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Posted

I've been listening to a fantasy audiobook series I'm enjoying and thought, for fun, I'd create my own soundtrack to the audiobook. 

The audiobook series I'm sketching along to as I listen is called The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan.

I've strung together six tracks in this audio file:

1. Main Title Theme (with an intro)

2. "Dragonmount" (big sorcery moment in the prologue of the first book in the series, a character dies by burying himself inside a mountain... it's complicated)

3. "Egwene" a character from the book - a kind of romantic interest for the main protagonist

4. The Dark One - the chief antagonist of the series

5. Battle Sequence - things get pretty dicey at times

6. Main Theme Reprise

The score is included as well and should be fairly readable. 

It's my first attempt at writing Incidental Music. Feedback is welcome! I hope you enjoy listening! 

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Posted

Very epic with copious use of percussion and plenty of variation in tempo.  The Lute seems to get it's own unique melodic material in this and it does make me wonder what that motif represents in this soundtrack of yours.  Seems almost like a menacing preamble to the antagonist maybe?  Near the end it sounds like a solo instrument in a concerto and is transformed into almost a kind of love theme it sounds like.  The low choir at 1:20 is pretty cool but I feel like when it starts out it's a kind of menacing choir cliche.  I wish you had labeled the different sections/tracks that you've strung together in the score for reference.  I can't be sure that I'm talking about the right section of the music (the part that starts at around 5:24) but I felt like the Battle sequence wasn't intense enough.  It sounded like a preparation for a battle that was coming but never quite action-packed like I expected.  I think it's a great idea to do this kind of soundtrack and I am glad to hear that you gain enjoyment from setting some great fictional material to music.  I must say that I've also enjoyed listening and this has definitely grown on me since the first time that I heard it.  Great job!

Posted

Thank you for the feedback! 

I’ll go into the score and label them as you suggest. That’s a good idea! Should have thought to do that, but I get in a hurry to post sometimes and forget the obvious. 

The Lute is another character, a storyteller named Thom who carries a small harp around with him wherever he goes. I want  it to sound more like a Lute, though the sound I get from Note Performer is actually a Mandolin... oh well. It’s not exactly the perfect sound I wanted, but it’ll have to do for now.

Just try to imagine hearing softer attacks in the plucking of the strings, which a genuine lute sound would give me (something in between the stronger attack of the mandolin and the gentler attack of the harp string).

I also thought about the Classical Guitar, but meh... I guess I’m torn. Seems like a classical guitar would be too much of an Old Western/Spanish vibe, like Desperado (Antonio Banderas) or something. I didn’t  want to go there. 

The lute arpeggiation is representative, at least to me, of Thom telling his tales to the main protagonists of the book. He’s like a window (one of many) into the myth and lore of the world Jordan keeps building in the series, so the presence of the lute is significant in that sense. I have yet to finish the series (to even know what happens), but I’m just composing as I continue through the series as ideas strike me. 

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