Alora Fane

Gasp! I've actually done something I talked about, and have released a bunch of my old music as an album on a new Alora Fane Bandcamp page!

Last week, I talked about wanting to make available archives of both my old games and all the music I've ever composed in some way, and wondered how I might go about releasing them. While I suspect people reading this would be more interested in the games, the music was much less daunting, so I've been working on that first.

I talked about issues I was facing due to file types; most of my old stuff was only in midi form, no mp3s. Some people commented about how there must be easier ways to convert the midis to mp3s, but unfortunately there isn't without preserving the exact sound I was hearing back when I actually composed them (which uses the default Microsoft MIDI 'soundfont', which counts as an absence of a soundfont in music programs and as such they won't export mp3s using it. A program called SynthFont can kind of export using it, but it sounds slightly different and as such wasn't acceptable to me). I wanted to listen to them all again anyway, so I played them and used Audacity to record the 'loopback', essentially recording what the computer was playing. So now I have both lossless WAV and lossy MP3 versions that sound exactly as I heard them when I composed them. It didn't even take that long, and the process wasn't especially tedious once I got into the flow of things!

I've got a whole lot of music to convert in this way, so I started with some of the earliest (though not the earliest) music I composed during a period of naive free expression, during the years 2005-2006, when I was in my late teens (17-18), in my final years of school. It's from just before the MARDEK period, when I was working on stuff like Deliverance, though this album is purely non-game music; I'll put the game soundtracks in their own albums (probably specific to each game, though I could do a compilation, we'll see). I think I had most or all of it on the Fig Hunter site at some point, so if you were around then and checked that out, it might be at least slightly familiar/nostalgic to you.

I've named the album after ∞ the period in the Earth's history during which complex multicellular varieties of life all 'suddenly' appeared at once ∞, with almost all of the modern phyla represented alongside some bizarre experiments that didn't survive Nature's gauntlet. The Cambrian Explosion has always fascinated me, what with its trilobites and anomalocarises and everything!

I also dug up some old art I made during this same period to use as the album cover. These 'lingon' aliens I invented were a big thing in my mind during my childhood, and I rekindled that interest to some degree during my first forays into games development and digital art, so it seemed fitting!

The album is 48 tracks long, almost 3 hours. Long, I know, especially since it's not exactly high-quality stuff, but I approached it as giving essentially all my old stuff a nice, conveniently accessible home somewhere online for archiving purposes. Other albums would be much shorter!

Back when I composed this music, I had no idea about music theory and had only just started playing the piano (which I still can't play well). I'd never been part of a music scene in school or involved myself in any bands - garage or classical - and I didn't know anyone else who was interested in music at all. I didn't even listen to music, for the most part! And yet for whatever reason, I was possessed by this strong creative drive, and I just had to get it out in some form! So I let this pure creative energy pour out without caring what anyone would think or whether it was 'right' or if it meant anything... I miss that.

The results are... interesting, if you approach them with curiosity rather than a desire to be entertained or moved. So if you go in expecting 'good' music, you'll probably be disappointed! But if you go in curious to hear the pure creative outflow of a young mind finding its voice, there might be something of academic interest there.

I've noticed a few people on Twitter trying to make it as game composers, whose works are objectively technically inferior and subjectively less interesting than this old stuff, which I find interesting (I'd link to some, but that'd be cruel). Though I wonder whether that's just my bias since I made it! It's essentially impossible for me to hear it as someone else might, which is a shame since I do wonder how it sounds to fresh ears.

I noticed a few things while preparing this album:

- Since I started composing, my music has had a certain odd sound to it, unlike popular stuff, and I was never sure why. I know now that it's because I naturally composed in atypical musical modes - Mixolydian in particular - which I still do, though it's conscious now and wasn't back then!

- Titles make a huge difference! Now, I use evocative titles that paint a picture in themselves, but back then I was inspired by the classical stuff I was into at the time, which tended to have titles like Bagatelle No. 25... which are hard to remember and fairly meaningless. There's a reason people remember Fur Elise and Moonlight Sonata but not Bagatelle No. 25 or Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor! Some of my old pieces have nicer titles, though (I like Drunken Angel).

- The most interesting part of music to me, at least in terms of composing, is the arrangement of notes, not so much the timbre of the instruments. As such, it doesn't bother me if pieces are 'played by a computer' or that they're piano solos - as many of the tracks on this album are - since I'm focusing on the notes and the relationships between them rather than the specific tonal qualities of the soundwaves or whatever. The impression I get is that many people are more concerned about how things sound than the notes being played, though; if you're one of those, this album might be unpleasant to you!

