A couple things actually.  (I know, I know: “Slow down, Nelson!  We can’t take this breakneck pace of information!”)

Firstly:  the new Wizard 101 world has been teased announced released for testing released!  That’s right: as we speak, the new world EMPYREA is available to play from Kings Isle.  This also means this entire world’s music is on YouTube if you don’t want to actually bother playing a really fun game.  (-;  It was a fun assignment with a lot of diverse influences and not a lot of cohesive styles (at least musically.)  My theory is, since we’re getting into the center of the Spiral, and the land is a chaotic storm-covered crash-landing site for hapless travelers, there’s a little bit of everything;  I got to explore some epic space themes (my fave!) some creepy horror themes, and some dark superhero styles.  And don’t forget epic combat tracks…  always so many combat tracks.  (-;

And to celebrate the end finale of all that hard composing work, I wanted to try something different, something I hinted at – omg was it really- in JUNE!?  Over the last few months I’ve been working slowly diligently to get the proper permissions, sign the legal documents*, consult with lawyers**, and file the appropriate BMI Form 81Bs*** to secure the rights for an interesting experiment.

* No legal documents were required

** No lawyers were consulted

*** Not even a real thing

I’ve watched countless videos of graphic and comic strip artists and illustrators create their work, but how do you do that with music and composing?  There’s a lot of:

[plays chord]

nope.

[plays chord]

nope.

[plays chord]

that’s okay

[plays next chord]

nope.

etc etc etc.  It’s not a compelling process to watch.

So I decided to just experiment by throwing together a YouTube video showing my session and talking about how I came up with different parts, saving you from having to watch the arduous boring parts.  I talk a bit about how I approach composing game music, some of my sounds and techniques to make them sound better…  honestly just whatever I could think of in response to questions I’ve gotten over the years about how I do what I do.  It’s not exhaustive, but maybe it’ll be interesting to someone?

Here’s the not-yet-public link:

Please take a minute and let me know what worked for you and what didn’t, and I’ll try to incorporate your input into future videos (unless your feedback is, “don’t make any more videos.”)  My plan is to do a few more Empyrea session studies in this series, and if people like them to maybe do some on my other projects, maybe even older game tracks.  Watching this one back, I came up with all sorts of things I should have talked about, so hopefully the other videos might fill in the gaps.

Thanks!

-n