Big Wide World Composition Task - Case Study

For the Big Wide World Project, we will be collaborating with either games design or media students, to make some sort of Original Sound Track (OST) and sound effects for their film or game. I have chosen to work on the video game OST aspect of the project. For this I will need to make an OST, as well as a soundtrack for the game in question (currently, we have not yet chosen a game to work on, instead we are researching and gaining inspiration on what we are planning to do). I have looked into some of my favourite OSTs, from games such as StarCraft 2 and Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

An OST contains everything from sound effects, such as guns firing or monsters growling, to dialogue, as well as the score itself. The difference between a score and a soundtrack is that the soundtrack is the aforementioned series of sounds that make up a video game, including the score, whereas the score is only the music itself (Anon, n.d.).

A soundtrack also contains diegetic as well as non diegetic sound, which we will all be doing to the film or game we chose.

Diegetic and non diegetic are professional terms to describe the way the sound interacts with the game/or film. Diegetic sound is what is heard by the characters in the film/game or is audible in the game/films premises. For example, this could be the ambient sounds created by scenery in the game, such as the snapping of branches in a forest, or the calls of animals in a jungle, or even something as absurd as otherworldly noises within a fictional place, such as the moans of the souls of the dead in the underworld (BBC Bitesize. (n.d.)).

Non Diegetic sound is any sound that is not present in the game's virtual reality, such as the score (the music that adds the emotion to the game), or the narration (if present). These are sounds that are put over the game by the developers to deliberately spice up and add emotions and feelings and atmosphere to the game and the game's scenes, for the user to enjoy, however these sounds are NOT heard in the games reality, and are not heard by any of the characters in game.

For example, the game could contain a tragic battle scene. The scene will contain a soundtrack (so all the sounds in the scene) compromised of diegetic sounds, such as shouting, bullets firing, bodies dropping, armour clinking, as well as ambient sounds, like distant explosions and tremors in the ground, or rubble and dust falling. These would be heard by both the player and the characters in the game, however only so much emotion can be evoked by diegetic sounds alone, so non-diegetic sounds, audible only by the user(s) in the real world, are layered over the scene to add emotion - in this case, a dark and dramatic or mournful score (music) would be added over the scene, and maybe some narration, by a narrator that explains the scene.

I currently have started working on a score (the music). I will overlay the sound effects and dubbing later, when I find out what game my soundtrack would go with (courtesy of the gaming students). Prior to starting my score, I've looked at four soundtracks for inspiration - Starcraft - Heart Of The Swarm opening cinematic, Heroes III - Inferno Theme (Heroes Orchestra Cover), StarCraft II Heart Of The Swarm - Terran Theme and Heroes III - Necropolis Theme.

All of these scores differ slightly from each other, mainly due to the to the premises and cultural significance of the sounds. Cultural significance plays an important part in music as well as how music is presented, and in turn what it may symbolise, for example a culture that values money, will in turn reflect this in the music and that music will the symbolise that culture and the value of money (prezi.com. (n.d.)), for example, Metal music, comes from a culture of anger and rebellion against conservatism and authoritarianism, as well a culture that values freedom and self expression, stemming from punk, this in terms is reflected in the music by having music that is scary, angry, dark and rebellious, and in turn, metal music is often associated with, and used to symbolise, aggression, anger, melancholy, violence, action and evil. In the case of these soundtracks, The StarCraft soundtrack, in its entire series features a blend of dramatic orchestral sounds mixed with modern sounds, such as synthesisers and guitars, to give the scores an industrial, and "sci--fi" connotation.

Each race in StarCraft is represented by slightly different music - the Terran race (the music of which I've researched) feature "relatable" music, having descended from humans from Earth, their music consists of old-school blues/rock and roll and even some metal inspired music, mixed with more industrial sounds, representing their technological advancement, which often features industrial, rusty and heavy duty/military machinery. The presence of old country, rock and metal music gives the Terran race "cowboy/western" connotations, which links back to the persona of the race, many of which could be described as "space rednecks". This contrasts with the music of the Alien races in the game, which feature music that often defines them, for example the Zerg have nasty, industrial/alien synth music, representing the terrifying and strange, Xenomorph-like insectoid aliens, which mutate and devour everything like "space locusts", which in turn contrasts with the mysterious and enigmatic symphonic music that accompanies the Protoss, and represents their technological advancement, power and glorious, larger than life persona, of this ancient and powerful alien civilisation.

