MONDAY JANUARY 4, 2016
Hello all... Happy New Year!
And welcome to PART TWO of my explanation of why I love orchestral-military music and composing it!
So, to continue, in April 2011 I attended the ASCAP Expo, and there was a big reason I didn't want to miss it; I entered to participate in a Feedback Panel in the Film/TV category, and my piece was selected as one of the music tracks to be critiqued!
The piece, titled "Mission Start", was inspired by Mega Man X and his two comrades Zero and Axl as they prepare for a mission. I gave it a moderate military-like feel, and I managed to keep it at the 1:30 min limit for the guidelines. Other participants shared a 1:30 sample of something they actually scored to picture, but not having had a lot of experience at the time, I only composed for something I saw in my mind's eye.
However, I got great feedback... nothing absolutely negative, except that the next step would be to go bigger on the drums with a live orchestra. Other than that, I impressed quite a few people! (It was actually thanks to attending the 2011 ASCAP Expo that I started this website!)
Because I had come to love the Mega Man X video game series over that past year, I later was contacted through a Mega Man fan forum to collaborate on music for a huge fan project related to this series. (The project was cancelled on August 2014, and I am no longer associated with the project leader who first contacted me to work on it.) During my time with this project I had just started developing some more music projects that took on a military form, as the game had war themes in it too. The characters X and Zero were warriors, and though I initially composed mostly rock music about them, I turned towards a more orchestral and eventually military-esque approach in this fan-music.
But what would take my music further was my ever-increasing love for Transformers.
That's right, a piece of music that could be a main theme to a Transformers fan-creation! You know... just for fun!
Why was this happening? Well, the vehicle/aircraft modes that these transforming robots would turn into happen to be military vehicle and aircraft. In May 2015, I was doing research for the alt mode of one of my fan characters and finally decided he could transform into a Boeing Apache AH-64D Longbow. With a name like Maelstrom, an attack helicopter was perfect for a robot that could transform into this. The other character, WarCry, transforms into a Stryker vehicle. Upon looking up different military vehicles for these characters lead me to find an interest in learning about the history of different military vehicles and aircraft, so much that I can now identify several types of fighter jets, armored vehicles and tanks.
Something I never thought I'd EVER be interested in, if it wasn't for Transformers.
============================
Well, I will have to discuss this whole thing further in a PART THREE sometime soon. There really IS a lot more to this, so please bear with me for just a bit. Thank you so much for reading, and stay tuned for more!...
Hello all... Happy New Year!
And welcome to PART TWO of my explanation of why I love orchestral-military music and composing it!
So, to continue, in April 2011 I attended the ASCAP Expo, and there was a big reason I didn't want to miss it; I entered to participate in a Feedback Panel in the Film/TV category, and my piece was selected as one of the music tracks to be critiqued!
The piece, titled "Mission Start", was inspired by Mega Man X and his two comrades Zero and Axl as they prepare for a mission. I gave it a moderate military-like feel, and I managed to keep it at the 1:30 min limit for the guidelines. Other participants shared a 1:30 sample of something they actually scored to picture, but not having had a lot of experience at the time, I only composed for something I saw in my mind's eye.
However, I got great feedback... nothing absolutely negative, except that the next step would be to go bigger on the drums with a live orchestra. Other than that, I impressed quite a few people! (It was actually thanks to attending the 2011 ASCAP Expo that I started this website!)
Because I had come to love the Mega Man X video game series over that past year, I later was contacted through a Mega Man fan forum to collaborate on music for a huge fan project related to this series. (The project was cancelled on August 2014, and I am no longer associated with the project leader who first contacted me to work on it.) During my time with this project I had just started developing some more music projects that took on a military form, as the game had war themes in it too. The characters X and Zero were warriors, and though I initially composed mostly rock music about them, I turned towards a more orchestral and eventually military-esque approach in this fan-music.
But what would take my music further was my ever-increasing love for Transformers.
With a rich roster of robot characters, Transformers has heavy themes on war and fighting, and if one has ever read the comic books that have been coming out these days, you'd know they're not your older relatives' Transformers...!
It had gotten to a point where, after having read enough of these Transformers comic books... enjoying much of the classic 80's cartoon series... and NOW having 2 books in my possession on how to draw transforming robots, that I thought "Hmm, I'm really nuts about this... Just for fun, I should try my hand at designing my OWN Transformers robot character!!" So far I have come up with three, with a fourth one in the works... It's sort of become a new favorite hobby of mine. And from this I came up with not only a back-story about two them, but also a MAIN THEME to their story.That's right, a piece of music that could be a main theme to a Transformers fan-creation! You know... just for fun!
Why was this happening? Well, the vehicle/aircraft modes that these transforming robots would turn into happen to be military vehicle and aircraft. In May 2015, I was doing research for the alt mode of one of my fan characters and finally decided he could transform into a Boeing Apache AH-64D Longbow. With a name like Maelstrom, an attack helicopter was perfect for a robot that could transform into this. The other character, WarCry, transforms into a Stryker vehicle. Upon looking up different military vehicles for these characters lead me to find an interest in learning about the history of different military vehicles and aircraft, so much that I can now identify several types of fighter jets, armored vehicles and tanks.
Something I never thought I'd EVER be interested in, if it wasn't for Transformers.
============================
Well, I will have to discuss this whole thing further in a PART THREE sometime soon. There really IS a lot more to this, so please bear with me for just a bit. Thank you so much for reading, and stay tuned for more!...