The OotS Soundtrack Project

[curtis]

Going to take a stab at the whole Darth V saga. Vesth, would you mind if I borrowed the triplets from Arcane Foray? I kinda want to use this to link a few different themes together.

[Vesth]

Going to take a stab at the whole Darth V saga. Vesth, would you mind if I borrowed the triplets from Arcane Foray? I kinda want to use this to link a few different themes together.

Sure thing

[curtis]

Done for the day. It's not great, but here's what I have of I Must Succeed. Not sure what I think of it yet, though it's turned out more triplet-oriented than I expected... (Hopefully this will cover all the V-related bits from #635 to #661. Right now I've only reached #638.)

[avakeiya]

Done for the day. It's not great, but here's what I have of I Must Succeed. Not sure what I think of it yet, though it's turned out more triplet-oriented than I expected... (Hopefully this will cover all the V-related bits from #635 to #661. Right now I've only reached #638.)

I like the idea of each soulsplice having a component to Darth V's theme, but as it is now it sounds to cluttered, like you have 4 or 5 different songs going on at the same time. All of them just hit you at once without letting the listener get used to how they blend and compliment each other.

I'm don't know all the music terminology, so please bare with me here. I feel like each of there parts is too...complicated, has too much going on. I see the sheet music for each part and it looks too cluttered, and when i listen its like each one is trying to have a full theme instead of part of a whole, like they're all playing the same notes at the same speed with different instruments.

Maybe you should keep each soulsplice section simple. Have one be a slow base/drum beat, another just be a slightly quicker string or wind instrument, and the third be that quick piano(?) section that's already there.

I would suggest just starting off with just V's theme, slow it down, simplify it, and lower the tone to represent when he's struggling to decide what to do after hearing plan-b from comic 634, then slowly add one soul's part as he comes to a decision. This adds some buildup to when all parts are playing and represents the splash image of his transformation in 635.

Other than that it shows some good potential. Hope that helps

[Alagaesian]

I kind of have to disagree with Avakeiva on this. Some of your themes/characters, Inkyrius most notably during that last part, might get lost in everything that's going on, but your syncopation helps me keep track of everything somehow. As for the three Soul Splices and V's theme playing at once, they all have the same rhythm, so it doesn't feel particularly cluttered - just that there's a lot of instruments playing similar things at the same time. I guess you could start with a bare V's theme at the beginning and build the texture up from there, but it's all about musical taste.

If anyone wants a check-up on how my Elan/Nale project is going, I've basically put together two and a half sections of the Cliffport arc - the CPPD Blues, Setting Up the Board, and the first part to The Trees Be Attackin'. I'll probably add more after a few days of catching up on homework.

[avakeiya]

I kind of have to disagree with Avakeiva on this. Some of your themes/characters, Inkyrius most notably during that last part, might get lost in everything that's going on, but your syncopation helps me keep track of everything somehow. As for the three Soul Splices and V's theme playing at once, they all have the same rhythm, so it doesn't feel particularly cluttered - just that there's a lot of instruments playing similar things at the same time. I guess you could start with a bare V's theme at the beginning and build the texture up from there, but it's all about musical taste.

Just to clarify, my only real concern was the Soulsplice section, and because so many instruments were playing similar things. The tune and rhythm works for me, but it would sound better to me with more variation that blend instead of echo each other.

If anyone wants a check-up on how my Elan/Nale project is going, I've basically put together two and a half sections of the Cliffport arc - the CPPD Blues, Setting Up the Board, and the first part to The Trees Be Attackin'. I'll probably add more after a few days of catching up on homework.

I love what you have so far. The CPPD Blues is perfect, the whole 20's(?) cop drama noire feel is a fitting tribute to the late chief, may he rest in peace with an endless supply of pixie dust.

Nale's theme is coming along wonderfully, and it illustrates what i pictured for the Soulsplice thing from earlier. For Setting Up the Board you have the main theme on oboe and then cello, base, and violin sections that expanded and complimented the main theme without overpowering it. That is what I pictured for Darth V, a darker Varsuvious theme with soulsplice accents.

Trees Be Attackin' sounds great, kind of like boss music, and Elan's theme is so...Elan.

Keep up the good work.

[Alagaesian]

As I said before, a lot of this is a matter of musical taste - I personally don't mind the way the Soul Splices line up rhythmically and harmonically, and I don't mind listening through the chords to find V's specific line, but I'm sure there are other people out there who would disagree with me.

By the way, the "music terminology" you were looking for is probably "texture". Something with no texture is a solo melody with no accompaniment. When more parts come in, each doing their own lines, it's called "building texture." Too much texture occurs when there are too many accompanying lines and everything sounds cluttered and confusing, as you have noted. Then again, at least some level texture is usually needed to prevent things from being too simple and boring.

