AngelCityOutlaw

https://www.polygon.com/2018/11/20/18104561/kingdom-hearts-3-gone-gold-release-date-new-trailer?fbclid=IwAR1e_Oo1M2JKcJUNjqF1OCGq1BYiJ5hFG68uHhi4TgW_NTzz4lcBzXUSzuM So KH3 is finally done. Something that's been on my mind about this game for the last year is exactly WHO the target audience of this game is at this point. I was 10 years old, when the first game came out. It's taken this long to get to third numbered entry in the series. Anyone who was an original KH fan, is now 25 - 35 years old and the new game features mostly worlds from Disney films we didn't grow up watching, and many out there would say are inferior to the company's work from the 80s - 2000. So, I know that I just don't see the appeal at age 26-going-on-27 of running around with Donald and Goofy smacking up the world of Frozen. I wanted to say "Oh, maybe they think that we'll play it with our kids now" but that can't be it given the 1.3 birthrate of Japan and every country in the west. Most of us are childless. So like...who do they think is going to buy this game that was announced when I was 20 - 21 years old and it's been nearly 20 years since the first one? There's also going to be no final fantasy worlds, so I couldn't even latch on to some nostalgia there. I think this is going to wind up being a testament to the fact that if you make a series aimed at children, you have to actually finish that series fairly quickly before those children lose interest. It'll be interesting to see sales numbers and demographics when this thing drops. I'm goin' to throw in my prediction now that it's not going to sell nearly as well as anticipated.

Modes like the phrygian work well. But one thing that will help you is chromatics and mode mixture. Specifically, chromatic mediant chord relationships. What this means is the progression consists of two chords that are related by a third, and are of the same tonality. So like, A minor to F# minor. Or A minor to C minor. Gmaj to Eb Major (very common one in "space" themes). This kinda thing is everywhere in film and game music. Observe, chords separated by a distance of a minor third/major sixth. As for uses of a specific mode, here's the phrygian (3rd mode of the major scale) in action. It's also the go to for heavy metal rhythms. Combine the two methods and you'll get an extra evil result. You're in luck because this Mario tune's intervals are already phrygian, but the backing harmony is not. So change it from major to minor, add some chromatics and go from there. For example, after the first few notes, when it jumps up to the root at the octave, play the next note a half step lower instead of jumping farther back down like it normally does, and I think you'll start to see the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

Eh, it's inevitable. Separate the art from the artist and all that jazz.

NekoFrog was, until I talked to him and it turned out he was an asshole. Never meet your heroes, people.

"Transitions", as in, an independent little section or fill that bridges the gap between 2 distinct sections is honestly more of a thing in rock and electronic music. This is something that was always a big topic around here back when I joined, but I actually think a lot of music is made worse by having these little 1 bar phrases and such between two different sections because it creates an odd (or even, depending on song) # of bars in a phrase and feels like it "resets" the tune to my ears rather than creates a flow into the next section. Like listen to these examples of orchestral or cinematic tunes: None of these pieces have anything I would specifically call a "transition". It just goes one section into another. They do however pay attention to two things: Anacrusis, and voice leading. An anacrusis is a few notes before the first measure of a phrase that "lead-in" to it. A very common variant is that, in a minor key, you might have played the 5th and the minor 7th before playing the root on the downbeat of the first measure of the phrase. Voice-leading refers to how the voices (instruments) or lines move to another pitch. You want to avoid creating too many "leaps", that is: movement larger than a major third. You want stepwise motion as much as possible. So let's say that: Sections A and B are both 8 measures long. The melody note in the last bar of section A ends on the root, an octave below where you started. This means that section B should ideally start in the new, lower octave rather than having the melody jump all the way back up. If I do go back up into that higher register for the beginning of section B, than I would create an anacrusis leading into that pitch, with a different instrument(s) above the previous melody in the last bar of section A. Also, if you come back to the tonic chord in the last bar before a new phrase, have a quick chord change on the last beat or couple of beats in the last bar so that it will smoothly lead back to the tonic, or whatever chord begins the new phrase. You can use percussion like timpani and cymbals rolls to accent this or ramp the tempo a bit, but basically: There is nothing terribly special you should have to do to make two sections, even very different ones, flow into each other well if your voice-leading is strong.

