Objective: Compose a piece of music that conveys a specific emotion
Emotions and Music
Almost all video game music accomplishes at least one goal: setting the mood of the game. It is well known that music, although just a collection of pitches, can actually convey a very specific emotion or idea to the person listening to it. We use this to our advantage when we write video game music, as we can draw the player farther into the game simply by playing music that matches the mood the game is trying to convey. Most games try to immerse the player in their world, and music can be a very good tool for doing this. Even if the player doesn't actively listen to the music, it can have a profound effect on them and their gaming experience.
An example:
Analysis
Before we start composing, first we must explore what makes a piece of music become associated with a particular emotion. This is difficult as people percieve music in wildy different manners. Also, thought they have been sought after for a long time, there are no formulas for creating moods in music. Therefore, in this first part you are asked to come up with some ideas as to what elements cause pieces of music to have their feeling.
First, choose a piece of music that you feel exhibits a certain emotion, mood or idea. It need not be a popular or well known song. Listen to the song and think of what elements of the song give it its feeling. Listen for things like harmonic elements (ie. major or minor, has a lot of resolution or not) and rhythmic elements (tempo, specific rhythms). In a text file, write the name of the song you chose and a paragraph describing what emotion the song is trying to convey and how you think the composer accomplished this. Make a list of what elements you would use if you had to create a piece with the same mood. Try to be descriptive: don't just use vague words such as "sad" or "happy", but quantify it more adjectives such as "crazy" or "longing" and a description of how you think this relates to the music. You can also relate the music to abstract ideas, such as "holyness" or "evil".
Don't worry if you didn't write that much, as I'm only expecting a paragraph or two. Also, don't spend a long time trying to make your analysis match the way other people hear the music. If you hear something, that's good enough for me.
Composition
Now, compose a piece of music that exhibits the same emotion as the song you chose above. Use your list of elements to help you out. I will be grading this as objectively as I can, so worry more about whether your song follows the musical elements from your analysis and less about whether you think I will be able to find the same emotions as you did in your composition. It's okay if your song ends up sounding like the original song, but don't simply copy the song. Your composition must be at least 30 seconds long, but the rest of the musical decisions are up to you.
Saving to MP3
Finally, you must put your song in a format that can be used in your game. The MP3 format is well known as a good compression format and can be played through GameX. You will first need to save your song as a Wave file, and then convert it to MP3. To save as a Wave file, use Reason's Save Song As Audio File option. Next, download WinLame from http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/winlame/winLAME-rc3-full-noinst.zip, and install it by unzipping it to a directory (if you're in CL3, unzip it to your personal directory on drive D). Run WinLame.exe, select your file and follow the instructions to encode as Mp3. Make sure to set the Output Module to LAME Mp3 Encoder, and the output directory to your documents directory. When asked to pick a preset, the alt-preset:standard setting should be fine. On the final screen, click the Play button under Encoding Controls to encode your file. This should take a minute or two.
Submission
You must submit a Reason file and an MP3 file of your composition. You must also submit a text file that contains the name of and your analysis of the song you chose.
Again, I will try to grade this lab objectively, so this project will be graded based on:
Please use CMS to turn in your files.
This lab project is due Monday, March 28th by 11:59pm (midnight).
