The beginner's guide to music. (Antiqua teasers)

[EXIA]

Hi,

I thought that instead of throwing music at all of you and expecting you to listen to it, I'd try doing things a bit differently.
In this thread, I will be giving teasers of the music that I am composing for Project Antiqua in the form of midi files that you can open yourself to look at.
I will also be explaining my choices behind the composition - but more importantly, I'll be teaching you how to write music yourself.

 

I work in notation (written music) rather than with a piano roll and blocks, so even if you've never read music before, this thread will help you, so you can understand everything.

 

ALL SONGS ARE TEASERS AND ARE IN MIDI FORM. THEY DO NOT FULLY REPRESENT HOW THEY ARE GOING TO SOUND IN-GAME.

(If this is in the wrong section, could a mod please move it, I was unsure where it belongs since it's both a tutorial and project related. Thanks.)
________________________________________________________________________________________

-Field-

Here is the midi.

 

It loops once, so you can hear how it loops.

I'll now give a basic outline of the writing process. Hopefully it'll give you a good insight on how to write your own music!
_________________________________________________________________________________________

These are the exact steps I took while writing this particular song. It's not the only way to write, but these steps will certainly help you to write better music. It may look and sound daunting at first, but I'll answer any questions you have.

 

STEP 1 - KEY, STRUCTURE AND INSTRUMENTATION

 

The first step to take when writing ANY music is deciding the key. This decides what notes fit with the music.

The scale of C minor (C D D#/Eb F G G#/Ab A#/Bb C low to high in both octaves)

It's unconventional, but I've used sharps instead of flats.

 

For this piece, I chose the key of C minor (Cm).
 

In terms of structure, this has 3 sections A, B and AB.

A - 8 bars

B - 8 bars

AB - 8 bars (related to both A and B )

 

(notice that the sections are of equal length, this is called regular form. Even in the weirdest, most messed up music you can find, there will be some element of this)
 

Regular form and key are the most important aspects of music. Without them, I guarantee your music will either sound horrible or will be boring.

 

Decide what instruments you want. I started with a trumpet, strings and a french horn.

 

Now for the fun stuff!

 

STEP 2 - MELODY AND HARMONY (part 1)

 

A nice place to start once you have decided on a Key is a basic melody.

For this piece, I started with the intro melody and went from there, but if you have a great idea for something in the middle of the piece, there's nothing wrong with working around it!

 

This is the melody that's played on the trumpet and violin in the first 8 bars.

 

There aren't many jumps between notes in the melody. This keeps the music sounding regular and makes it flow nicely.

- stick to notes from the key you chose earlier

- try not to "jump" between notes

- add shape to the music (eg. bars 1 and 3 rise, bars 2 and 4 fall)

- Write what YOU think sounds good

 

Humans like symmetry and this goes for music too.

-Think of your melody as a human face. They're the same on both halves, with subtle differences. (eg. 1-4 and 2-8 are basically the same, but bars 7 and 8 are slightly different from 3 and 4)

 

After getting the melody down, I harmonised with a french horn.

-use notes from the key, be careful of dissonance where it's not needed (you'll hear a "crunch" - that is BAD in most cases)

After 8 bars, I move to a new section of music.

 

 

2 and 4 are harmonised in the first half, but to add to the change in the second half, I harmonised 6, 7 and 8

 

 

Now you have an awesome melody and some harmony to start with, it's time to step it up a notch!

 

 

 

 

STEP 3 - CHORDS

 

The next section has a melody and chords. I decided on basic chords first, then wrote a melody to fit.

chords are labelled between the two lines

Again, use notes from the key and if you're struggling, look for a chord chart online, it's honestly the easiest and most simple way to learn them.

 

A -great- starting place is a canon. This is a series of chords that remains the same throughout a piece of music.

-write a 4 or 8 bar chord sequence (8 is more interesting)

-remember to use notes from the key

-remember the structure you decided earlier, does your sequence fit?

 

 

Hey presto! you have a chord sequence (it's probably sexy)

 

STEP 4 - MELODY (part 2)

 

Once I had chords, I wrote a new melody that for my B section and then I combinated it with the one from section A to make the final 8 bars.

-use notes from the key

-remember to make it rise and fall, this keeps it interesting.

-SYMMETRY! (eg. if you have 8 bars, write two halves of 4 bars)

 

STEP 5 - FINISH IT OFF

 

Now you have the outline of your song, well done!

 

You might like it how it is,  but if you're like me, you want more!

 

I added snares and a timpani, to drive the music. Experiment with rhythm, see what fits your song.

I also copied melodies over to other parts (eg, the final 8 bars, I copied the trumpet melody to the strings so that the two together sounded bigger)

 

 

 

 

 

Like I said before, if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask. This is my first tutorial, so I hope it was helpful!