Also, for anyone who hasn't caught onto this yet, Elan and Nale's themes are rhythmically identical, but they are almost harmonic inverses of each other. (They're not exact inverses because I set Elan's melody to a major key.) Whenever Nale's part goes up, Elan's goes down by generally the same amount, and vice versa.

[avakeiya]

By the way, the "music terminology" you were looking for is probably "texture". Something with no texture is a solo melody with no accompaniment. When more parts come in, each doing their own lines, it's called "building texture." Too much texture occurs when there are too many accompanying lines and everything sounds cluttered and confusing, as you have noted. Then again, at least some level texture is usually needed to prevent things from being too simple and boring.

Yes, thank you, thats what I meant

Also, for anyone who hasn't caught onto this yet, Elan and Nale's themes are rhythmically identical, but they are almost harmonic inverses of each other. (They're not exact inverses because I set Elan's melody to a major key.) Whenever Nale's part goes up, Elan's goes down by generally the same amount, and vice versa.

I did notice that, and that's what makes their theme work. They sound similar but not exactly like each other and fit the tone of each twin's personality. Perfect fit for the two

[Vesth]

Personally, I find "I Must Succeed" a little too messy for my taste. Maybe, I dunno, let the melody stand out more? Let the music grow as you move, adding individual parts as it goes down the line?

Oh, and apparently, everyone has forgotten about 'Mirth!'

[Vesth]

If no one minds, I'm taking over Spell-to-Spell

[AsteriskAmp]

Cleaned up the volume, deleted the accordion line and some weird things which shouldn't have been there at the end and replaced the trumpet for a violin on the opening line. Noteflight however is unable to properly load the midi, so I've uploaded it to a file sharing site.

"Desert Trawl and Windy Canyon [Paso doble on the Sand]"


I'm also taking over Belkar's theme if no one minds.

[Alagaesian]

It sounds very Latin, by which I mean Latin-American Jazz rather than epic Latin chanting. However, bits of it feel out of sync to me, like the guitar and piano parts aren't on the same page. This might just be my media player, and it's fine if the guitar part is supposed to sound detached from its accompaniment, but super-exact rhythms and steady tempo are general staples of this form of music. It'll probably help to tweak the accompaniment so listeners can identify exactly where the downbeats are so there is a frame of reference the rest of the rhythms can build off of.

[Elemental]

Damnation... I was going to expand upon the flute melody in the short piece I did, but Noteflight's down, my staff paper is probably on the Moon and it's much to late at night to use the piano...
I really need to get Sibelius...

[lonely_cubone]

Wow, there's a lot of music here now! And it's all pretty good! I still have to say Head to Head is my favourite, though.

If nobody else wants to, I think I'll take a shot at Durkon's theme.

[wzeller]

I present to you: Actually, I don't know what the heck this is...

...

So as of now, I have no idea what to name this song, or what it represents.
A little help would be appreciated

Actually, it very much puts Celia on my mind. So much so that I would have guessed you wrote it for her.

[Vesth]

Well, it's called 'Celestial Melody' now, so technically, it can refer to her

[AsteriskAmp]

It sounds very Latin, by which I mean Latin-American Jazz rather than epic Latin chanting. However, bits of it feel out of sync to me, like the guitar and piano parts aren't on the same page. This might just be my media player, and it's fine if the guitar part is supposed to sound detached from its accompaniment, but super-exact rhythms and steady tempo are general staples of this form of music. It'll probably help to tweak the accompaniment so listeners can identify exactly where the downbeats are so there is a frame of reference the rest of the rhythms can build off of.

I tried to make it sound like a traditional spanish song (building of the Am/G/F/E - F/E (bis) progression) but the bare melody sounded a bit empty, and my idea of the OoTS adventuring the desert was somewhat more noisy with the concept of some independent movement but still tied to the central part. When I reworked the main melody into including the piano instead of just the strings (which didn't translate well into midi) I got a bit carried away and added some jump-y chord accompaniment which pushed the harmony more towards a Salsa beat, but I'm overall happy that it got into the realm of "Latin Jazz"-y.

Then, when adding the trumpet (which was later on changed to a violin) into the sheet, I wrote it into a different sheet since I figured I could tie its end into the end of a measure (which I couldn't, which I could only see in Notation Composer afterwards when all the chord changes where an eighth note away from the measure changes).

I've gone over the whole piece in a more "imperfect note timing"-friendly editor (FL Studio 9) and tried to fix the mismatches which were too close for Notation Composer to identify (or for me to edit without hours of ligating and adding sixteenth notes), changed the strings section to a choir (merely because ironically enough the choir sounds more like a proper string section than the strings I had previously), changed the piano part in four measures to match the scale over which the guitar drifted briefly, and lowered the piano and the choir volume and panned them into the left a bit and panned the guitar to the right and tried to find a way to make it a bit more metallic (without having to resort to graphical editing in Notation Composer).