I've gone with Bandcamp since that essentially meets all of the needs that I have. I've had a Bandcamp page for years - ∞ fighunter.bandcamp.com ∞ - but I wanted a fresh start with my new Alora Fane branding, and so I've created a new one at ∞ alorafane.bandcamp.com ∞. Currently this is the only album there, but I'll add more over time.

Technically you can buy the album - or individual tracks - with the price set at £6 for the whole album (or £1 for each track if bought alone), and the option to pay more if you want to. I'm not exactly expecting sales though, since that's not really the reason I'm 'releasing' this. It'd be great if people did enjoy it enough to give something back! But even if you don't want to, you can still listen to the whole album for free (I think it allows three listens of each track without paying).

I think I've set it up correctly - all you set for the payment details is a PayPal account, but I think customers are supposed to be able to use either PayPal or a credit card to pay - but if for whatever reason you decide to buy the album or a track or several and experience any issues, let me know!

As I said, though, the main purpose of this is just archiving. I'm oddly attached to this music - like a mother to her ugly, broken children - and giving it an 'official' place like this is satisfying to me, even if I'm the only one who'll ever listen to it.

(Aren't I a great salesman??)

I was also going to upload an album of recent tracks (2019-2020), as I've already got the files ready, because I thought it'd be interesting to be able to compare the old and new stuff directly. The main reason I haven't is because I need to provide album art, and I don't really have anything appropriate for my recent stuff!

That new album is only 11 tracks (47 minutes) though, much more reasonable, and I feel the quality of those tracks is significantly higher than these. I'll be looking into publishing it over the next week, probably.

I may or may not also re-upload the albums from the old Fig Hunter Bandcamp page to this one, with all the MARDEK albums combined into one (like the one you get in the Steam extras). I might add the Sindrel Song OST soon too, before revisiting the old soundtracks. Again I'm not expecting sales on them exactly, but it'll be nice to have them all in one place for the personal satisfaction if nothing else.

I've edited the site's top bar to include clearer links to this and other pages. I don't know why I didn't do this ages ago!

On another note, I've also been working a little bit at the AFC + Belief idea I talked about in ∞ this post ∞ four days ago. I've started by making a character model:

It's similar to another model I made... ∞ 4 months ago, apparently ∞ (I like having an archive to check back through), though it's newly-made from scratch, for the enjoyment/learning of it.

Here is is compared to the base model from Divine/Atonal Dreams (left), and that one from 4 months ago (right):

I did a lot of experimenting with proportions. The one on the right feels too proportional for my plans for this game, while the left one is fine but I wanted to experiment a bit anyway with something a big higher-poly. What I came up with is... okay, maybe, though I want to keep tweaking it until it feels right, which it currently doesn't.

I find relative proportions interesting, psychologically. Longer legs - relative to the rest of the body - look prettier, but using realistic body proportions and a massively enlarged head looks... maybe okay, maybe not? I think about this stuff too much!

It's Christmas next week! How did that happen?? Are you doing anything for it? I'm not! I'll likely spend the next week preparing more albums and working on this other game idea. I'll get back to Atonal Dreams in the new year.

I haven't got around to porting any old games yet, but I might also get around to that. The most difficult bit will be porting the first to itch.io or wherever; once I've done it the first time, subsequent games should be easier, like how subsequent albums should be less hassle now too. So maybe I should make that a goal to reach before the end of the year!

Oh, here's something though! There's a Steam Winter Sale starting soon, and both MARDEK and Sindrel Song have big discounts during this period. I should probably announce that somewhere! I haven't said anything on Twitter in weeks! Whoops! I should change that!

12 COMMENTS

snipo1019~3Y

Thanks for releasing this! I'm listening to your album right now, and I can't get enough of it. There's not a single track that hasn't made me smile, it's hugely inspiring! You do so many fun things with your music, and it always has the tension / resolution I find so satisfying. It doesn't feel formulaic, like playing the same few chords repeatedly, yet it still feels natural in a sense. As a result, the music seems to have a movement and life of its own.

You explain in your post that you always enjoy music for the arrangement of the notes rather than the timbre - I feel like I may be the same way. I find that there's a lot of expression in your music that resonates with me, in the specific patterns you choose. Even if you didn't know, musically, what you were doing, you have a certain intuition for the patterns behind the music that, as a composer who's also self-taught (and who, I admit, is afraid to show you any of my music because you'd probably think it is childish and amateurish, and you'd probably be right), I find to be enviable. It's something that can't be replicated very easily.