 

I'll be posting stuff on here as Mellow lets me reveal stuff. Deathbasket and I have quite the back catalogue forming

EDIT - for some reason the images have all gone. I'm readding them. Holler if there are any problems. There shouldn't be...

[Jason777]

I think a cool thing to add to this would be a small guide on how to import the MIDI into the ROM.

[EXIA]

I'd love to do that, however, I'm actually still learning that myself! I'll write something up as soon as I get the hang of it though!

[HeavyZ]

I've got a small guide I have messaged to a few people. I guess I'll post it here.

 

Here's DeathBasket's tutorial for the InstEd. He forgets to mention a lot of things, For example when you see him editing the text documents he is setting the instrument set list to what it is supposed to be, because most of the time, even though you set the list everything in the text document gets set to "inst 0" which you will want to change the "0" into what instrument you think it should be... this is often a guessing game, unless you are lucky, and someone named the instruments on each track.

Then the text documents labled "Ch_0", or "Ch_1" will say "Ch_0_track_1_trumpet" which isn't because you put trumpet in the set list to begin with, but because that's what the person who made the midi set it as. Sometimes you may have to edit the "vol" as well.

 

Another note is that if you have a program you can view midi's in music sheet form then you won't have to guess what instruments are what.

My brother uses one for editing music. I will post what it is in this thread later.

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=w2LlIm6FV_c

 

Now try to mimic what he did in his video, then read the rest of this.

 

Here is the Instrument sets and sequences

 

https://sites.google...s-and-sequences

 

That is important because certain instrument sets share the same sequences. For example:

Instrument set "0x03" is not used only for Hyrule Field, but multiple different area's, or specific parts of the game.. hence "sequences" in the InstEd you may already seen this value simply put as "3" under "set to replace"

 

Kakarikio Village music value "19" also has Hyrule Fields instrument set "0x03" and Kakariko Village is not the only sequence that shares the same instrument set as Hyrule Field. So do the things listed below..

 

"1A" when an enemy is near

"1B" The Boss (Gohma's boss battle music)

"1F" inside Links house

"21" the boss is defeated

and ect.. there are more, but you should be able to figure which ones are which.

 

You will also want the music value page

 

http://wiki.spinout1...oT_Music_Values

 

This page has all of the values for the sequences, or area's of the game.. though some could be labled better, you will notice that Hyrule Fields "night" is not listed, and neither is Lake Hylia. That is because it is one of the sequences listed under instrument set 0x03 on the other page I have already given you.... don't think anyone has figured out what each Hyrule Field music value is for.

 

The easiest way to explain where a music value goes is simple. DeathBasket put the number "2" (Hyrule Field) as the default value in the InstEd to replace.

 

Now sometimes if you have a value with a number, and letter for a sequence.. say "Deku Tree underground/Dungeon" the value will be listed as "1C" but in Instead you will type it as "$1C"

 

Sometimes you have to do that even when letters, and numbers are not mixed in the value. Though most of the time it's only when numbers, and letters are mixed in it.

 

Here is a list of the instruments in OoT

 

WoodWinds

Piccolo

Ocarina

Oboe

Clarinet

Harmonica

Egyption Flute

Basoon

 

Brass

Trumpet

Trombone

Tuba

Horn

 

Percussion

Glockenspiel

Xylophone

Steel Drum

Hand Clap - (basically sounds like a snair drum most of the time)

Drum

Goron Drum

Cowbell

Tambourine

Bell

Cymbal

What - (guessing you would say it's the goron noise in the Goron City song?)

 

Strings

Arco

Pizzicato

solo violin

Harp

Koto

Banjo

Nylon Guitar

Steel Guitar

Bass Guitar

 

Keyboards

Piano

Harpischord

Organ

Accordion

String Synth

Voice Synth

Bell Synth

 

Voices

Male Choir

Female Choir

Malon

Islamic Chant - (the one used in the Fire Temple)

 

Ambient

Pad

Wind Chime

Wood Chime

Wind

Creeking

Sounds 1

Sounds 2

Sounds 3

[EXIA]

Nice one Heavy, that's perfect for this thread!

[giadrosich]

I've added a link in the tutorial page to this thread.

[HeavyZ]

Thanks I'm always down to contribute stuff like this when I can.

Edited: Oh yeah, and the program you can use to edit music, in music sheet form, and see the instruments on each track is Sibelius.

 

That's the one I mentioned in the last post of this thread.

