Impressions Composing Jam: Melody #1

Melody first, i guess?

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Since this is a melody focused jam after all, I thought it best to start with making the melody first just to keep that as the maing focus.
After looking at the text and image themes, I pretty quickly got an idea for a melody while I was just humming/singing what came to mind from them, and as I usually do, I decided to just start working on that first idea, since usually the first thing that comes to mind ends up being a good one.

As I’m writing this right now, the melody feels a bit too generic tv/movie fantasy music to me though, maybe partly because of how I’ve harmonized it, but hopefully it won’t feel this generic after I’ve figured out what instruments I’ll arrange it to from the piano sketch.

Instrumentation wise I currently have no ideas, before the jam I was intending on possibly doing synth stuff, but the painting prompt does not give me that vibe at all 😅.
I know we don’t have to rigidly follow the image theme, but I like to write to all of the given theme materials in jams, so might try to do some retro game sounding stuff with old rompler sounds, snessy/chiptune stuff, or maybe giving the Nil’s K1V kawai emulation a try?

Eitherway, won’t do anything more today, so here is the initial melody idea that I might end up reworking or just scrapping tomorrow based on how it feels then.

First Melody Idea

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Midi

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Audio

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Reworking the initial idea..

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Reworked version

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Listened back to the first idea in the morning and it felt a bit slow and dull, so I spent a few hours just playing around with the base melody and ended up with a more energetic and heroic feeling version that I liked.

Now, the reworked version feels even MORE generic epic fantasy music than the intial one, but this seems to feel like the way to go forward, so better to just go full cheese with this since I’m leaning to that direction all ready..

Still blanking on the style/instruments to go with, but since this is so in the EPIC FANTASY camp in the vibes department, maybe some power/folk metal-ish stuff could work, or just generic EPIC orchestra stuff with proper sampled sounds, or just rompler stuff.

But not feeling anything at the moment, so will have to try stuff later.

Midi

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Audio

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Later

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Took quite a while before I got the feeling of trying something with SNES sounds late in the evening, after which I loaded up some sounds from my favourite SNES soundset I have, Magical Box, played&recorded the melody line in, and started to add harmony and other parts to that.

Spent a few hours slowly building the arrangement up, and at the end got a minute and a half long thing that felt OK, all though, due to spending so much time working on it without breaks, I feel at the time of writing that I put too much stuff going on at the same time at parts, but will have to listen back with fresh ears tomorrow and then fix whats bad and trim the fat 😄

But anyway, ended up with a rough JRPG style-ish feel to the track, which I inteded for a sort of THIS IS THE STORY intro sequence with scrolling text explaining the plot, or maybe the reverse, and just be the end credits sequence.
Either way, I might make a something like that for the submission video if I get around to it, since I have the little jrpg demo game and assets that I used for the Impressions: Mystery #1 Jam

One new trick/techinique (or whatever it could be called) I’ve been trying out this time around. is each new version I started by recording a new take on the piano for each version, without listening to the previous days one, and in so, trying to only keep the parts of the earlier version that were memorable enough that I could still remember them the day after.

Whether this will actually lead to making something better than usual I don’t know, but the gameplan for this years jams is to got with my gut and what feels naturally right to me, to hopefully stop the constant second guessing I always get with my stuff, that eventually leads to a sort of creative block, that usually lasts until the submission deadline comes to put a fire under my ass 😅

First arrangement test!

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Starting to prepare the submission video

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Bit of a break from the actual music side of the jam today. From talking in the jam discord, I felt even stronger, that my earlier idea for a sort of a JRPG intro sequence with scrolling text explaining the plot is the way to go. I tried building it in RPGMaker first by using the old demo game, but quickly felt that I couldn’t get a good feeling flow to the it, since I would’ve needed to make different scenes with moving characters byscripting them using events, and I’m too lazy and unqualified to start doing anything that fancy 😂

So instead, I just took the title screen graphic from the demo game and put that in my video editor, placed a new title text over it and added a scrolling text effect over that with some slightly opaque black background to make the text stand out better over it.

A bit of a lazy solution, but worked OK enough to me.

Then I came up with a little JRPG story of the hero FOX from my old demo game, once again needing to defeat the forces of evil and save the world, in the tried and true tropey way. I also added a sword uniquely called EXCALIBUR, that the hero needs to reforge to be able to defeat and seal away the evil forces, and the reforge the sword the need the power of a crystal, that they must the pieces of to make it whole once more and using its power revive the EXCALIBUR, with EXCALIBUR serving the role of the WEAPON OF LEGEND that is the jam theme this time around.

