![]() ![]() There's a lot of back and forth and a lot of give and take between composer and developers, to ensure the exact tone is struck. And now I'm going to write music within that world, based upon what they've given me, provided as inspiration, or to show me what is going on visually." "Once you've developed that, and happy with it, and they're on board with all that, then I know the style and know what I and Bear have created. "The hardest part almost always is at the beginning, when you're developing themes and a musical style that fits that particular project," says Schyman. Were there any particular challenges with creating music for an open world game? It's like, when we found her and she started doing it, 'yeah, that just works'. "We wanted her to sing what her authentic sound was and it just seemed to fit. She's a young Black woman, and so was Frey, and just seemed to beautifully represent the character," says Schyman. "It just sounded right as soon as we heard her. ![]() You can certainly hear that in Frey's theme, where the initial, somewhat mournful, melody is almost restrained before Carney unleashes some impressive vocal runs later on.Ĭarney's voice also fits with Frey as a character. When I was done, actually, I was almost sorry that I hadn't added more of her, because she just adds this whole uniqueness to everything she sang on." And she did some really beautiful improvisations over what I had written," he says. "Besides singing what I'd written for her, I said 'if you have any ideas, if you want to improvise.'. It's this versatility Schyman was keen to utilise. He adds: "She does everything, she's amazing", regarding her versatile vocal that alternates between a sort of gospel vibe and more choral sound. She's not in every cue, I didn't use her all the time, but in certain cues, she just really brought it to life. ![]() "She sort of became the voice of Frey, the main character. "India has a beautiful voice, she was a great discovery for both Bear and myself," says Schyman. The vocalist is Black singer India Carney, whose singing becomes a sort of human anchor within the music. That's certainly apparent in Frey's theme, characterised by a yearning vocal melody sung over lush accompaniment and a synthesised drum beat. What's more, Schyman experimented with hip-hop beats along with traditional orchestral scoring to reflect Frey's journey from modern day New York to Athia. One such dissonant interval Schyman used is the tritone, which is as far away as two notes can be within the twelve pitches of the chromatic scale - it was known as 'diabolus in musica' (the Devil in music) from the 18th century onwards.Īdding to the fantasy sound is the use of unusual and primitive instruments, such as the viola d'amore - a six-stringed Baroque viola - as well as choir and synthesiser. "It was triadic but with lots of added dissonance.to give the harmonies rich vocabulary." Essentially, rather than just basic three-note chords, extra notes are added outside of the home key for a more complex harmonic sound. "I went more with a mysterious fantasy, action and combat music," explains Schyman. Schyman picks out Frey's theme and the theme for central city Cipal as key pieces: the latter features long musical phrases tinged with dissonance over harp accompaniment to really add to the mystical vibe. Schyman and McCreary shared responsibility for the score, composing a number of themes between them that Schyman elaborated on for the in-game music. ![]() He adds: " really wanted something in a way traditional, but the score also, I think, has some very unique elements as well." "So that is a very dominant style right now in film and television, and games too. There are a lot of films with terrific scores, but they're pretty ambient, they're pretty sound design-y shall we say, for lack of a better word. "And games often provide the opportunity to write melody, which I love. "I love writing melody, and you know what, I think the audience loves melody," says Schyman. Composers Garry Schyman (the BioShock series, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and more) and Bear McCreary (God of War Ragnarök, and Amazon's Rings of Power series) took on the job together of writing music for Frey's adventure.īut how do you create the sound of a fantasy world through music? And what is the musical voice of Frey? "It really was an opportunity to write something that's not just combat and not just dark it was an opportunity to write melodies."įorspoken is the latest fantasy epic from Square Enix, following a young woman named Frey who finds herself transported from modern day New York to the strange world of Athia. "It's quite a stunning world that created, so it gave me an opportunity to write some very beautiful music," says Forspoken co-composer Garry Schyman. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |