Week 4 – Commencing the 28th of March
This week I focused on writing a stinger for the moment in the level when the character pulls a hammer out of the rock in the cave. This animation shows the character put the weapon towards the camera when the pulled it out, this animation instantly reminded me of the ‘Collecting a Grand Star’ animation from Super Mario Galaxy, this is because both characters show the item they have collected to the camera. Furthermore the sting that played in Mario during this animation inspired by stinger writing. I have analysed this stinger on my ‘Adaptive Music In Games’ page on digital space.
(Wikihow, 2021)
Stinger 1
For this stinger I composed in the key of C major Lydian, I did this because I wanted the music to sound very bright and happy to relate to the characters triumph in finding the weapon within the game. I also wrote the trumpet to play an ascending line, which is just playing the notes within the scale in an ascending pattern. I wrote this instrumental in a high register of the trumpet to give it a bright and happy tone, in collaboration with the happy key of the music this gave the sting a very joyous and happy tone. I did this to reflect on the triumph of the character retrieving the hammer which they require to finish the game. However this was unsuccessful as once I composed this basic idea I played the music over the character animation, after doing this I realised the music sounded too happy and bright and did not blend with the dark aesthetic of the cave’s level design. After coming to this conclusion I decided I had to make another stinger that sounded triumphant, however dark in tone to match the cave levels design. Despite the stinger not fitting into the game it was successful in creating a a happy and triumphant tone as I intended, as it was only until after creating the music I had imagined that I found it did not work with the dark aesthetic of the game..
This stinger did also not sound very full or victorious, therefore I reflected on where the stinger failed musically so that I could create a more professional sounding stinger. One way this stinger could have been improved would have been to add percussion such as; timpani rolls and crashes as the large dynamics and intimidating timbres of these instruments would signify that collecting the hammer is a moment of importance in the game. One element that was weak in this stinger was texture, as their is very few instruments in this piece of music. Therefore I was in-able to fill in the frequency spectrum. Filling the frequency spectrum can give your music a grand orchestral tone which we often associate with triumph, therefore I would improve this stinger by adding more instruments into the music to fill the frequency spectrum. To do this I would also add more brass instruments into the music such as the tuba, horns and the bass and tenor trombones, as this would allow me to fill up more of the frequency spectrum with these instruments. Furthermore allowing me give the music a full texture which in turn would make the music sound more heroic and victorious. The brass instrumental family also are capable of creating powerful and triumphant music due to their thick timbres and their loud dynamics, this is why I would use brass to achieve this effect in my music. The final thing I would do to improve this would be to add some harmony into the music that drones on throughout the stinger, this would give the stinger a bed of harmonic texture and furthermore make the stinger sound even more full.
For my second Idea I decided I wanted the music to have a darker tone to blend with the caves visuals, to develop this idea I started with thinking of a chord progression. Due to the action in the game being very short I decided to make the stinger short by only using two chords. I wanted the music to sound triumphant so I started with the chord F# minor augmented, this created a mysterious and unpredictable tone within the music. I then moved the chord F# major, this chord transition created a bold chord that had a sense of clarity. As the previous chord before it had a dark and minor tone, therefore the transition into a major created a triumphant and clear tone within the music. I orchestrated the stinger chords to be played by the tenor and bass trombone as well as the tuba. As these instruments have very loud and powerful dynamics which evoke a sense of victory and power which reflects on the heroic and triumphant action the character is doing. The melody in this stinger is being played by the trumpet and horns in unison, this melody is following the notes within the harmony to create a smooth and powerful tone within the music that doesn’t clash with the harmony, as dissonance in this stinger would create a sense of uncertainty within the music which contradicts the theme of victory within the game. These two instruments are being played in unison to create a powerful and full texture within the music by making the melody take up 2 octaves of the frequency spectrum, furthermore making it stand out within the music. To bring a natural conclusion to this stinger I also made all the instruments play the same note (F#) in unison across the frequency spectrum, this created a powerful and heroic tone within the music due to the unison.
Below the brass in this stinger I added percussion such as symbols and timpani roll crescendos. I added a timpani roll in the stinger to create a build up of tension that leads to the climax of the music which resolves on the F# major chord, this worked very well as it quickly built anticipation within the music to this moment. Another form of percussion I used in this stinger was cymbals, I used these in the music to highlight the player finding the weapon as a moment of significance and greatness. These instruments however have a very long decay time once they are played and I have used them twice in this stinger despite it having a 6 second run time, meaning you can hear the cymbals non-stop in this stinger. Furthermore reducing the impact they have within the music, therefore to improve this piece of music I would limit my self to only using one cymbal because this would give it a greater impact within the music. I would instead use a drum such as a timpani or taiko to reinforce the beat the 1st cymbal used to be on. When composing this piece of music I decided it was very important that the brass sounded full and powerful, which was very hard to achieve with the thin texture of the stock Logic Brass. Therefore to solve this issue I composed the stinger at home on my Spitfire Audio Plug-in and then bounced it when it was complete. This allowed me to capture more realistic and powerful brass sound within the project, which furthermore made the music sound more triumphant and powerful. In summary this stinger was very successful as the brass effectively captured a triumphant and heroic theme as the player picks up the hammer, this was caused by the powerful brass timbres and aggressive timpani. The quality of this was also very high due to my use of Spitfire’s external plug-in, however the one way I would improve this would be to use less cymbals to stop the stingers metals from constantly ringing out.
Source List
Wikihow, 2021. How to Save the Grand Star in Super Mario Galaxy. [image] Available at: <https://www.wikihow-fun.com/Save-the-Grand-Star-in-Super-Mario-Galaxy> [Accessed 26 May 2022].