First shot at a Wesnoth-like music

[gmlion]

Hello, I'm new to this forum and this is my first post.
I'm here because i think Wesnoth is one of the best GPL games ever created, and I would consider an honor to take part in its music development.
Obviously I'm a composer and so, after playing the game for a while and appreciting the wonderful musics of the game, I tought that perhaps i could make some in-game music, too.
For this reason this afternoon i composed a music and, for this very first encounter with you, I show it as a way to know if my direction is correct (in terms of musical style and/or capacity). I tried to emulate the atmosphere of the game, while obviously retaining the essence of my compositions.

As a side note, I don't know if it mastered correctly, so fell free to make critics also in this perspective.
Ok, here you can listen the music:
http://www.isound.com/mp3player/play.php?type=song&id=540385

To download the mp3 you have to go to this page:
http://www.isound.com/leone_gianmarco
and look for "The kingdom from here" from the mp3 section.

Hope to hear anyone soon :p

[Aleksi]

Hello and benvenuto!

Its pretty good overall. But, i have some critics to make towards the orchestration. There are too many parallel octaves in the strings at the beginning. It gives a very poor sound and balance to the intro...

Second thing, it seems like you don't really know where you are going. It loops, loops and loops. You add, and take away. Gets boring at a certain point in my opinion. But if you wrote that in one afternoon, i'm sure you can do much better after a could of them!

Keep up the good work!

Aleksi.

[gmlion]

Thank you very much for your fast answer. I will look at the strings. For the second criticism, yes, it was rather improvised. I only wanted to have an idea if the general direction was right.
Thanks for your appreciation,
Gianmarco

[gmlion]

New day, new music

Here to listen it:
http://www.isound.com/mp3player/play.php?type=song&id=540473

Perhaps i should have modified the other music, but I was inspirated today too, so I composed a different piece.
I don't know where it could be used, perhaps a part of it can be used in a particular situation.

Anyway, are there musics the game actually lacks or needs? This way I could give a try to something aimed.

ciao
Gianmarco

[gmlion]

ps: listen it to the end, like the other music there are very different pieces
ps2: it should be loopable

[Aleksi]

New day, new music

Perhaps i should have modified the other music, but I was inspirated today too, so I composed a different piece.
I don't know where it could be used, perhaps a part of it can be used in a particular situation.

I think its good to have many ideas, but its even better to stick with them at a certain point. I could make the same critic on this music; you don't seem to know where you are going, it is extremely linear. Try making a plan on a piece of paper, write down your main theme, etc... A B A C plan or whatever you want, and it will really help you build something.

Aleksi.

[gmlion]

In fact I try to avoid a "pop-music" structure when composing orchestral pieces, retaining a more classical variations-on-theme form, but the first could be what works better in Wesnoth. Anyway, what's the music needed in the game? I'll do a better job if I know before where the music could occur.
Thanks,
Gianmarco

[zookeeper]

In fact I try to avoid a "pop-music" structure when composing orchestral pieces, retaining a more classical variations-on-theme form, but the first could be what works better in Wesnoth. Anyway, what's the music needed in the game? I'll do a better job if I know before where the music could occur.
Thanks,
Gianmarco

Here's a little wishlist I had written before the forum crash:

1. Underground music. The current underground.ogg is fine, but clearly it's old and not very elaborate. I've been using knalgan_theme.ogg as underground music in several places, but it'd be nice to have some more calm but menacing underground music too.

2. A replacement for northerners.ogg. It's really old and really crappy in comparison with the new tracks, and incredibly short. It'd be super nice to have better music in its place. I think the word that best describes which role the current old crappy track still fills which no other does is "danger". A piece for situations which involve plenty of danger and suspense, but are not all fast and furious (yet).

3. A replacement for loyalists.ogg. Unsurprisingly, it's mostly used when some organized human army is involved. Either the player, or the enemy. All the action-packed battle themes we have are great, but there's also a need for pieces which would make you think more of organized armies, marching and all that instead of the twists and turns of combat.

It'd be absolutely great to be able to replace these old tracks with some new high-quality ones. All kinds of new quality music which fits the game is naturally welcome, but the truth is that some specific kinds of music would be immensely more useful than some others. For example, there's only a couple of places in all of the mainline campaigns in which sad/tragic pieces fit and are currently used, and pretty much dozens of places which really crave for tracks like those three ones I described.

[gmlion]

-post removed-

[Aleksi]

In fact I try to avoid a "pop-music" structure when composing orchestral pieces, retaining a more classical variations-on-theme form, but the first could be what works better in Wesnoth. Anyway, what's the music needed in the game? I'll do a better job if I know before where the music could occur.
Thanks,
Gianmarco

I was not talking about "pop". Try to open a Mozart score, Beethoven, Wagner, Ravel, Debussy (and many others). They have themes, and have a form.

[gmlion]

Ok, I got the point