The problem with the tempo is also that the percussion sounds my clavinova has are not recognized by midi programs, so I have to either slap a loop (which due to the tempo change on the part that goes along with the harmony change to a jump around 4ths would mean I'd have to have at least two of those and tinker with them extensively and the end result would sound more like an electronic music beat than a proper flamenco-latin percussion) or find a way to make them work (which is much more preferable since the base file already has the castañuelas and the claps, it just doesn't sound for some reason, or worse, sounds but is off time, if I get them to work it's just copy pasting them over to the latest edit) with the option of no percussion being the temporary solution.

If the dissconect is still rather severe though, I'll try go over the piano part and try to tweak it into something more subtle and closer to the guitar movement.

Second Revision.

[Othesemo]

...

I feel thoroughly outclassed.

I absolutely love Sandstorm. I'm not sure I would call it latin, but it's close, and I like the feel. I actually like the disconnect- the syncopation is just obvious enough to give that wonderful feeling of... involvement. It's one of those songs I subconsciously dance to without realizing it. In the way of improvements, nothing much comes to mind. The beginning sounds a bit weird synthesized, but it would be fine on a real violin. Apart from that, all I can say is that you're very, very good at composition.

[Alagaesian]

Much better. There's still a few places were it doesn't appear to line up perfectly, but now it sounds almost intentional rather than mildly annoying. I'm sure musicians playing it would cause it to line up much more nicely, but for now, computerized music-playing software doesn't know which parts are supposed to play on the front of the beat, which ones play a little farther back, and when these two might swap places.

Adding your percussion into this might easily fix those iffy areas, though, by making it extremely clear where the beat is. If there's still problems after doing that, however, I'd maybe tweak the piano part just a little bit to make sure that there is no disagreement on where the piano suggests the downbeats are and where rest of the instruments think they are. You wouldn't need a complete overhaul - you'd just need to make sure the piano doesn't accidentally flip the beat, which I think might be the problem here.

Also, speaking of the strange synth-computery sounds that come from writing/sharing music this way, the part near the end where the piano goes up into its higher voice gives an interesting effect. The synthesized-piano sound almost makes this sound like funk for half a second.

[AsteriskAmp]

...

I feel thoroughly outclassed.

I absolutely love Sandstorm. I'm not sure I would call it latin, but it's close, and I like the feel. I actually like the disconnect- the syncopation is just obvious enough to give that wonderful feeling of... involvement. It's one of those songs I subconsciously dance to without realizing it. In the way of improvements, nothing much comes to mind. The beginning sounds a bit weird synthesized, but it would be fine on a real violin. Apart from that, all I can say is that you're very, very good at composition.

Thanks.

As for the start, it's normally called "Llamado" or "Call" which is the invitation for the start, normally used before bullfighting matches, I did a minor corruption of one of the usual ones. As one would expect it's normally done with a trumpet, I however had to change it because winds suffer badly in midi. It sounds rather synth-y because the line is done alone, and even with the backing choir, instruments cannot solo in midi without it sounding absolutely obvious it's a midi (subtle ligatures and slurring from note to note are extremely laborious to get done and microtonallities are lost due to midi's note precision).

Also, I'm not that good in composition, I mainly just build from harmonies and use some templates and sample from other places (I wonder who will find the inappropriately sampled phrase in Sandstorm) and corrupt those lines a bit. It just happens that I have access to a midi controller clavinova, so I can grab an undeveloped harmony and record myself, print what I've played and build from there and merely add accompanying lines.

Much better. There's still a few places were it doesn't appear to line up perfectly, but now it sounds almost intentional rather than mildly annoying. I'm sure musicians playing it would cause it to line up much more nicely, but for now, computerized music-playing software doesn't know which parts are supposed to play on the front of the beat, which ones play a little farther back, and when these two might swap places.

I'm glad using FL worked, it's a lot better for fine tuning little tempo edits.

Adding your percussion into this might easily fix those iffy areas, though, by making it extremely clear where the beat is. If there's still problems after doing that, however, I'd maybe tweak the piano part just a little bit to make sure that there is no disagreement on where the piano suggests the downbeats are and where rest of the instruments think they are. You wouldn't need a complete overhaul - you'd just need to make sure the piano doesn't accidentally flip the beat, which I think might be the problem here.

When I'm absolutely happy with the sheet music I may get it into mp3, convince my sister to grab the percussion kit and merge both recordings to get actual percussion and decent sound quality.

Also, speaking of the strange synth-computery sounds that come from writing/sharing music this way, the part near the end where the piano goes up into its higher voice gives an interesting effect. The synthesized-piano sound almost makes this sound like funk for half a second.

