I met Jonathan's work on the internet and it was love at first sight or… listened. His music is perfect for all the situations I had written for Order from Caos. He is extremely talented and is an essential part of the game for me. His music creates another layer over what I wrote and made. So, I talked briefly with him and I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Order from Caos has three musics you composed. “A Tale of Water” is the first one to appear on the game. What does this music mean to you?
JONATHAN SHAW: “A Tale of Water” is a free track from my “RPG Orchestral Essentials” music library, intended mainly as an introspective, reflective piece of ambient music. I suspect (or, well, hope) it will be largely used for peaceful and calm scenarios. The running water (or in the other version, swirling wind) is meditative – a relaxed element that flows throughout – and it is accompanied by intervallic chord pulsations that should hopefully stimulate serene thoughts. I often like to find ways to integrate my field recordings into music, and hopefully you will agree that the addition of the flowing water here was an effective example!
Is there any difference to compose for a video game, movie or any other medium?
JONATHAN SHAW: Of course, there are similarities and differences, but fundamentally the role of music goes unchanged: to complement the film/videogame by stimulating relevant emotions or reflecting narrative actions.
It also largely depends on the director/developer and how they treat the music: do they want the music to go unheard – to merge with the film/videogame and become an ambient background? Or do they want it to be at the forefront – on par with, or exceeding the visuals – for dramatic, emotional effect that sticks with the viewer/player?
If you are writing for the concert hall, then obviously there is no other medium for the music to complement (usually!), in which case the music becomes the most important element.
As for composing itself, there is quite a substantial difference when writing for live performers in a concert hall, versus virtual instruments accompanying a screen.
If you know you will have live performers playing your music, then you must take care to ensure what you are writing is idiomatic (crucially, that it is playable – typical of that instrument). Whereas these limitations are heavily relaxed when working in a digital environment with virtual samples (I’m looking at you, chromatic harp and timpani!)
Further, something I’ve recently begun considering is the amount of available aural “space” when writing for live versus sampled. With writing for live performers in a concert hall, the amount of space is effectively infinite; you can combine any instrument together to create an infinite palette of colours, playing as loud as possible or as quiet as possible, and never worry about breaching the limit of that “space” (well, so long as you orchestrate it effectively!)
But in a digital environment – working with 1s and 0s – that “space” has a more tangible limit. You have to take extra care when considering, say, whether an instrument should double another (i.e. play the same melody) – will it muddy the mix? Take up too much room of a tight frequency band? Drown out another instrument competing for the same space? These considerations are augmented tenfold in a digital environment than when writing purely for the acoustic concert hall.
You are super talented. I became an admirer of your work. What is your style of music and when did you start to compose?
JONATHAN SHAW: Once upon a time, there was a young boy who dreamed of music … Okay, fairy tales aside, my first experiments in composition began in 2010, though it was not until 2012 when it started to take off.
I had a rather traditional upbringing – self-taught by studying Baroque and Classical music with J.S.Bach, Mozart and all the classic cohort – which, on looking back, gave me a solid foundation for melody and harmony through the study of counterpoint and the good old “rules” of composition.
Later, I expanded to more modern musics and decided to become more pluralist as a composer, with the influential works of Stravinsky, Holst, Vaughan-Williams, and several others, which gave me more grounding in orchestral music. And from there, on to contemporary classical composers such as Steve Reich, John Adams, and of course, video game composers, notably Nobuo Uematsu, Yoko Shimomura, Hiroki Morishita, Motoi Sakuraba, Keiichi Okabe, among others.
And so, in 2019 I started creating and releasing the video game music library – “RPG Orchestral Essentials” – to try my hand at creating some RPG orchestral music and to offer free MP3 downloads for developers to use in their games.
And recently, that has led to my first full video game scoring project that I’m quite proud of – an upcoming indie tactics game – so watch this space!
Do you play RPG games? What is your favourite video game score?
JONATHAN SHAW: How could I not play RPG games – I was born and raised with them!
My very first adventure was through playing the original “Golden Sun” games, which Motoi Sakuraba scored. As such, the “Golden Sun” soundtrack holds a very special place in my heart, being one of the first I had experienced, and I owe a lot to it (which is why I have been making some orchestral arrangements of it!)
But of course, there are so many other video game scores I absolutely adore (and wildly flail my arms to conduct when alone):
“Monster Hunter” has some exceptionally adventurous orchestral tracks and memorable themes in each iteration;
“Fire Emblem” has wonderfully successful fusions of orchestral and EDM elements, and it’s crossfading of battle tracks is genius;
“Octopath Traveler” satisfied my need for some nostalgic and rustic JRPG themes with a modern, orchestral aesthetic;
“NieR: Automata” blew me away with its use of sound design in meticulously produced tracks and multiple variations thereof which change dynamically to the players’ actions;
“Xenoblade Chronicles” knocks it out of the park with every theme delivering an ecstasy of emotions with an excellent combination of orchestral and band instruments;
If anyone would like to hire you, how can they contact you?
JONATHAN SHAW: I am always open for commissions and collaborations, whether it be for video games, film, or even contemporary classical works. Feel free to check out my website for other examples and contact info: https://www.jshaw.co.uk/
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If you liked our conversation, you can find Jonathan Shaw's work in a lot of places. Make sure to follow him.
- https://www.jshaw.co.uk/
- https://www.youtube.com/TandA-Music
- https://www.facebook.com/JonathanShawComposer/
- https://www.patreon.com/JonathanShaw
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1332540/Last_Battle_Order_from_Caos/