Anonymous User asked: insipired by another ask someone else made, i wanted to ask how do you decide how long a song(like the ones with elenaor or a background song for a game) will be?
i'm using this as an excuse to post timber's theme1.
for bgm, i tend to just go a section at a time until the loop feels good! sorry i don't know the formal terms for things and i never name my patterns... but i think visually you can see what's what, which is all that matters...
umm usually i will think of a melody (track 3 up there) and then repeat it but slightly altered. it helps me to have the backing instruments/percussion/whatever in there first (track 1 and 5) so that i have the timing right... sorta like having a metronome (i guess i could just turn on the metronome but i don't like the sound...) and generally it's too abrupt if you go straight into the melody so i leave a section of intro before layering that on.
and then, piano interlude! (track 7) ...this is the point in the song where i like to throw in a new instrument to change things up. i could've had it repeat once like the first melody, but i liked it better as more of a flourish. and then, "bark!" something new again. if it stopped and looped there, the song would feel too repetitive (basically going between two short parts) so the last melody comes in (track 8). then another quick jarring section before restarting the loop.
this song came out to 1:06, which is good for the length of time you'd be hearing it ingame! it only plays in cutscenes rather than parts where you're walkin around a lot... for songs you'll be hearing a while with no break, i try to aim closer to 1:30 (a bunch of the new chapter's songs are about that length because i had all these long cutscenes omg...)
a lot of tracks in the early chapters were super short because i was inexperienced... like mochi's theme used to be ~20 seconds which made me want to use it extremely sparingly and i would rush through parts where it played because i didn't want to hear it loop... omfg... it's 36 seconds in treat complete, still short but a lot more bearable.
so to actually answer your question: i make songs as short as i can get away with! if the loop annoys me too much ingame, i'll try to add a new section to extend it. my vocal tracks are a bit different because there's actually something i want to say with the lyrics, so i just go with the amount of time that feels right for that idea. again, just building it out in sections.
music is all vibes honestly... if you make music you probably know, it's just following your heart until something cool comes out.
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this song is 3/4 time because he happens to say waltz like twice in the script so i was like ok this man REQUIRES a waltz. i think most of my songs are 4/4 time because that's the default... i don't really understand time signatures but i know those two are always a safe bet!