That may be partially my fault, the piano backing dips into complex chords from time to time, which may be more noticeable when it goes into higher notes due to it being less muddy and the sixths and ninths being more clear.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _
I've partially started with Belkar's theme, decided to do what I've never done before and go full concerto on it. I've been meaning to make the opening chord and first measures sampling of a famous piano concerto/etude... transcribed to the piccolo (either C or Db, leaning more towards the first). Right now, Chopin Revolutionary and Grieg Concerto in A minor are my prime choices, both have a strong opening chord and feature a fast and hard descent that while meant for a piano could also be used for a wind instrument solo.

One leads to a more mobile piece and would force the presence of a number of instruments to at least ease the transition into something less violently moving while the other one leads into a more chord based performance, regardless, both invite the presence of an organ, which was the other instrument I absolutely wanted in to go along Belkar's duality.

Finally, I should be able to have the leitmotif ready to be abused in the melody, played subtly by the backing at times and used in a different key at the end sometime soon.

[Vesth]

Othesemo, don't worry. You're not the only one that feels outclassed. I just realized I can't comment on a score in front of araveugnitsuga without sounding like a simpleton

[Elemental]

I'm working on expanding upon the flute melody I had previously, but it's going to take me a while because of a lack of inspiration.

[Vesth]

Spell-To-Spell is done! Comments will be greatly appreciated! (For both this, and Mirth!)

[Howler Dagger]

I added a timpani (only because drumsets are a pain) and bumped up the tempo to my mystery song, but I'm having a dilemma on uploading. Saving as MIDI makes it sound like noteflight, but saving as .wav or as a FLAC file (but gives it musescore sound) increases the size of the music to >5 megabytes, as opposed to the MIDI/original which was ~2.4 KB.

[Elemental]

Spell-To-Spell is done! Comments will be greatly appreciated! (For both this, and Mirth!)

Mirth is good for the God of Slapstick. And it's catchy too.

Spell-To-Spell is very dramatic, which I do believe was your intention when writing it.

Apart from describing the mood of the pieces as appropriate, there's not much else I can say.

[avakeiya]

Mirth sounds like a good circus clown feel, perfect for a god of slapstick. Nice base beat and the trumpet fits blends well and has a catchy tune.

Spell-to-spell is awesome. Clearly defined V and Z sections that harmonize and compliment one another. And the piano section reinforces the other section and gives the song a more dramatic feel. None of the instruments overwhelms the others, and the i like how you presented the violin and flute separately at first.

Nice, memorable tune, great feel. Good job.

[AsteriskAmp]

Spell-To-Spell is done! Comments will be greatly appreciated! (For both this, and Mirth!)

Spell-to-Spell sounds spot on. The opening reminds me of One Winged Angel, which is probably intentional. The use of dissonants gives it a characteristic tension which furthers the piece's theme. The alternation between the flute and the violin, and their play on minor and major harmony were also a nice touch in relation to the the same duality between V and Z.

Mirth does sound like Giggles theme. Two things however did pop-up.
The first one is that it's structure resembles more that of a piano's two hands than that of a trumpet+accompaniment, the bass movement, while independent seem to lack the usual bass lines like a preference for movement by chromaticism instead of by leaps. You could split the bass into several instruments, the jumping over root and 5th could be sent to the midi instrument pizzicato strings to achieve an effect similar to that in The Lonely Goatherd and use an oboe (if you have Crescendo with some volume modifications) for the independent lines.

The other one is that in some measures, like #10, the bass seems to go counter to harmonic rules, in #10 for example, the bass usually would go either in the opposite direction (C-G-E), or simultaneous to it (E-G-C) not jump around the chord (which for the bass instrument is also rare when there are other options).

[Alagaesian]

Both Mirth and Spell-to-Spell are pretty good. I especially find it interesting how you contrast Z's triplets with V's sixteenths. I would suggest harmonizing the violin and flute a few of the times when they share a solo line, though, to make it a little more interesting.

In my opinion, it feels as if Mirth isn't really suited for a god of slapstick. It definitely feels happy and jovial, but it sounds too...sane. It doesn't feel goofy enough, mostly because it lacks syncopation. That's not to say that it couldn't easily be adapted to someone/something else, I just don't think it fits a god that settles disputes with pie-eating contests and hits things with a magical thwacking stick. I know Mirth was originally intended as Elan's theme, but frankly, I don't think it would quite fit him either.

[Vesth]

Thanks!

@Araveugnitsuga: unfortunately, I don't have Cresendo. I'll try to edit bar ten when I have time though :)

@Alagaesian: in that case, I'll keep that name until someone suggests a better one

[Howler Dagger]

So here is A New Vaarsuvius, in musescore style. Changes include a title, a timpani, and increased tempo.