[EXIA]

Here's a list of the software I use for different situations, in case people are interested:Sheet music

-Sibelius 6-Guitar Pro 5 (this is what you see in the screen shots, I much prefer it to Sibelius)DAWs-Cubase 5 (my personal favourite, perfect for realising compositions, or even composing sometimes. I also record my band when we've got stuff to do)

-Ableton live 8 (For electronic music and live performances)

-Reason 5 (The BEST DAW to learn sequencing and synth-making. It's also able to run in slave mode for Cubase and Ableton, which is useful)

 

Other

-Kontakt 5 (acts as a VST inside Cubase, allows multiple outputs using different instrument libraries)

 

Instruments

-Cornet

-Trumpet

-Shine 6 string strat

-Schecter Omen 7 (my baby)

[if I had a working midi keyboard, I'd use that too]

 

Hardware

-Acer Aspire Laptop (4gb ram, 500Gb Harddrive, pretty standard)

-Behringer Xenyx 302USB (USB audio device, used for recording and listening to audio)

 

You don't need a fancy setup to produce high quality music (example)

___________________________________________________________________________

 

 

The tutorial I wrote uses nothing but Guitar Pro 5. It's not as streamlined as Sibelius for writing sheet music, but by using the tab mode, it's much faster to use once you're used to it.

 

Sibelius looks fancy and does a lot of the surface work for you (changing note values so that they fit the bar).

 

 

If you're looking for something purely for composing midi, I strongly recommend either guitar pro 5 (NOT 6, IT'S AWFUL) or Reason 5.

[EXIA]

I just showed this page to my friend, who advised me that I sound very condescending in my tutorial. I'd just like to make it clear that I'm trying not to sound like a know-it-all.

I've never tried writing tutorials before, so the only way I can really "teach" is how I've always been taught, which is in a pretty blunt manner.

On another note, I'd also like to say that my compositions aren't perfect. However, you may call me big headed for thinking this, but I do think that they are of a  higher standard than other stuff that I've seen since arriving here.

I put this down to years in music education and actually having to do this as a job.

Ultimately, I just want to help people to achieve the standard of music writing that they want and I'll be more than happy to help with any composition/production related questions.

Sorry if I've come across as an asshole.

 

EDIT: as my apology - enjoy

[HeavyZ]

That thought never ran across my mind. Nice list for writing music! I don't know how to write music in sheet form, so I could only suggest what my brother used.

[HeavyZ]

Sorry for the double post, but I figured it was important enough.

 

So, I wanted to change the music in the Lost Woods without changing the Lost Woods song that Darunia dances too. After mentioning something about it to Spire he pointed me in SanguinettieMods direction, and SanguinettieMods said this.

 

"Replace a different sequence and change the sequence that plays in the lost woods. You change that by editing the Lost Wood's scene file. In the Scene's header, look for a 0x15 command. The format for that is 

 

15xx0000 0000yyzz

 

where

 

x = reverb

y = music playback option, 0x13 = always playing z = track to play"

 

And that's pretty much it. By doing that you can do something like give Lake Hylia a different song without changing Hyrule Fields.

 

Edited:

Also this website is really good to go too if you want midi's

http://www.vgmusic.com

 

[Strati]

Just to complement this info, the yy above referred as "music playback" option stands for the scene's night bgm. The night bgm uses a different audio type, that plays nature sounds. A setting of 0x00 is found into scenes with the complete day-night cycle and will play the standard night noises. The 0x13 setting is found in dungeons and indoors, so the music will be always playing, independent of the time of the day. 01 - Standard night [Kakariko]02 - Distant storm [Graveyard]03 - Howling wind and cawing [Ganon's Castle]04 - Wind + night birds [Kokiri]05, 08, 09, 0D, 0E, 10, 12 - Wind + crickets06,0C - Wind07 - Howling wind0A - Tubed howling wind [Wasteland]0B - Tubed howling wind [Colossus]0F - Wind + birds14, 16, 18, 19, 1B, 1E - silence1C - Rain17, 1A, 1D, 1F - high tubed wind + rain

[HeavyZ]

Isn't there sound fonts, or something you can download to check how a song would sound once ported into the game? If so that definitely would be a nice addition to this thread.

[SanguinettiMods]

Soundfonts can never emulate exactly how the song will sound in-game. It can just come kind of close. For best results, it's best that you import it into the game.

[HeavyZ]

Yeah, I notice the game always emulates the flute too high pitched, I guess because the only flute in the game is the one the skull kids play. The drums rarely ever sound close to what they should either.

[EXIA]

If anyone needs soundfonts, Punk7890 is the person to talk to, they know their stuff.

[HeavyZ]

Thanks for the tip Faceless. Even if it doesn't sound exactly like it I'm sure the person who is working on the music for my project could use it. I've had to port music into the game, call him and show what needed to be changed because of the way the game emulates music. It's weird, but there was a note or two that wouldn't play after being ported in the ALTTP Lost Woods song, the Piccolo emulates flutes way too high pitched too, and sometimes I can't even assign that instrument to a clarinet or something because the clarinet won't emulate high notes.

 

Edited:

Punk7890 sent me a link to the soundfonts

https://www.the-gcn.com/topic/2503-ocarina-of-time-soundfont-update/