Musical Thematics - Jaheira's Theme
BelgarathMTH
Member Posts: 5,653
Hello, I am a musician in real life. My interest in musical thematics started with the release of Star Wars and John Williams' music in 1978 (Main Title, Luke's Theme, Leia's Theme, Good Side of the Force Theme, etc., interspersed through the whole trilogy soundtrack, descended from Wagnerian leitmotif).
I can't believe I never made this connection before, but Jaheira's romance theme is directly stated in the B Theme of the Main Title of Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn.
I wonder if this means that the "canon" SoA story was meant to be that Charname is a male and will eventually wind up married to Jaheira?
I don't hear any of the other themes in the Main Title (Ano's, Aerie's, Viconia's). Are there any other music-sensitive people in here who can point out other insights about Hoenig's musical soundtrack?
On a side note, at least one of the battle music tracks is a variation on the A Theme of the Main Title. I would speculate that Michael Hoenig may have been inspired by Wagner and John Williams in his compositional style. The superlative music of the series certainly adds to the epic feel of the game, as any music-sensitive person will tell you.
I can't believe I never made this connection before, but Jaheira's romance theme is directly stated in the B Theme of the Main Title of Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn.
I wonder if this means that the "canon" SoA story was meant to be that Charname is a male and will eventually wind up married to Jaheira?
I don't hear any of the other themes in the Main Title (Ano's, Aerie's, Viconia's). Are there any other music-sensitive people in here who can point out other insights about Hoenig's musical soundtrack?
On a side note, at least one of the battle music tracks is a variation on the A Theme of the Main Title. I would speculate that Michael Hoenig may have been inspired by Wagner and John Williams in his compositional style. The superlative music of the series certainly adds to the epic feel of the game, as any music-sensitive person will tell you.
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Lemotif. Actually Final Fantasy IV was doing this way before most games.
It's good game directing.
I wrote the music to a Never Winter Nights Mod called "Maimed God's Saga" where I used it.
Themes have to mean something psychologically in the game or film in order to mean something as they are reused and re-arranged to create a new emotion for a part or character.
This is really why a composer needs to understand the subject he is composing for and be part of the music directing when adding the music.
BG series could have done a 100000 times better job of using Motifs and creating emotion through out the game. *but hey it worked* ^_-
Since I am blabbing I will give you an example:
Let's say Spell Hold music as an atmosphere track is actually part of The Main Bad guys theme or vampires theme, or whatever.
In the dungeons of Spell Hold you would Arrange the music to use the same theme or Motif but as more sinister and create more tension. That way the music would hold the listener more psychologically as they play in Spell Hold(Evil character theme-Spell Hold, Spell Hold Dungeon)
You could take it even further then by Arranging the Evil Character theme whatever to huge dark Epic Battle piece as you fight in Spell Hold Dungeon. (Boss Track in Spell Hold)
And yeah, you got my joke about "music-sensitive" people. I was obviously thinking of the term "force-sensitive" from Star Wars. LOL.
To many personal projects. Cd's etc. I am using 8dio Hybrid Tools 2 right now.
I could have composed the music for BG3 or any game like any other composer. Your just following what the director wants and getting a feel for the material. To compose music for BG and add music you have to listen to that music and the compose in that style and instruments but add your own music style to it.
I consider Western Game RPG soundtracks to be totally cliche'. which is ok but then how can we make it amazing and like WOW and so evocative and so emotional using that model for RPG's?
Generally it's Celtic Styles, folk etc. With Large orchestration and Choir, and Big drums for the Epic themes. The Idea is to pull the listener in and make them feel the world, the game, the characters.
When I hear people say I turn the music off or I listen to something else I shake my head.
later^_-
I notice that Hoenig really likes to use a lot of harp, especially for love themes. And lots of brass for hero's themes and battles. And I guess you're right that the whole style is cliche, but I still love it.
Best of luck to you in your composition career. Are you actually making your living in music? I am a violist, and I teach band and orchestra by trade.
also, i think viconia's theme is very similar/variation to the music in the character generation screen (the slow, second one).
as far as i know, in books, the bhaalspawn is male and his love interest is jaheira, so there. on the other hand it may not be intentional. i felt the themes reflected personality of a character in question (viconia dark and sad, aerie innocent and naive, jaheira mature and anomen proud/pompouos).
i hope developers will include more of music themes, it really makes the game much more immersive (planescape was great in that department,even icewind dale) i even started a thread aboput that
Written in Modes and used as solo or with voice and strings for romantic and love songs.
Harp, Celtic Low Flute melody, Strings back up harmony(or mixed with Pads)
Typical arrangement.
Na right now I am just doing my own thing that I am pretty excited about.
(Tsutomu Nihei Blame!2 Film Sound track)
(Classical Piano Sonatas)
I know a lot of people in the music industry though.
Working in the industry is always from previous jobs to get jobs. Writing music for films or games
is very very hard to get into for AAA games.
Teaching Orchestration are you also using Sibelius 7 for that?
As a composer you have to have all the samples and be able to completely recreate sound and feel of a real orchestra.
Nothing wrong with Cliche I am just saying that with in the context of the music it needs that
WOW factor.
Witcher 2 as a game sound track for an rpg had that WOW factor, even The Witcher had a quite a few
tracks with it. Great Game Directing in that.
Maybe some day I will decide to compose for a up coming rpg. At the moment there really isn't anything to exciting in development. When and if BG3 is started it will be a very big deal!
Should use same composer as the guy adding extra music to BG and BG2.
It's funny but most of the times in a work the themes are just Cues that play for say a 60 seconds sometimes and even shorter.
Cue plays here for this emotion that type of thing.
A lot of Devs will cut corners and use what's called writing for the Library. What that means is a composer has composed music as a style and that track maybe used by other Directors and Producers. There a lot of composers that compose for libraries.
Lot of Places that use them as placement, like say taxi.com
The Cues that play for the romance in BG2 sound to me like they were taken from a library...Let me explain:
Jaheira's Romance theme is nice, nice cello nice warm sound....ok it plays then what nothing!
It should as a (Cliche' sure) go into a full orchestra with Horns playing the strings harmony and the upper strings taking over the main melody in octaves, and yea we can have a harp too. Then that could be the second section of the theme^_- A full Romantic Theme. At the very least is should have a second section or variation.
Same with Aeries Theme(I always had her as the love interest)
Instead of a simple minimal style harp piece it could go into a second part that adds
strings under neath with say Celtic Flute or something on top.
As it is it's just some Romance Cue but people love it! It's all good!
Oh and there not re-used as different arrangements in the game.
I can barely remember the music in the game as I haven't played it in a year sorry.
Please remember a lot of things I say on the music is my own opinion. Being a composer
your become very clinical about music in media.
People love the music in the game that's what matters.