Tanner Helland’s Interesting Stuff

Planet Source Code is one of my favorite open source programming sites on the internet.  I’ve been involved with PSC since the late 90’s, and still like to drop in every now-and-then.  I was doing this just last week when I came across “Wild Waters” (follow the link above), a freeware 2d game written in VB by Trent Jackson.   Trent was looking for music for the project, so I looked around and found this old (but good!) song sitting on my hard drive and offered it to Trent as a theme song for his project.  It seems to fit!

Known as “It Begins.mid” back in TGP/TLA days, this song is a simple arcade-style theme song.  I based it loosely off “Cold” by matchbox twenty and I’m still fond of it even though it hasn’t been online for several years.  I don’t know why I never uploaded this before - it’s a decent theme!

What I find weird about this song is that the human brain naturally associates this with some kind of patriotic event.  I don’t know how brains work, but for some reason if I weren’t to tell you the name of this song and have you listen to it, I bet you would say it sounded patriotic.  How does that work?  The human brain is really something…

The ocean sound effect is because Tiberia is located on the ocean, as we all know.  It also makes for a great introductory sound effect.  MIDI horns are a bit disappointing, but otherwise this song came together nicely.  If someone wants to write words for this then it would be a true national anthem.  Feel free! 

I love all (or at least most, heh) of my music, but “Faith” stands out as one of my top all-time favorites.

Spirituality has always been an important part of my life, and I’ve always wanted to write a spiritually-themed song that - in a way words can’t do - affirmed my faith in something higher.  While “Faith” may not do that perfectly, I think it’s the closest I’ve yet come.

Technically, I don’t know where this fits musically; the main melody isn’t even a melody - it’s a simple chord progression.  The 2nd section is a 4-part harmony (even correctly harmonized for the most part), and the final section is distinctly modern.  The instrument mix is all over the place but was designed to be largely churchy in nature (hence the organ and choir throughout).  The percussion was added as an afterthought because I felt it added majesty to the epic sections of the song in a way only percussion can do.

You may wonder why (for a song I’m so proud of) I’ve never used anything more than the default XP soundfont for its mp3 recording.  For now, the choice is deliberate: there is purposely nothing fancy about the instruments in this arrangement.  What I find magical about this is how, despite their simplicity, the synth instruments work together to create something beautifully complex.

Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned here…

There are a lot of cool features in this song, the main one being that this song uses only three (yes, three) different chords.  Written in c# minor, all I used was the VI, VII, and i chords - repeated in the same pattern throughout - as part of an experiment to see what I could accomplish with a minimalist chord structure.  Even I was surprised at the outcome.  This is the most realistic sound I’ve ever heard drawn from the default WinXP soundfont.  I’d challenge anyone to try and pull something better out of it! :p

The amazing intensity of this simple piece comes entirely from instrumentation and subtle melodic varations between the separate voices.  Harmonically, I think this song is one of my best accomplishments.  “From Here” is very simple but very moving.  I guess this is a lesson to stick to simple structures rather than complex ones - as I’ve written elsewhere, the best themes are often the simple but memorable ones!

“Find You” is another return to the roots of classic RPG music.  Originally designed as a main theme (or main character theme), this song was probably my first real non-battle orchestral theme.  The melody itself is purposefully short and simple, and the three levels of orchestration (duet -> trio -> epic) are typical for a theme song.  The counterpoint between the oboe and brass in the final section worked out particularly well.

Some have said this theme sounds familiar to Braveheart; in retrospect I suppose it does.  Another friend mentioned that it would have fit FF6 well.  I’m still looking for a game deserving of this great little song…hopefully I’ll someday find a home for it.

And though it’s old, I daresay it’s one of my best theme songs.  Would you agree?