week 6

Week 6’s class took a further look at video game sound, and interaction. The aim was to start making sounds that were activated by in game activities, such as background music from localised speakers in game, characters making noises, and other foley-esque sounds within the game. I concentrated on furthering my scoring for the game cocoon. I added a jaunty chromatic flute line that would come in at random, furthering the stranger plodding feel of the track. I also added more percussion, with more timpani rolls and crashes to mark the start and end of each section and keep a quick rolling pace for the player.

Turning my attention back to unfinished work, I returned to the ‘under the skin’ truck scene I had been working on. I rescored the shot where it cuts to the road, modulating up to B to give a more uplifted and light tone, however I kept the underlying sinister feeling of the clip through the use of chromaticism. The piece descends down chromatically and slowly to an E7, when the man appears and the violins hit sharp stabs, referencing the horror film ‘psycho’. Similarly, high drawn out notes are played over the root E, such as Cs and F#s to create a disconnected and dream like feeling for just a few bars before returning to the fast paced chase later on.

I haven’t returned to Howls moving castle yet, however I intend to keep it simplistic and almost entirely piano based. The relaxed vibe of the piano achieves what I want from the piece, it can perfectly jump from light and dreamy to the slight suspense shown in the scene. For further work on cocoon, I intend to just continue layering different motifs and ideas, and then working out a structure that keeps it interesting and non repetitive while squeezing the most out of the musical ideas I do have. I also intend to start making the interactive sounds for the game, starting more musical based, potentially working with samples for hits and noises.