In Heart Of The Swarm, the storyline essentially features the return and revenge of the formerly de-infested Zerg Queen, against the Terran Dominion and It's emperor. This means that the music for the Terran faction, in Heart Of The Swarm will be less "playful" and "glorious" and has ditched most the "space redneck/cowboy" vibes in favour of dramatic, dark and mournful/tragic orchestral/metal/industrial music, that represents the intense fighting against the Zerg, that happens within the story, and the heavy losses, deaths and destruction, that the race suffers during the storyline.

The darkness and aggression of this score has inspired me to recreate similar feelings in my music. I used chromatic melodies, amongst heavy usage of the tritone and adjacent intervals to achieve this. The tritone is an interval that consists of a root, such as E, and a sharpened fifth, such as C (B#) (M. DeVoto. (n.d.)). The resulting sound is a dissonant and unsettling one, that sounds evil, aggressive and scary, and thus has allegedly been banned by the Church in the Middle Ages, condemned as "the devil's chord" or "Diablos in Musica".

My usage of the tritone has also been inspired by the evil and unsettling sound of the scores of the main themes of the two "evil" towns in Heroes of Might and Magic III. The evil sound of the score of the Inferno Town's main theme, draws connotations to impending evil and darkness, as well as an approaching storm or an onslaught of a merciless demon army. This represents the town, a kingdom run by demons and fronted by their evil overlords, very well, being one of the main antagonists in the game. The Black Metal style tremolo played on the upper part of the string section (violins and viola sections) is used for anger and suspense, representing the pent up rage of the Kreegans. This inspired me to use tremolo bowing techniques on the upper parts of my string section score (violins, viola).

Tremolo is a performance technique that utilises short, spontaneous bursts of a single note or chord, essentially creating the effect of one note being cut into smaller bits, played at high speed, for the duration of the note or chord. Unlike vibrato, which is a note shifting in pitch, creating a warbling effect, tremolo involves a note changing in volume, essentially being played in short chunks rapidly (dictionary.cambridge.org. (n.d.)). The string section utilises tremolo bowing, by using a short part of their bows to bow one string on their instruments back and forth rapidly. This creates an eerie and angry sounding sound, that can be used to create darkness and suspense.

Another aspect that makes both of the pieces dark and evil sounding is the usage of bass and low midrange instruments, to create a heavy and thick sound that is dark and ominous. This is a compositional technique often used in metal, as well as many cinematic, classical and orchestral pieces, such as the Jaws theme. This essentially involves playing a bass line and a low riff/chord progression to form the rhythm section of the piece. This gives the piece a thick and dark sound, due to the nature of the low end notes which sound dark and thick. Both the inferno and the necropolis themes feature dark and low bass lines and rhythms. In the inferno theme, Tubas and low end Brass and strings are employed for rhythm, sounding dark and apocalyptic, whereas the necropolis theme employs low choir sounds and a pizzicato playing style, playing a dark ostinato on the double basses and low end strings.

We also have looked into scoring techniques such as Mickey Mousing. This is an old fashioned scoring technique that involves the music emulating the noises or sounds in the scene. This was first introduced in 1930's in the Mickey Mouse movies (hence the name) where the characters would perform an action (such as honking a horn) which would be emulated by the music in the background . An example of Mickey Mousing in a more modern scenario would be in Heroes IV - Battle 6 music where there is a sound effect in the music (done perhaps with cymbals or a tam tam being scraped with something), that emulates a sword being drawn from a sheath. It sounds good because it emulates the sounds of swords in the battle, which adds to the action/combat feel of the music, and thus enhances the gameplay.