No. It's their own interpretation of it. Exactly. I'd again use the biological child vs adopted analogy. Jesus...now I know how Dr. Strange felt.

I agree with all of your points, and especially like this last part. I've been thinking about a way to try to summarize this, and I think the easiest way to put it is that it's a matter of creation vs adaptation. Perhaps we're at a point where there will always be a little of each present in both, but the latter ultimately only exists because of the former. Therefore, no matter how much I may prefer a cover, I just can't place as much artistic value, both as a listener and as a writer, on it as I can on the band/composer's own ideas

This is a good post. Unfortunate you weren't here to make it earlier Regarding your point about holding off on composing for fear of sounding similar to something already out there, never let that stop you. Especially where harmony is concerned, it's truly impossible to come up with something that hasn't been used before. But these are musical devices: chords, scales, structure, etc. are established tools of the trade that allow you to create an infinite variety of combinations, of which something — a tune — emerges that, despite being stylistically similar to something else, is the result of your unique utilization of the craft, and results in something that is purely the product of your work that they will know long after you're dead, is your tune when they hear it. It's like adoption vs biological child: Yeah, you can love the adopted one just as much and raise them as if they were your own, but at the end of the day they didn't come from your DNA. Why some musicians, especially those who are composers themselves (and this site doesn't accept straight cover tunes), would rank this as being no different from and equal value to simply adapting another composer's piece to fit their style, is something I just don't understand and to be honest — find really depressing.

I know. I mentioned them. It wasn't meant to be anything other than a statement regarding a con of remixing in terms of building a portfolio. Sure caused a lot of butthurt, though. I didn't start telling others that the way I think they view it is wrong until they started flipping the table about it in the first place. I think it's his version of the song. That's different than saying it's his song.

But why is it the law? If everything is ultimately derivative of something else (like what Phonetic Hero thinks) then why have this law at all if nothing is really original, right? and you said and yet you can still be successfully sued if you were to release a recording that uses a zelda melody without proper licensing agreements. Why though? How can they get away with this since it sounds "100% zykO, right? Have you considered that maybe it's because it's not 100% zykO at work here, even by your own admission? It's not that I don't understand your style doesn't shine through, but that's irrelevant. Your issue, my friend and the cause of this disagreement, is precisely that you are not concerned enough with the tangible, basic truths. You know, Meteo Xavier had something in a thread of his recently that has really resonated with me, and I think hits the mark in this mad tangent of a debate this thread spiraled into. There can be no doubt.

and why do you suppose that is, zykO?

All I can say is it's pretty shocking how many of you seem to feel: "As long as it's got enough of my touch, it's mine." Even though John's examples of classical variations have the original composer's name in the title. I assume I can expect no legal action nor royalty payments to you if I copy one of the original tunes from your arrangements or pieces, then? Because after all, what with my variations to it and all, it will become uniquely mine now, right?

I actually don't feel that strongly about it, tbh, Larry. It's just that, it gets difficult to keep my eccentric demons of condescending, jaded sarcasm and smartass wit in their cages after pages and pages of trying to explain in various ways that "If that tune wasn't actually crafted by you in the first place, it's not really your tune now just because you added some seasoning of your own." Which I'm surprised there was resistance to all, as I'm pretty sure even the law and the public at large accepts that as fact. Then, as an argument against it, people keep resurrecting it with "Yeah but like...a lot of original works are highly derivative and samey-sounding" There's a world of difference between using a similar triplet rhythm in the winds like the "Hook" score, to actually copying the theme. So the point's always been about who actually made that particular thing to begin with.

This is not a difficult concept to understand. You're all focused on the term "originality" and whatever imaginary threshold one has to cross to be truly "original". It's irrelevant. Nobody outside of the OCR bubble is going to consider your remixes yours: They'll see it as composer's X's song and you just arranged it — because that's the truth. Green Hill Zone isn't partly your song just because you remixed it; it doesn't make you a co-composer, but perhaps a good arranger. If that's all you wanna do, that's fine, but I see it as a poor foundation for the legacy of anyone who'd want to call themselves a composer. I'll let WillRock rexplain one last time.

