Good Moon Rising

Busy time in Elbisso world. Second year of Music Practice is ramping up; we have a weekend festival to organise in May and I have the unenviable position of Event Director... though for some reason I seem to be taking on more and more jobs as the days go by. Anyhoo, plenty to be doing, but I managed to get a free day last week and coincidentally a request for a piece of Games music came up from the UCLan Games Design students, this time from Richard Warner.

The game is called Luna, an action game set on a distant mining moon, whereon a seismic disaster has prevented our hero from returning to the surface and he has to traverse the deep chasms and tunnels for the moon to reach salvation. Along the way, various indigenous lifeforms attempt to eat our hero and were it not for our hero's drill and flamethrower, he'd surely perish.

Richard asked for a 2 minute piece to accompany the title screen of the game. He likened the style to the soundtracks of Moon and Sunshine. Here's my piece:

Luna by elbissopmiry

I used mostly minor chords with the occasional diminished 5th to give a sense of foreboding doom! Originally I decided to have the second section become more upbeat, as if an enemy had just appeared on screen and the music ramps up. Now this definitely wasn't what the client had requested and to be honest it was a bit of cheek trying to stick it in the there, but I felt brave that day and submitted the piece anyways. Now that I look back on it, it's a useful lesson in dealing with client-commissioned pieces: DO WHAT THEY ASK YOU TO. Simples.

Anyway the client wasn't going for the upbeat section and requested an extension of the first 1:20, with new instrumentation. A sampled wok sound was been added throughout, together with a short bassoon line at the end which seemed to do the trick.

I'm incredibly pleased with this one, it's akin to the atmospheric soundtrack from Borderlands (a favourite; if you've read post 1 you'd know that) and along the lines for the kind of soundtrack I'd like to be working one. You never know Luna might end up getting made, and hopefully I'll be able to expand on the work.