Another Scoring technique that we've looked into is underscoring. Underscoring is when the music (non diegetic sound) emphasises or complements what is going on in the film or the game. Underscoring is usually in the background and used to emphasise the scene as opposed to being dominant (BAM Music Blog. (2020)). An example of underscoring in a more contemporary scenario, would be the StarCraft Brood War - Intro Cinematic which uses quiet ambient music to emphasise the emotion of the scenes, which otherwise would literally just be gunfire sounds or dialog (diegetic sounds). At the end of the cinematic, the music, which was previously in the background, slowly fades into the focal point/front of the mix, where it becomes a full blown dominant score, to signify a dramatic/dark climax. However, most of the way through the cinematic, the music serves as an underscore, giving a background ambience to the dominant scenes. It works very well since the music also adapts to the scenes and settings that are featured in the cinematic, for example, in the first part of the cinematic, a dominion colonist base is shown to be overrun with Zerg. The resulting battles as the inhabitants attempt to defend themselves are backed with some ambient rock/metal music in the background (non diegetic sound) as well as some diegetic sound in the background in form of gunfire and explosions in the background.

The second scene, that features Gerard DuGalle and Stukov discussing what they are seeing from their ship in orbit over the base, in contrast features calm and "classy" operatic music which plays very quietly in the background of their conversation. When they abandon the base and set off to orbit, the aforementioned climax comes into play, where the previously calm operatic music takes a dramatic and darker turn as well as fades into focus more, before showing the colonists getting overrun at the very end. This works well since the contrasting "calm" and "safe" scene helps to build a force sense of security in the audience as well as builds up to a dramatic climax.

There is a strong cultural significance in this music, since it is often associated with royalty and upper class, and gives the impression of power, thus showing DuGalle as a powerful and proud "dictator" in the UED. Similar music is used to symbolise Terran royalty and power throughout the StarCraft series. For example, similar music was listened to by Emperor Mengsk, during the Kerrigan's Betrayal scene, and similarly, Valerian Mengsk was shown listening to similar music in the assault on the Bucephalus scene. Both Scenes, similarly to Broodwar feature orchestral cinematic music, alongside the royal/operatic music to signify power, however unlike BroodWar, the "rough" and gnarly guitar/synth music is completely obsolete in StarCraft 2 and instead choral battle chants are featured to build and capitalise upon the "millitary" and "epic" battle atmosphere that happens throughout SC 2, as opposed to the BW cinematic, which features mostly bloodshed and destruction, and thus lacks that "epicness" and tension, in favour of aggression created by harsher music as well as diegetic sounds.

The soundtracks of both StarCraft 1, as well as Heroes 3 and 4 soundtracks where created in the late 1990s (Starcraft was made in 1998, and HOMM III was made a year later), this meant that the technology used was pretty vintage compared to the current technologies that we have today. This reflected on the sound quality and overall feel of the soundtracks. While both have pretty decent quality, they sound much more lo-fi and much less realistic than modern samples, or real recordings. Moreover, the games' usage of deliberate vintage elements, such as 80s synths and vintage guitar samples in SC, or Baroque instruments, such as harpsichords, in Heroes 3, makes both OSTs sound older than they already due, due to the cultural associations of these elements.

In my OST I plan to emulate a vintage sound in this atmosphere and style, by using orchestral samples from a vintage mellotron. The mellotron and chamberlain were the first forerunner of the sampler keyboard. The Mellotron was made in the 60's and due to lacking digital tech at the time, analog technology, such as tapes, was utilised to record and playback the samples, which were often those of orchestral sounds, and ambiences, as seen in Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin, where the mellotron was used to play back samples of a woodwind ensemble, in order to add a melancholic, or bittersweet atmosphere to the already pretty gloomy sounding piece

https://youtu.be/QkF3oxziUI4. Due to the imperfections that reel to reel tapes had, such as wow-wow, where the tape wears down over time to create a warble/vibrato type of sound (www.soundonsound.com. (n.d.)), as well as the general low sound quality, the mellotrons' samples and sounds became well recognised and popular, due to the lo-fi and authentic feel of the sounds, which in turn led them to be recognised as a separate and unique style of instrument, that produced unique sounds (The Book of Genesis. (2017)).