This is a statement to which *hits blunt* would usually follow. I've no more interest in this pedantry. By the logic being touted in this thread, studying a score to discover what composition techniques they used so that you might incorporate those techniques into your own work is on equal footing to just ripping that tune and changing some chords or phrasing and basically, you're entitled to that person's work because "nothing's reaaaally original anyway!" *insert Carl Sagan apple-pie quote here* — because that's the end result of this mentality. It did't hold up for Vanilla Ice, 90s Big Beat artists eventually stopped sampling so excessively or entirely, and their defenders too made the same arguments you make today.

This isn't an argument against the point and you know it isn't. You're literally expecting me to believe you don't see, however immaterial, a difference between copy and pasting a completed idea from someone else as the basis for your own work, from one that you just sat down a created yourself via long-standing techniques and musical devices. The fact that resulting pieces can still sound derivative, is really irrelevant to the philosophy here. You know the difference, you just feel threatened by any standpoint that would deem covers "inferior" on some level. Like I said, if someone prefers remixing or doing straight covers, power to them. I've come to prefer coming up with my own tunes, and I explained why.

I don't really give a shit. What point do you hope I concede to, exactly? That because some original works are highly-cliche and plenty of fan art or arrangements are of high quality, possibly even better than the original work, that deliberately piggybacking on existing works therefore has just as much artistic merit as making your own creations? Because it's not going to happen. Marvel and DC have made all the good superheroes and anyone I could come up with would likely be similar to one that already exists: Guess I better just say to hell with it and just draw Spiderman then, right? Drawing someone else stuff is just as worth my time as drawing from imagination! The fact is: No matter how much you spin it, you cannot claim creative ownership over a remix and that is precisely because it only exists thanks to a work before it. If you want to be a composer, artist, writer, etc. It makes no sense to place equal value on fan works — it really isn't any more nuanced than that.

I think we've exhausted the topic of people disputing the ownership tbh

With the whole "Music As A Profession Killed My Passion For It" thing, it's been my observation over the last ~5 years that it ostensibly has to in order to be successful at it. Hear me out: I've met a lot of professional artists of various trades over the last half-decade or so. Musicians, writers, animators, painters, etc. and most recently I took some courses for film crew work where my teacher was an award-winning make up artist and the most noticeable thing I can say about all of these people is they were stone-cold stoics. I recall during the classes that at one point, she rolled her eyes saying in a mocking tone "We're making art!...Nope, it's a business". What all of these people have in common is that they've shed any romantic notions about their craft and business and have come to see it as just that: a craft and business. They know and have developed the skills of their trade to the point that it's no different than waking up and working 9-5 anywhere else. You know how if you take your car to a good detailer and you get it back and it's like "Holy shit, this car is stupid clean, shiny and smells like it's brand new!"? Yeah, the detailers aren't especially proud of it or anything, they see it as just doing their job. That's how most of these composers, animators, make-up artists, etc. see it too. Nepotism runs high in basically every line of work. It's just a lot more prevalent in the entertainment industry because it's a whole lot smaller.

It's fitting that MazeDude scored MazeQuest.

I'll do one better. I can't stand JRPGS I like the album, though

Following in the footsteps of Nathan McCree's "Tomb Raider Suite" I see. You know, I love the Tomb Raider franchise but — main themes and Troels Folmann's scores aside — the games never had very memorable music. If Troels were to ever create a concert tour or something for the soundtrack from "Legend", I'd be down for that.

No. But you can export the audio from Sibelius, load the stems into a DAW, and then apply the effects from Kontakt.

Ha! Thanks! Funny story, I began working on a Witcher cover last week that I should have done in time for Halloween. Never thought I'd make a "remix" again.

Hollywood Strings and Eduardo Tarilonte's Era libraries use CC11 to control dynamics.