For musicians: How do you make town or calm music?

[eziam1 0]

Hello Members and Guests, as well as musicians and music enthusiasts!

 

Being the amateur(?) musician for electronic music for almost more than 2 years, most fast paced music is a breeze for me. A question to musicians, or even to ones who know about music: How do you make or picture town music, as well as calming music?

 

Having practiced music on a bpm range of 128-150, and being electronic dance music, it's quite hard to make calm music. Some tracks succeeded, but town music is something difficult.

 

How do you picture it? How would you think a process making a calm track would be?

 

These are the only calm music created, and those aren't even fitting for so called towns. That's 2 songs out of the huge list of tracks made. (Including outside of Soundcloud)

 

https://soundcloud.com/eligrand-one/game-soundtrack-main

https://soundcloud.com/eligrand-one/game-soundtrack-urban-jazz-time

 

Considering the following: Since these will be made using a DAW program, will this affect it's process? (Both the tracks were technically created in a DAW Program, but not DAW plugins(?))

(Musicians on this forum do a great job at calm music)

[BrashDarrington 1]

Hey there! So far I like what you got in those two tracks. The "Main" track drums totally reminded me of the ancient era music from Civ 3. The one piece of advice I can share is stay in your major scales for your town stuff. It's gotta be all bright and cheerful. Unless your doing like an island town, then just make it sound like a girls gone wild commercial with steel drums and your gold. And as weird as it might be (I make electronica too, so its tough) try using different time signatures. If you study late golden era RPG's (FF7, BOF3, Star Ocean, etc) they use a lot of 3/4 or 3/5. You know those Japanese musicians are all classically trained, so you got to play on their turf if you want to pump something out like that.  

[EpicFILE 200]

You're my opposite, then. I find it challenging enough to make fast, "energizing" music. 

 

Anyway, first thing to do when making a calm music is of course, relax.

This can be done by playing an already existing calm music on guitar,

or playing randomly with 7th or 11th chords (those chords, somehow can make me feel more relaxed, maybe it's just me, but you can try it!  ).

Or, you can listen to the relaxing music.

When you've got that relaxed state, imagination will come eventually.

 

Choose the right instruments. Most of the times, instruments like flute and harp can make a calm atmosphere.

 

 

Hope that helps!

[Arrpeegeemaker 136]

For towns, I ALWAYS start off with the melody

The drums and will follow those, not the bass. The bass will provide the contrast, and the true rhythm of the song. 

The main melody is often a wind instrument or a keyboard/synth/keyed type of plugin. 

 

Often times, Town Music doesn't require drums at all, especially for simpler things. 

 

Your first track sounds like a camp, not a town. Not a bad track at all, in fact it's a very visual type of experience. The second one doesn't really feel like a game track, but it could be a city in a game where you aren't from the city, or a game where there's only 1 city and everything else is a village or town. 

 

I hope some of this is helpful, just try writing a simple melody first, and attach everything to that in the order I described. And listen to some old rpg town music, back when there was less available instrumentation and sound quality and composition was everything. Pay attention to how they use the bass, it's actually quite different from traditional sense, in my opinion. 

[David Lister 1]

I'm going to echo some of the same things my fellow composer's have said above.  Here's what I would suggest.

 

1. Compose in 3/4 (waltz) and keep the tempo somewhat moderate - somewhere between 90 and 120, but not over 120 bpm.

2. Start with a harp arpeggio for rhythm and movement, simply outlining (major) chords - like C, F, G.  (...and drop the drums for now...)

3. Create a theme over the top of the harp arpeggio using an English Horn, Clarinet or Flute.  Once again, keep it simple - and always repeat your theme at least twice before moving on to the next idea.  (You might get tired of it, but the listener will not - it's all new to him.)

 

You can add strings and other decorations later (chimes, vibes, glock, tambourine, etc.), but start with a solid theme first and establish that basic idea.

 

If this doesn't make sense, let me know.  I can post an example in a couple of minutes.  Good luck!!

[Jonnie91 1,149]

I'm pretty much gonna continue on with the advice of the other musicians here. Start with your tune, you want the tune to be catchy and memorable, especially if it's for a main town theme. You want that theme to stick in their heads, so that when they've left the town/village they go..Oh I need to go back to that place with the Harps and Piano...(for people who are completely un-musically trained). 

 

As the others have said, lower your tempo, don't go over 120BPM, personally for my slower tracks I don't normally go over 100BPM, cause I prefer the slower style. But that's all subjective. 

 

Also, start using your major scales more, a good solid start, is (if you're composing via a keyboard) leave them black notes alone. (just to start off with) keep yourself in the C Major Key, a lot of the time, this helps keep you on the happy and joyous sounds. It's also easier to play for people who aren't as confident on Piano.