Holly

It’s been a week since I started this "21 day of VGM challenge", and I’m still rolling! Here’s a bit easy one for me, but a nice challenge for a busy day! This sketch features a couple of quests from "Quest Logs": Nap Time: Write a very short (less than 10 seconds) JRPG-style music cue for sleeping at an inn. Kickin’ it Old School: Make a chiptune track! Remember your roots and bring back some of that 8-bit flavor. I have a lot of ideas about this type of jingles, so first, I made a sketch track and I started [...]

Today’s 21DaysOfVGM Challenge (Day 7) is very interesting. It’s called “Mini Boss Challenge” and Dan from VGM Academy introduced us to this fantastic artwork done by Abe Tena (abetena.com).   The challenge is “Use this artwork as a basis for tone, scene, and/or character when coming up with today’s musical idea!   I got up early and immediately started to work on this challenge. First, I just sat down and imagining what I'll do. I was looking at the picture, and imagine who they are. I decided the cat people on the bottom left corner are adventurers. Then the statue. [...]

It's Friday, and I got this idea of using "F" as a melody with the following quest from "Quest Logs Lv 4" : Uni-pitch: Write a melody with only one pitch. You have complete liberty with the rhythm, but once you’ve picked your pitch that’s the only one you get for the melody. Be creative with the harmonies! This is a very interesting challenge, something I've done in a composition class in my college.  Basically, the melody is going to be "F-f-f-f-f--f-f-f-f-f--" and that's it.  In order for the music track to be interesting, you have to be creative with other music elements... [...]

Today, I chose the following quest from "Quest Logs" Level 1: The Julie Andrews: Use a human voice to sing the melody of at least an entire section (not necessarily an entire track). No lyrics required - ‘Oohs’ and ‘Ahs’ can be very effective! I decided to use my voice for this challenge. Since it's going to be just "ah" or "La", I decided to make the song sounds like Medieval Tavern music. I used Blue Snowball which was around my desk and easy to set up, then recorded my voice and the piano at the same time. While working [...]

Happy 4th of July! Today I chose the following quest for the 21-day Composition Challenge day 4 : Drum Machine: Write an entire piece using ONLY unpitched percussion instruments (that means no xylophones, pianos, etc). I actually decided to choose this one last night. I heard the sound of fireworks last night (somebody was already cerebrating 4th of July then!), it reminded me of Japanese Matsuri (festival). I grew up in Sumida area in Tokyo, which is famous for the Sumida River Fireworks Festival. Also, since my mom is from Aomori prefecture, I grew up with Nebuta Matsuri as well. For me, Summer [...]

Today, I decided to try "Attack of the Drones" quest from "Quest Logs" Level 2:  Attack of the Drones:  Create a new piece of music that uses the same drone pitch throughout the entire piece. The first thing I did was to look for a nice drone sound. I loaded my favorite synth Spectrasonics Omnisphere and found some nice sounds.   I layered two drones, then added piano sound to add some movements to the piece. Then I added glockenspiel sound on top of the piano. I also added some metal hit and scratch sound as well as ambient sound [...]

Today, I picked the following quests from Quest Logs Level 1 : Compounding the Problem: Use a Compound Meter (time signature) - like 5/4, 9/8, or 12/8. You don’t hear these very often, but they can bring a strong sense of rhythm to your writing and force you to come up with new rhythmic ideas. See for an explanation of Compound Meters. Music Box: Compose a piece for a music box, which may also be called a “lamellophone,” “linguaphone,” or “thumb piano,” in sample libraries. Most multi-voice keyboards have an onboard music-box-sounding instrument. I chose 9/8. It's not too odd [...]

Today is the very first day of "The 21-day Composition Challenge". I chose the following "quests" from 21-days-of-VGM's Quest Logs Level 1: The Forgotten Beats Write a melody that starts on beat 2 or 3. Most melodies start on the first beat of the measure, but starting on beat 2 or 3 can create a neat sense of anticipation or surprise. A Minor Challenge Compose a piece in a minor key. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than writing a piece in a Major key, and you should be comfortable with both. Reading the description of the quests, [...]

I'll be participating "The 21-day Composition Challenge" starting from the 1st of July (tomorrow!)  The challenge is that the participants write at least 2-4 bars of new music every day.  Music tracks you create don't have to be polished or finished, but you doing it every day is the most important thing, because it's all about building the habit of daily writing. I believe that this is a really good training not only for composers but also for any kind of people who feels like getting stuck and blocked time to time.  Creator's (or, writer's) block has been my longtime [...]