Holly

Day 16! Almost there! Today I picked up the following quest form "Quest Logs" Level 5: Powered-Up: Write a short, 10-seconds-or-less musical cue for when a character gets a major upgrade or power-up. When I saw the quest, a melody started to play in my head. I opened my DAW and just recorded the melody with piano sound first. Then, I thought that the melody I made would fit well with 8bit / chiptune sound! I loaded "Super Audio Cart" to my DAW and created three tracks to make the piece retro-style. It became a simple but cheerful fanfare! Here's [...]

Today, I chose the following quest from “Quest Logs” Level 5 : Whole-Tone Hero: Write a piece whose melody uses only the whole-tone scale. For the ‘easy mode’ version of this, use only the black keys of the keyboard to write the melody. A whole tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbours by the interval of a whole tone. (From Wikipedia) The scale looks like this: and it sounds like this:   This scale has been used in different kinds of music with different genres, like that magical sound effect to classical [...]

Busy day today, had lots of things to do, but I didn’t miss this challenge! Today’s challenge was the following quests from “Quest Logs” Level 1: Kickin’ it Old School: Make a chiptune track! Remember your roots and bring back some of that 8-bit flavor. Game Over: Create an awesome ‘Game Over’ theme that’s less than 10 seconds in length. Any longer would just be rubbing it in. I’ve already tried “Kickin’ it Old School” (on Day 8), but I received an e-mail from VGM Acadamy and today is the day of " MINI-BOSS CHALLENGE #2”, which was to try [...]

Today I picked the following quest from “Quest Logs” Level 2: Pizz Off: Write an entire piece for strings, using the pizzicato technique for every instrument throughout the entire piece. No bowing or sustained notes! I recently got Symphobia by ProjectSAM and the pizzicato sound is one of my favorite out of this library.  I loaded Symphobia and start writing this piece playing with it. Then, I added Contrabass and Celli tracks using Kontakt's Factory Preset sounds separately to support the bass line. The track came out simple, light and fun! Here’s my Day 13 track : Listen to Day13 - Pizzicato! (The [...]

Today's challenge was fun and exciting! I chose the following quest from the "Quest Logs" Level 3: Heavier Things: Write a heavy metal boss theme. Death growl = optional. I love heavy metal and I really like hearing heavy metal tunes in games! First, I loaded one of my favorite electric guitar virtual instruments (Shreddage by Impact Soundworks) to DAW and start creating riffs and parts. Then I got an idea of the tempo and overall construction of the song, I started working on the drum. I loaded Toontrack's EzDrummer "Metal Machine" and shaped the song with it. Then I [...]

We're halfway there, and it's Day 11! However, I started to feel a bit... burnt-0ut.  Creating a sketch (or a piece) every day is nothing new, but writing about it, and SNS-ing about it every day is! It's been a nice challenge, though! So, anyway, I had to get my creative energy back somehow, and today, I decided to "Play with sounds".  Simple and fun. I found this nice challenge in "Quest Logs Level 4" : Office Space: Make an entire song using only recorded common office supplies and items. The quest says "Recorded common office supplies". I did not [...]

Getting busy with work and errands, and today I had very little time for this challenge. But yes, I did it! Today I tried this challenge from "Quest Log Level 4" : Sweet, Sweet Victory: Write a short, celebratory fanfare to play after the successful completion of a quest or battle. It's a fanfare to play, and I wanted to try a retro/8-bit/chiptune sound fanfare for this. And here's the outcome: Listen to Day10 - Sweet, sweet victory (The 21 days of VGM Composing Challenge) bySkittlegirl Sound on hearthis.at   Alright, then! I gotta go now! See you tomorrow! (UPDATED September [...]

Today, I decided to try the following quests from “Quest Logs” : Taco Cat: Write a melody and create a song around it. A palindrome is spelled the same backwards and forwards, like “racecar,” or “taco cat!” If it Ain’t Baroque: Write a period piece in the Baroque style. Check out Wikipedia for guidelines on style and musical instruments of the time. So this is a challenge of " melody palindrome”. I decided to write a small Menuett (in Baroque style), and first, I worked on sheet music to create the melody.  Then I came up with this: (The melody goes backward [...]

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. [...]