Anyway, here’s the first iteration of the video:

New idea

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Was working on the track the next day, and while doing that, I got an idea for a battle theme and ended up getting sidetracked for a few hours and working on making that instead.

Only got about 30 seconds of material done before I lost the energy to continue working on it more, but it feels like a nice start to me, all though, since the jam details did say to interpret the theme “as if you are writing the soundtrack for a scene”, and this and the previous title screen/prologue track do not really feel like they are from the same scene. So even if I finish this one, I probably might not actually submit it for the jam, or maybe I can bullshit it in by saying it’s a different take on the theme 😂

First version of a Battle theme

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A new method = more creative?

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Working more on the battle theme, ideas for new sections just seem to keep popping up in my head constantly, which, while a nice change of pace from the usual blood sweat and tears, is starting to end up turning this track into a battle theme suite or some sort of a medley….

Might have to chop out some of the newer stuff at some point and maybe turn them to a new second battle them, but will try to get them to flow and fit with the preceding material first.

One of the new things I’m trying to do this year, is to write stuff more freely, as in, whenever I get new ideas for a track, I commit them down and then listen back them later with fresh ears and cut/change anything that feels off.

So in that fashion, I just laid down all the ideas I got for the battle theme as they came to mind while working on it, then later I’ll listen to this again after a break and start working onwards from those.

Trying it for the first time on this jam, it’s felt like it’s working for me and I’ve managed to do a lot more than I’m usually able to during jams.

Will probably have to go work more on the first THIS IS THE STORY intro bgm tune soon as well, just in case I don’t forget about it and get too tunnel visioned on this battle theme.

New additions to the Battle Theme

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Another track

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Felt the momentum of working on the battle track slowing down, so instead I started a new track, using the decending pattern from the bass on the last bit of the battle track as the starting material for it.

Initially started this with the idea that the track could be bgm for the Dark Altar place described in the plot text, but with how it actually turned out sounding on this first version, I think this might fit the shrine areas which the hero has to clear to get the crystal pieces more, since it gives me that sort of dungeon/puzzle area feeling that really wouldn’t fit a final dungeon..

I initially just took the decending pattern form the battle track and put that on a pizzicato sound, which I was intending to be some contrabasses playing the figure, but the sample for the sound was recorded with a Violin so the sample sounds nothing like a contrabass when played at their range…

Instead, since the sample has to be streched a lot to get that low pitch, the stretching gives it a really cool and bit creepy sound which I personally really liked.

That sound got me the ideas for the rest of the instrumentation, with an oboe and flute playing melody parts, violins doing a constant rhythmic plucked pedal line, a timpani doing some accentation of the rhythm alonside a hihat, then a little contrasting section with the woodwinds taking the violins place for the pedal part and tubular bells come to play the melodic stuff, with the choir doing some little backing figures.

Feeling a bit 50/50 on whether this might turn to something good with more time spent on it, or if its just a bad idea and I should just scrap the whole thing, but in the spirit of the new go with the flow method I want to use, I gave it a try, and will see later if its worth developing further 😉

Initial track

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Not really fitting

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Listened back to the dungeon track the day after and did not really like it that much, so I just started a new track to replace that one, which will hopefully end up better.

For the new one, I based it on a another part from the battle track (the section from 0:57 onwards specifically).

I took that very upbeat and fast paced part, and then tried to make it slower and evil feeling by flattening the 2nd scale degree, to give it some of that dark phrygian flavour.

Also used some tried and true tropes to make it feel fitting to the whole “ancient forces of evil” vibe I was looking for the evil power sealed in the so called Dark Altar, so I used sequences in the melodies and the classic harmonic minor V chord to evoke some neoclassical flavour to hopefully give the feeling of something old and powerful.

Initial feelings are that this is a lot better than my previous one. All though, maybe the marching feel with the snare is a bit too much, but for the sort of final dungeon area that I was envision the Dark Altar to be, this might fit nicely.

Still keeping/not scrapping the earlier dungeon/puzzle track, but if I don’t manage to make it any better come submission time, I probably won’t submit it, especially since this is a melody jam and the tracks a bit too ambient and dissonant to be a memorable melody…

But either way, if this feels good the next day, I will continue working more on it.

New try on the Dark Shrine theme

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Seems to be the one?