I have used the mellotron string orchestra, from my mellotron tape replay pedal, the EHX Mel9, alongside choir sounds, and the sound of a small cello section. These sounds make the soundtrack sound pretty dramatic and old/dystopian sounding, as well as pretty dark and melancholic, due to the connotation of the mellotron as a vintage instrument, which thus makes the track seem more rustic and old, but also slightly dystopian and rough.

I have used the distorted sound of a guitar as well as a military snare ensemble and some war drums to add aggression and power to the piece. The usage of Japanese war drums, known as Taiko, alongside military marching drums, gives the piece instant battle and military atmospherics, mainly due to the cultural significance of these drums, since both traditional field snares, as well as bass drums and taiko, all originate from some form of military circle, meaning that their pounding instantly will be associated with battle and action, alongside the coming of danger.

Paired with mellotron brass samples, the piece has this dystopian/fantasy/otherworldly and dark battle atmosphere, which I have made even darker with the use of a distorted cathedral organ, from spitfire labs. The organ's power and cultural significance gives the piece a gothic darkness and weight. The organ has a cultural significance, since it is associated often with horror, Transylvanian and gothic music, which in turn helps the piece sound darker and heavier due to the associations of darkness, which gives it that dark fantasy/sci-fi atmosphere that is seen in certain StarCraft settings, as well as certain Heroes III tracks, such as the aforementioned necropolis and inferno towns.. Also the amp on the organ that gives it distorted crunch, makes the sound have an uneven and rough feel, which makes it sound weird and dark as well pretty dystopian, due to distortion often being also associated with horror, due to the overall sound and cloudiness it causes in the sound quality, which makes the sound sound edgy and abrasive. Distortion makes the timbre of the sound it affects more abrasive, due to making it sound more fuzzy and saturated as well as rougher, due to the amp's tubes becoming overdriven and therefore heavily saturated (Armada Music. (n.d.)). this creates aggressive and gnarly timbres that can sound unsettling, aggressive or angry. When placed on the organ, it gives the organ a fuzzy and gnarly fullness and saturation, that makes it sound rough and thick as well as angry and saturated, which thus makes the listener feel unease as well as darkness, essentially having the powerful, distorted growl of the organ rip through them.

Furthermore, we have also looked at Leitmotifs. These are essentially a reoccurring theme in the music, that plays to signify a certain variable of the film, for example a certain character (such as the main antagonist) or a certain event (such as the coming of danger) (www.merriam-webster.com. (n.d.)). Example of Leitmotifs could be the Imperial March in Star Wars, that plays whenever Darth Vader, or the Sith in general appear, or the "Jaws Theme" - the short ostinato that plays whenever the shark appears, in Jaws. However Leitmotifs don't always need to signify a living being, for example they can also be used to signify a certain event, such as the short Tribal/War Drums beat that plays whenever something new (associated with the games) is about to happen in the Jumanji films, the latter example also shows that a Leitmotif can be a diegetic sound. Leitmotifs usually follow the same key that the rest of the soundtrack is in. This can often change as the mood changes in the film, leading to different "variations" of the same Leitmotif, that signify different moods. For example, the imperial march changes in Variation throughout the Star Wars Themes as the mood and story changes.

In my own work, I plan to use some Underscoring techniques for most of the score, to give the emotion and power. Having figured out that we will most likely be working within either the genre of sports games or war games, so I plan to work on the war game aspect of it, as my music tends to be darker and more appropriate for war games and RPG style games, that involve some sort of combat aspect or "violence", after all, I am a metal musician, and as stated previously, the cultural significance of metal is that it is associated with anger and aggression as well as violence and darkness, meaning that I excel at making compositions that are aggressive and dark and "violent". I have also composed a brutal sounding Leitmotif, which I will use in my OST. I plan to also include some foley aspects and Mickey Mousing, in order to create and emphasise the battle sounds. However I first need to obtain the visual stimuli from the gaming students in order to work on any diegetic sound or Mickey Mousing. I am looking forward to working with the gaming students and hope to be successful.

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