polyphonic music. At 0:42 i use two melodies at once. This is in fact quite rare in popular music.

Should you aim for accompaniment with a high degree of melodicity? I think you should, since it gives a more professional impression.

Computer games music - foreground and background

A friend asked me to make music to his computer game about Vikings, and here it is.

My thoughts about modern computer music is, when it's not bombastic and Hollywoodish, it's a little too much in the background. I wanted to do something memorable and noticeable, a little bit closer to the player. The result you can hear for yourself, though it's not finished (I aimed for 10 minutes).

I used a tracker for this score, OpenMPT to be precise. If you don't know what a tracker is, don't bother to find out, it's a pain, really. The samples I got mostly from YouTube, after googling a lot about Viking instruments.

Inspiration is from Settlers 1 (notice the smooth transitions) and Warcraft 2 (clear melodies and second solo parts). Both these scores use melodies as the base, or main focus. It's rarely only "engine". Compare with this score from WoW. Can you here the melody here? No, because there is none. Quite atmospheric none the less.

When you use melodies to create a peace of music, you divide the score into two "levels", so to speak: melody and accompany. This is no dichotomy but a continuum, which is ever so clear in the WoW score above; the instruments kind of "hover" between melody and accompany, not really the one or the other. That's really great skill, and to be able to control this is important.

The beginning of the beginning

Greetings, user of modern technology! You've arrived to a newly created blog, a blog with the intention of enlighten you about The Art of Music Creation. Indeed this is a vast subject, and nothing suitable for children, nor conservative big-ones. Here I will tell you, in great words, everything about my Progress in this area and present links to my sketches, experiments and all kinds of materials. You might find this useless or way too abstract. In any way you will leave this blog more intelligent that you thought you were.