Weekly Content Blog #16: The Role of the Composer

Weekly Content Blog #16: The Role of the Composer

Hi everyone!

Today I want to talk generally about my role as composer in Something Classic, and how my role has evolved to take on other tasks. (Truth in reporting: because of my busy schedule I hadn’t the time to sit down and do another analysis of one of my tunes, but I hope to next time!)


First a little background. I had been in cohorts with Josh on several past projects during our Rpgmaker days. When we reconnected October 1st 2013, I had just had my first rehearsal with the Americano band, The Mavericks (more on that later).  After some brief chatting we decided we wanted another go on a project. This time we were going to definitely finish it because Josh had the brilliant idea of making this an all 8bit game. He would do all the graphics (the low quality would make it easier to generate mass resources) and I would do chip tune compositions. I was so excited, that in the same night I sat down and churned out our Battle Theme.

Time went on and with the addition of Tim, we got a nice graphical update. With that, came the transition from 8bit to 16bit.  This left me with a peculiar problem. I had already composed about 8 chip tunes pieces (Dradora, Battle, Victory, Adam, and more) and didn’t have the real technology (or tech chops) to advance the score to the level it needed to be. I was frustrated at the situation but decided it’d be best to redo everything I had already done and start writing future compositions with a more updated sound. The problem was I had no DAW (digital audio workstation) as my background as a composer came from writing for live musicians and my own band. Since I was doing pretty well with The Mavericks I decided to drop a good amount of money to get a Mac Book Pro and Logic Pro X. With these tools I was ready to explore this new adventure for myself.

Right around this time we were starting to get some momentum with the addition of Tim (Luke would come in the next few months). I had just gotten on the road for a longer run of North America with The Mavericks. But now armed with my laptop, Logic Pro, a small midi keyboard, and my sketch pad and pencil I was able to compose on the road. I ended up writing about 95% of the score at that point. I remember finding pianos in hotel rooms, dressing rooms and back stage at venues. It was a very productive and creative period, as the environment was constantly changing around me. I recall writing the ZaknNik theme on the bus while driving through a rain storm and writing the Dojo Theme on a ferry ride in eastern Canada.

At this point only Josh had access to our scene and map editor, which eventually became a bit of a bottleneck as he only had so much time. Eventually Tim decided to jump on map making, which was a good move on all accounts. He also started learning some of the code syntax. I was a bit resistant, since my role as composer was pretty established. However, after having written the majority of the music I was stuck with not much to do to aid our project. I reluctantly got the map and scene editor installed and committed to learning how to use them. This ended up being a great idea.  As of today I have created most of the scenes, something I really love to do. This speaks to the reality of working on larger scale projects with smaller teams. Of course you need some specialty to get good quality out of certain aspects, but having some cross pollination is important to keep the project moving. For instance, when the others are busy I can spend time creating alpha versions of new scenes, polishing and clarifying scenes we’ve already done and even small map fixes. Overall I’ve found this a fun job. As music can help tell the story, the same is true with crafting a well paced scene.

This leads me to a next broader point about art creation: the need for both clarity and honesty. Both are extremely important in obtaining a satisfying project. This also ties into our game team’s over arching philosophy “Simple, done well.” Hopefully I can expand on this in a future post.

Well I hope this article was interesting and not too self indulgent. Next time I will try and get back to my regular “Tyler’s Tunes” series. Thanks for reading!

-Tyler

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