Hello!
I’m Kevin Hodge, one of the composers for the team. I’m relatively inexperienced, having mostly worked on pieces in the past for the purpose of making something that can stand on its own, the only exceptions so far being for a game titled Judgement Day from a couple of years ago. I’d like to talk about my experience in writing music for Kobold Tactics so far, more specifically the process I go through to create something new!
The thing about the method I use is that it’s simple, yet flawed. It has been forged in the fires of passion, but it still has yet to take shape, let alone be tempered, through experience. It’s only really a starting point for me, something that I’ll be able to improve upon as I learn more. And the amazing thing about working alongside a more experienced composer like Andrew is that over time it allows him to help shape my process into something amazing through his advice and support. In its current state, my method can be broken down into three steps:
Step 1: The Spark
Before I’ve begun to put anything down on paper, I always start a piece by finding some sort of inspiration for it. Sometimes the spark comes from a tune I think of, whereas sometimes it’s more so borne out of trying to musically capture a moment or image in my head. Sometimes it comes to me when I want to write, but often times it’ll be at a random moment in my life. And whenever the moment does strike, the most important part in this phase is for me to just write it down as soon as I think of it – somewhere, anywhere and any way I can, really. Until I have a chance to build on it, that small idea, that fragment of joy, is the song. So if I forget it, I’ll be back to square one. For me this usually looks like opening up a new blank file in Reaper, loading up a basic piano, and jotting down the first 8 bars into the editor. Though, that said, if I don’t have access to my computer, I usually either commit it to memory or write it down as a string of letters on my phone or a piece of paper. As long as I can recall the spark when I next sit down to compose, I’m able to move on to the next step.
Step 2: Building Out the Framework
After I have an initial idea of where to start, that’s when I start playing with a lot more potential ideas. I try out different variations of the melody, create new themes that harmonize well with it, experiment with key changes… I search for anything that works well with what I already have. The more harmonies I find, the longer the song becomes. And the longer the song is, the more potential there is for something new to fit in with what I have. So with every step, it becomes easier and easier to come up with something new to add to the song.
Step 3: Revision, Improvement, and Polishing
Once I have a draft of the song that feels long enough to stand on its own, I turn my attention away from adding more and instead focus on questioning what I already have. I start with major revisions, and as things progress the changes slowly narrow in scope until I’m tweaking minor details and finalizing it. I play with instrument settings to change their sound and volume, I tweak phrases that can be improved, and I remove or replace anything that does more harm than good for the song. And, most importantly, I share the song with friends and the rest of the team for feedback.
The feedback is important because without it, I’ll miss some of my own mistakes. Truth be told, while I love the music I create, that love can sometimes blind me. Sometimes a part I may like may actually turn out to be causing problems, often needing to be removed, changed, or scaled back in order to resolve the issues they create. And every time a friend points those mistakes out to me, it doesn’t just improve the piece, it also teaches me something new about composing, making me more aware of it in the future.
Strengths and Weaknesses of My Approach
The method I use is one that I’ve developed from the passionate personal projects I started out with, which were all one-off songs created for their own sake alone. The nice part about it is that once I’ve begun to create something, it’s extremely easy for me to finish it out. In fact, I’ll often get lost for hours at a time composing and building out a song, only to realize after I’m done how much time I spent on it. It allows me to love every song I make in its own way, ensuring I always focus on quality over quantity, which is really important to me.
With that said, though, my approach is flawed in many ways. One of the most important flaws I’ve noticed recently is that during the spark phase, I take whatever inspiration comes to me and act on it immediately. In doing so, I skip the key step of researching the genre I’m writing for. Understanding the genre wasn’t relevant to me originally because I never wrote for a genre; the genre was more like a label that fit the song after it was done. But the difference now is that I’m focusing the purpose and use of my music in a way I’ve never needed to before, and studying the ways that others have done that in the past is the best way to understand the norms and expectations people will have when sitting down to play Kobold Tactics for the first time. It clues me in to common genre-specific problems that composers may run into that I otherwise wouldn’t realize – for instance, in a turn-based strategy game like ours, you want the music to be impactful enough to make the level feel memorable, but you don’t want it to be so loud or expressive to the point of becoming a distraction. After all, it’s not an FPS – we’ll be thinking a lot as we play, and we need a relatively calm space to think in. That doesn’t mean the music has to be calm, but it does mean it can’t take center stage. And the best way to learn how I can strike that balance between being memorable and giving the player enough space to think is by seeing how other composers have done it in the past and taking notes. It’s something I want to include in the future as a Step 0.
In addition, I use loops and repeat themes quite often when building out a song. The repetition is handy for the drums and bass, as they don’t need to change often, and even repeating a melody occasionally can make it more memorable. But I sometimes notice during the revision phase that I will have relied too heavily on that technique if I don’t remember to drop the instrument entirely at some point. And while it generally lends itself well to video game composition, I’m sure that I’ll eventually run into a project where the composition needs to avoid repetition altogether. For instance, if I write for a horror game in the future, repetition leads to predictability, and predictability leads to a sense of control over the situation. And in a horror game, the whole point is to feel out of control – to feel scared. It still has its places where it can shine – an ominous hum, whir, or drone can be off-putting. But repetition is used much more sparingly in some genres than it is in others, and I’m sure I’ll have to adapt to that as I go.
I’m not very experienced in dealing with these problems yet. But by facing them head-on, I”m able to learn from them. Especially the part about research, because that not only addresses current issues, but will also warn me of potential issues I otherwise would never have been aware of. I do like to experiment with new ideas, especially when I can subvert expectations in a fun and creative way. But that only works when you first know what the norms are. After all, you can’t learn when to break the rules until you understand why they’re there in the first place.