Skip to main content
↑
↓
Spherical forums
Community for the
Sphere game engine
New?
Contact Us
to register an account!
1 Hour
1 Day
1 Week
1 Month
Forever
Community
Help
Search
Recent Posts
Log in
Contact Us
News
Spherical
Facebook
-
Twitter
-
Discord chat
New?
Contact us
to register an account!
General Discussion
Off-Topic Discussions
Inspiration for music?
1
Print
Topic: Inspiration for music?
(Read 3959 times)
previous topic
-
next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Eggbertx
High Poster
Posts: 352
Logged
Inspiration for music?
July 26, 2017, 04:09:39 pm
I would like to write my own music for games, but a lot of my stuff tends to be somewhat derivative (i.e. using some other song as a base). Where do you usually draw inspiration or get ideas for your music? I know people often say that nothing is truly original (or something like that), but I would like to work on being having more originality without sounding generic or boring.
My GitHub
QtSphere IDE, (eventually) the one Sphere IDE to rule them all
DaVince
Legendary Poster
Posts: 1,001
Logged
Administrator
Used Sphere for, like, half my life
Re: Inspiration for music?
Reply #1
–
July 27, 2017, 03:33:53 pm
Tough question! Personally, I just get a melody in my head and then try to make it a reality, and kind of improvise from there. For some commissioned work I get info about the general theme, and try to get a general feel going of what I want first and then put a melody and bass line on top of that.
I think it's important, however, to learn music theory. I also recommend the channel
Ongaku Concept
, which teaches a lot of interesting concepts that can help you make more complex music.
Also, to provide a counter-example, in Punch Club's case I DID do a lot of directly derivative stuff like
Tetris
,
Smooth Criminal
and
Mortal Kombat
. Sticking to a specific set of samples and a general style still made them unique to their own thing though.
Spherical Downloads Repo
||
My (really old) Sphere stuff
Eggbertx
High Poster
Posts: 352
Logged
Re: Inspiration for music?
Reply #2
–
August 02, 2017, 12:57:10 am
Those are pretty cool. I was kind of thinking of using some heavily remixed future funk songs for MonoBomber, but at the same time, I don't want to sound like I just ripped them off. I've you've never heard of future funk,
this
is a great mix.
My GitHub
QtSphere IDE, (eventually) the one Sphere IDE to rule them all
DaVince
Legendary Poster
Posts: 1,001
Logged
Administrator
Used Sphere for, like, half my life
Re: Inspiration for music?
Reply #3
–
August 02, 2017, 07:21:41 am
I can see why that would be tough, considering the whole concept of Future Funk relies on sampling other peoples' work anyway.
I think
this video on the well-known amen break
will help you a little - it goes through a history of a very commonly used drum loop, as well as a progression on how it was used and mixed over time. In the later stages of the sample's usage it almost seems like an entirely different loop altogether. I'm not really into the remixing scene much but I think this is a pretty important part of remixing if you want to make the samples and references you use truly a new and unique thing.
You could also try to think of your own melody and cut samples in such a way that they follow the melody that you made up. Maybe use very obscure samples from obscure things, or less well-known variations of those things.
Again though, I don't really remix, just trying to think of what could help in this situation.
Spherical Downloads Repo
||
My (really old) Sphere stuff
1
Print
General Discussion
Off-Topic Discussions
Inspiration for music?