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Listening back to yesterday’s new track, it still felt pretty OK.
So I worked on forwards from that, and tried continuing the track with new sections, eventually after a few hours managing to come up with 1 new section that felt somewhat fitting.

For the new section, I wanted it to be more mellow compared to the earlier 2 parts, since those were pretty energetic and I felt that having a softer part after those would help make the track feel less monotone.

For instrumentation in the new section, I kept the Harp from the earlier part and had that playing pretty boring up/down arpeggiation outlining the chords, Choir changes to play the lead part, Bass guitar keeps bass-ing with pretty much the same rhythm as it had in the ealier part, and drums play the kick alongside the hihat to keep a groove going, just so the pulse doesn’t change too drastically from what came earlier too much

I also added a snare part to the harpsichord section, and initially I also had a constant marching snare pattern in the new section, but quickly felt that it got a bit too energetic with it there and muted the midi for it. Without the snare part, the section feels like it still needs just a little bit of something to make it full enough, I just don’t know what yet and hopefully after listening back to it later with fresh ears I can figure that out…

But other than that, still feeling that this track is the way to go for the Dark Shrine theme, or just the overall evil stuff going on theme.

New Section for the Dark Shrine theme

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Nearing the end

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Dark Shrine tweaking

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3 days left on the jam, and I’m feeling that it’s time to start refining the tracks I have to be the best I can make them before the submission time comes.

The Shrine Trial track still feels a bit ehh to me, but I’m still going to keep trying to make it work somehow if I can.

For the latest Dark Shrine track though, I figured out a solution for the new last section feeling a bit thin, and the solution was adding a counter melody played by the oboe first, then the horns, and finally both the horns and oboe harmonized at the end.

Feels OK for now, but when I’ll listen back to the counter-lines later, I will probably hear all the bad parts/dissonances that need changing.

As I’m writing this now, the track feels it still needs a bit something to make it feel like its heading back to the start of the track, and make the looping feels less of a jump than it is now.

I did add the Violins coming in near the end, to try and lead back to the start a bit, but might also try having the snare come in near the end and start introducing the first parts TA-TATATA rhythm again, and hopefully that will make the loop feel better.

Back to the beginning

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Finally touched the first track i made again, which I decided to title as The Blade Of Legend. Listening to it after a while, the track felt a bit thin, especially the first part of it and just overall compared to other tracks.

To remedy that, I tried a lot of different stuff, but ultimately ended up just adding a Timpani to play some accents on the downbeats alongside the Crash Cymbals, and that helped add some low-mid power that was lacking.

I also added a flute playing some up/down arpeggios to the start of the track, which helped add more momentum to it alongside the timpani and cymbals, while previously without them the start felt too dull for a start the sort of grand adventure I had in mind.

One thing with the flutes I’m a bit undecided on with is the volume, since the line between it being too in the front or too in the back is really small and probably will keep tweaking them back and forth between louder and quieter untill the submission day 😅

But for now, I feel I’m on schedule and will be comfortably on time for submitting.
The 3 tracks, Blade Of Legend, Dark Shrine, Valiant Struggle, will probably work for a little story arc without the tracks/submission feeling too all over the place.

Still hoping to get a somewhat OK version of the Shrine Trial track done, since it would be a bit of a shame to have to scrap it, but I don’t want one track to bring the overall experience down with it not matching the others in quality.

To help the 3 tracks feel more cohesive as a whole, I came up with some more story/plot prose to scroll over the video as the tracks play, and the text itself narrating what happens in the story where the specific tracks would be playing.

For the next 2 days I’m probably going to mostly try to work on the tracks as much as I can, and then on the last day I will spend all the time on making the video and submitting everything.

I’ve been making the video alongside the music, so that shouldnt take much work after the tracks are finalized, but I feel it’s best to play it safe and allocate enough time for the submitting process, just in case anything surprising happens concerning that and will have less time on the final day, as you can never know 😉

The end

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I said I’d spend the last 3 days by using 2 days for last tweaks and the final day for submitting, but now on the next day, I decided that any more tweaking I do to the tracks will probably end up making them actually sound worse, since I constantly get the feeling that the tracks are too thin when I listen to them after a break.. So because of that reason, I’m going to just submit everything early today.

At this point in time, I’ve got the video done and all of the tracks exported, so now it’s just making the project page on itch.io and actually submitting it to the jam, so I’ll end this devlog here 👋.

Hopefully this was not too boring of a read 😄

Final Submission

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