Round 5
Undertale
Undertale is a 2015 2D role-playing video game created by American indie developer Toby Fox. The player controls a child who has fallen into the Underground: a large, secluded region under the surface of the Earth, separated by a magical barrier. The player meets various monsters during the journey back to the surface, although some monsters might engage the player in a fight. The combat system involves the player navigating through mini-bullet hell attacks by the opponent. They can opt to pacify or subdue monsters in order to spare them instead of killing them. These choices affect the game, with the dialogue, characters, and story changing based on outcomes.(A la Wikipedia!)
You know it because it may have been a corner stone of your childhood, or... well its impossible not to know of Toby Fox. I think to say Undertale is a beloved game is most certainly an understatement.
And Toby Fox was know for using leitmotif heavily in his music for the game, and it is this we are going to explore this round.
Motifs and Themes Challenge
What is the difference anyway? A motif is usually shorter. It can be as simple as 2–3 notes/chords, like the 3 opening chords of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. A theme on the other hand is a melody that is usually at least a measure long. Themes usually develop over time where motifs are static. You can use motifs to anchor a piece of music to a character, place or event and a motif can be used within a theme to develop the story of that character, place or event. The first draws you back to something specific, and the second tells you the story of that specific thing as it unfolds.
A leitmotif can be defined as a recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition, associated with a particular person, idea, or situation.
So your challenge, should you choose to accept it is....
Here we go!!!!
Original Challenge
We are going to listen to a lot of Undertale music this month... and from that inspiration you are to create two motifs of less than 12 notes in length that feel like they could belong in Undertale. You are not copying or adapting an existing motif (more than two notes is stealing!), you are creating something totally new and original.
Once you have your two motifs, post them the the S09R05 thread on the Discord server as midi files... one track each of simply the melody or chord set, nothing else. You can also post the staff notation of the mofit if you would like (load it into Musescore!).
Everyone will post their short midi files in that thread to share with the server.
Next, challengers can select one or two motifs from any other challenger/s, and from this create a short theme track for the challenge of more than 15 seconds and less than 60 seconds, that would be the track you would like to see added to the Undertale OST. You can create up to four(4) of these short tracks to submit as a single MP3 file to the challenge (join them together with a short break between each... it will be like listening to the OST which has heaps of short tracks, often 15-30secs long!
Where people pick the same starting motifs, it will be interesting is to see how many different variations there are in the themes that are created from the same seed motifs.
Cover Challenge
There are a lot of little tracks in Undertale, your challenge is to take a track under 30 seconds long and to extend it out to a 3 minute piece!! You can introduce your own interpretations, but it must be instantly recognizable as the source track.
Art Challenge:
This is a tough one. Your art challenge is to use Undertale as your inspiration to create a new and original character that would fit within this RPG!! Let your imagination run wild! This image could be used for the Album art for this round.
Arrangement/Orchestration Challenge
Once again for this month you can select any previously created original track and talk to the composer to get a copy of the necessary midi to allow you to create your own orchestration of the track. For the orchestration you can choose to create a track for VGMLOVE (our own virtual orchestra to be) or any other ensemble that you wish. If you are doing a Hollow Knight orchestration you can focus specifically on a Wind Orchestra arrangement for the chance to have it performed live.
Prize Draw
This round we return to our awesome sponsor Best Service for an amazing Violin VST, nothing less than the emotional violin you need to create your own take on Snowy, or any other heart felt, hit em in the feels masterpiece! As always we are forever grateful to the amazing team a Best Service for supporting our little VGM Server. Show them some ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ :-)
The reward is for participants in the Original and Arrangement/Orchestration Challenges.