| Return to CIS 300. |
|
Compose a piece of music that conveys a specific emotion
Almost all video game music accomplishes at least one goal: setting the mood of the game. When we write video game music, we can draw the player further into the game simply by writing it such that it matches the mood the game itself is trying to convey. Most games attempt to immerse the player into their world, and music can be a useful tool in accomplishing this. Even if the player doesn't actively listen to the music, it can have a profound effect on the gaming experience.
What makes a piece of music become associated with a particular emotion? This is a difficult question, as people tend to perceive music in wildly different manners. That said, there are no formulas for creating specific moods in music. In this first part, you are asked to come up with a few 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 well known song, and would, optimally, not have lyrics. Listen to the song and think of what elements give it its feeling. Listen for things like harmonic elements (major/minor; resolved/unresolved), rhythmic elements (tempo), and instruments used. In a text file, write the name of the song you chose, describe what emotion the song is trying to convey, and explain how you think the composer accomplished this. Try to be descriptive; don't just use vague words such as "sad" or "happy," but try to quantify it more with specific adjectives such as "longing" or "demented," or even relate the music to an abstract idea such as "holiness" or "evil". We are only expecting two or three short paragraphs, but they should be well thought out. Also, do not spend a long time trying to figure out the way other people might hear the music. If you hear something, that is good enough. Make a list of what specific musical elements you would use if you had to create a piece with the same mood.
Now, compose a piece of music that exhibits the same emotion as the song you chose above, using your list of elements as a guide. I will be grading this as objectively as I can, so think more about whether your song actually 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. It is okay if your song ends up sounding a bit like the original song, but it is imperative that you DO NOT simply copy notes from the song. Your composition must be at least 75 seconds long, and the end should flow well into the beginning (game music tends to loop), but the rest of the musical decisions are up to you.
Finally, you must put your song in a format that can be used in a game. XNA uses the WAV format as the standard for its sound files. However, you cannot use WAV files directly in XNA because they are not supported on the XBox. So instead, you have to put the WAV files in an XACT project, which generates the right sound files for each platform. In this part of the tutorial, you will go through the steps in making your song work with XNA.
First, you need to export your song as a WAV file. To save as a WAV file, use Reason's ‘Export Song as Audio File...’ option. (Remember, ‘Export Song’ renders from measure 1 to the ‘E’ marker, while ‘Export Loop’ renders from the ‘L’ to the ‘R’ marker).
Next you need to create an XACT project. The instructions for creating an XACT file are available from the XNA Documentation site. We have installed XNA in CL3 in order to allow you to do this in the lab. The program is Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT) which should be in the XNA folder in your Start menu. It is important that you make both a Sound Bank and a Wave Bank. Save your XACT project when done.
When you are creating a game in XNA, you only need the XACT project. You do not need the WAV file any more.
Create a zip file containing the following files:
In addition, you should include the song that you chose for your analysis, if at all possible. You should submit this zip file as "lab3music.zip" to CMS.
Due Wednesday February 13, 2008 at 11:59pm