Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Composing the 13th Age

Here’s a uniquely wonderful experience I never imagined having: spending the last year commenting and kibitzing as James Semple and his team of composers and live musicians created the 13th Age soundtrack!
James is in his last couple weeks of work on the album, putting all the pieces together. I just finished writing short liner notes for two dozen tracks. Simon Rogers and James will add to the notes, dialogue-style. That’s perfect since to a small extent Simon and I got to talk about tracks all year long as James created and revised . . . and had new tracks spring on him out of nowhere!
Some of the music is meant to be looped in particular moments of play. Other tracks capture the spirit of a particular icon or location. It’s all excellent. As the album has come together, I’ve been thinking about my mom, a talented singer and classical music lover who died a few years ago. Her influence certainly helped me have any opinion worth hearing as James’ music came together, and I have to thank James and Marie-Anne Fischer and all James' other collaborators for the fact that this soundtrack would have been the first product associated with my gaming career that my mom would have enjoyed! I’m not being melancholy about this. I’m amused that work creating a fantasy world finally led back around to a creative effort that would have amused the woman who introduced me to the Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewis, but didn't have much use for fantasy after that. These songs? These songs she would have loved.
The two pieces I’m linking to now are the first and the last pieces composed, I believe. The 13th Age Theme is a rousing start, with moments for reflection. Dreams of a Lost Age came out of nowhere at the very end, a lovely piece that may have many different expressions in the various cultures and traditions of the Empire.

I know that James and Simon are working to get the soundtrack published as quickly as possible. I don’t think we have a firm date yet.  

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