MaestroUGC's Compositions *In Progress - Symphony No. 2 in D minor - Mvt. I-IV*

[MaestroUGC]

That's amazing and it's going in the portfolio now.

[MaestroUGC]

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/maestroz-1/happy-together-chiptune[/soundcloud]

Too much time on my hands.

[Jub3r7]

I sang that song about her all the time, and after we broke up all those years ago, I tried to erase all of it from my head.

I succeeded. There wasn't much left.

[MaestroUGC]

So I'm back at it, this time with a clear idea for an area in mind. A Ruined City that may or may not be haunted. This one actually has some story elements in it that I could play with, I'll sum up the gist of it here:

Long before the events of the game there was once a thriving city, a center point for knowledge and culture, ruled by an enlightened republic that sought only to understand our natural world. That was until some loony came along and decided he wanted to be the only ruling power in this modest kingdom. One night, during the Festival of the Founders, he made his move; commanding an army of hundreds of men he sought to conquer the city by force. But in doing so he set it ablaze, and in the midst of the chaos all he could do was watch his home burn. In the aftermath only he and a few of his soldiers remained, and without a home or an empire, they set off across the land, never to be seen again. Our heroes find themselves wandering through these ruins, and the locals of a nearby village say that you can still faintly hear the ghosts of this ancient civilization at their festival, dancing all the while an evil army marches over them.

Town Theme 4 - Draft 1
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/maestroz-1/town-theme-4-d1[/soundcloud]
That said, I wanted to try and capture that feeling by giving the music a sort of square-dance-ish feel. There's a constant bass drone throughout the whole piece and the counterpoint is building harmonic support between that and the melody. The melody itself is a rather modest affair, and reminiscent of my earlier Forest Theme. That constant bass pulse is also meant to be evocative of a military march, but markedly slower, as if it is merely a musical shadow of a proper march. Another interesting thing is that at the end of the main theme are these sections of shifting tonalities which bring us to new tonic centers.

Ghosts of the Ruined City - Draft 2
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/maestroz-1/ghosts-of-the-ruined-city-d2[/soundcloud]
The orchestration has an uneven spread; apart from the standard compliment of strings, the brass and winds seem to exists on opposite sides of the orchestral range. A solo oboe has the melody throughout and is supported by a solo horn, piccolo, or first violins in different iterations. The bass trombone and tuba pick up on the drone idea and run with it, with the basses giving it an actual pulse alongside their held pitches. The percussion features a triangle, tambourine and bass drum; the bass drum representing the steady march of the military and the triangle and tambourine on the up-beats, emphasizing the folk dance.

[Sebastian]

Wow. These are awesome! I can really see you being a video game composer one day!

[MaestroUGC]

So I was tasked for a more uplifting sort of death theme for plot reasons. There's not much to say for this one, though it has a similar approach to my earlier composition "Still".

Ascension - Draft 1
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/maestroz-1/ascension-d1[/soundcloud]
The piano draft is a pretty straightforward piece. It's really just a blueprint for the orchestration. You'll note the unfinished ending, I'll get to that in a bit. The second draft was just an early notation of the later orchestration.

Ascension - Draft 3
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/maestroz-1/ascension-d3[/soundcloud]
The orchestration is adapted for double strings, with the part writing designed to flower out from the center, as it were. It's almost an exact adaptation of the piano version, but with some doubling in various octaves for the melody along the way. The real magic comes at the end of the piece; in the center of it all is the violas and cellos playing two chords while the violins start a shepard scale moving upward and the basses (now div a 3) start one going down. This effectively results in the piece constantly moving forward ad infinitum with no real resolution. A large reason why I wanted it to (un)resolve like this is largely due to the fact that tis would likely be a point in which the player proceeds the plot/dialogue at his own pace. I needed something the would indicate an ending without really ending; and also that didn't just fall on playing the same melody over and over.

[MaestroUGC]

Haha! Chiptunes are fun.

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/maestroz-1/sunnyside-countryside[/soundcloud]

This is likely going to be the opening track of a fake OST I'll write for a non-existent platformer game; with the earlier Swing-200 being the closer.

[Sebastian]

Hey! That's awesome!
Are you planning on being a VG composer?

[MaestroUGC]

Nah, I've only dedicated significant amounts of time writing music for a game a friend of mine is developing with the intention of pursuing it further in the future merely as a hobby.

I don't want to be a composer at all.

[Sebastian]

I don't want to be a composer at all.

Oh.....too bad

Nah, I've only dedicated significant amounts of time writing music for a game a friend of mine is developing with the intention of pursuing it further in the future merely as a hobby.

So is your friend working on an official game or...?

[MaestroUGC]

You still haven't figured out my speaking and sarcasm style, have you?

[Sebastian]

Nope XD
It's a nice feeling to trust people.

[Jub3r7]

You should trust people to be sarcastic. XD

This is a fun piece, I enjoyed it! The name "Sunnyside Countryside" is especially fitting.

I'm a big fan of chip-tune music, not to mention that's how I like my eggs. When do we get to hear more of this OST?

[MaestroUGC]

Whenever I write the rest of it.

[MaestroUGC]

Hey, remember this?

Well I finally got around to writing the second movement. This one as more of an abstract program than the first movement, which was mostly summed up as "Robin Hood and Co. do their thing" with some additional framing narrative stuff from the perspective of Alan-a-Dale, the narrator of the Robin Hood story. I'll write a more proper program when the whole thing is finished, but the second movement flows like this:

Opening with the earlier "lovelorn" theme, Maid Marian sits in her garden wondering about her lover, Robin. She recalls a time when their love was in full bloom, before he became a bandit and beacon for the downtrodden. The last time she saw her Robin was just before he went of on his noble mission, they spent one last night together before he went off to right the wrongs of Prince John. Each time she hears of his adventures, she dreams of when they can be reunited, but alas their love cannot be and they continue to pine for one another. But all is not lost has Robin surprises her in the garden; but their time is short as he soon has to flee from the guards. But just before he leaps over the castle walls he vows that he will love only her and awaits the day they can be reunited. He disappears into the forest, and Marian returns to the castle, waiting for her Robin Hood.

Or something like that.

Mvt. I - Prince of Thieves
Mvt. II - Maid Marian