hi! i am curious about the broad strokes of how you approach form in writing music - you have a really keen sense of pacing and you've done a lot with dynamic scoring so i'm wondering in what order you do things. what parts usually come first, and do you like to sketch an overall skeleton (or one instrument worth) of the song first and fill things in, or flesh stuff out as you go?
this obviously varies per track, but i think this is my general order of operations when composing a typical song for a game:
- take in all the reference material i have for a specific area, character, mood, whatever. this could just be descriptive text, or concept art, or an actually implemented scene or area in the game engine
- sit with it for at least a day, thinking about how i vibe with it
- come up with an initial melodic sketch that i can sing aloud, usually a main melody or occasionally rhythmic elements, repeating figures, bass lines
- start sketching out on piano or some other instrument if i've already defined how i want to orchestrate it
- if the initial sketch spans the entire piece, start fleshing out chronologically
- if the sketch is only one part, work backwards to a good beginning, before moving back through & fleshing it out
- do a production pass, usually as i go, but especially towards the end, thinking about effects & processing & how that affects where the instruments sit in the sonic space
- render out a first version to show clients (or friends, depending) and see how i feel about it after a day
- IF the track is dynamic & i didn't write it as dynamic, this is where i would go through and rework parts to make it fit a dynamic framework, or add additional layers if i need an alt mix for something
- finish up, polish with fresh ears, bounce out stems to implement