While trying to learn music theory, I watched a very educational series by a youtuber named Michael ([LINK] In one of the first videos I watched, he mentioned how both being self-taught and learning "classically" have their own separate set of limitations, essentially freedom versus versatility. It's super interesting! It made me think about it when you talked about how you were limited to Mixolydian (which I might add sounds a lot more fun than being limited to Aeolian like I seem to be), but now that you've learned theory, you can do other things just as well. He also talked about how it can actually be harder to go the other way, being classically trained first, then try to gain the freedom to work naturally outside the artificial constraints that someone can place on themselves. In my case, I played an instrument earlier in my life and got way too attached to the "minor vs. major key" dichotomy while not even knowing what modes were or much else about theory. That's a dangerous place to be for a composer!

Also, I'm not nearly as versed in art/character models, but I think all the models are good in their own ways, it would mostly just depend on the stylistic effect you're going for! I personally gravitate to more proportional designs (i.e. the right one in this case), so the new one you made seems more up my alley than the one on the left, but both are good in my opinion.

You explain in your post that you always enjoy music for the arrangement of the notes rather than the timbre - I feel like I may be the same way. I find that there's a lot of expression in your music that resonates with me,  in the specific patterns you choose. Even if you didn't know, musically, what you were doing, you have a certain intuition for the patterns behind the music that, as a composer who's also self-taught (and who, I admit, is afraid to show you any of my music because you'd probably think it is childish and amateurish, and you'd probably be right), I find to be enviable. It's something that can't be replicated very easily.

While trying to learn music theory, I watched a very educational series by a youtuber named Michael (https://www.youtube.com/user/Rhaptapsody). In one of the first videos I watched, he mentioned how both being self-taught and learning "classically" have their own separate set of limitations, essentially freedom versus versatility. It's super interesting! It made me think about it when you talked about how you were limited to Mixolydian (which I might add sounds a lot more fun than being limited to Aeolian like I seem to be), but now that you've learned theory, you can do other things just as well. He also talked about how it can actually be harder to go the other way, being classically trained first, then try to gain the freedom to work naturally outside the artificial constraints that someone can place on themselves. In my case, I played an instrument earlier in my life and got way too attached to the "minor vs. major key" dichotomy while not even knowing what modes were or much else about theory. That's a dangerous place to be for a composer!

Also, I'm not nearly as versed in art/character models, but I think all the models are good in their own ways, it would mostly just depend on the stylistic effect you're going for! I personally gravitate to more proportional designs (i.e. the right one in this case), so the new one you made seems more up my alley than the one on the left, but both are good in my opinion.

Tobias 1104~3Y

I'm very glad - and pleasantly surprised - that you liked this!! I was fully expecting nobody to care, 0 comments or something, so if even a couple of people listened to it then uploading it feels worthwhile.

I've always felt that I had some kind of natural talent or ear for certain aspects of music, though it feels narcissistic to say it myself! In hindsight, I'm glad I started with that and just used theory knowledge to refine it over time. Now that I know more about all that, I feel more restricted, but I can still kind of call on that same raw creativity from the beginning, which someone who'd been trained formally from the start might have a harder time doing. Plus I'd like to think it makes my music sound a bit more interesting, maybe. I hear some composers who sound like they were taught or trained because their work is 'good', but it's good in the exact same way as everyone else who's 'good'...

This music came after I started doing piano lessons (which I only ever had a few of), so I did at least know the absolute basics of what scales were and stuff. My absolute first stuff was completely unbound, chromatic, and it's hard to listen to now!

Also I felt that this music of mine is childish and amateurish, because in many ways it is, so maybe your music is better to other ears than you think! How long have you been at it, and have you shown other people? I don't think anyone but me heard mine for years after starting.

I've always felt that I had some kind of natural talent or ear for certain aspects of music, though it feels narcissistic to say it myself! In hindsight, I'm glad I started with that and just used theory knowledge to refine it over time. Now that I know more about all that, I feel more restricted, but I can still /kind of/ call on that same raw creativity from the beginning, which someone who'd been trained formally from the start might have a harder time doing. Plus I'd like to think it makes my music sound a bit more interesting, maybe. I hear some composers who sound like they were taught or trained because their work is 'good', but it's good in the exact same way as everyone else who's 'good'...

This music came after I started doing piano lessons (which I only ever had a few of), so I did at least know the absolute basics of what scales were and stuff. My absolute first stuff was completely unbound, chromatic, and it's hard to listen to now!

Also I felt that this music of mine is childish and amateurish, because in many ways it is, so maybe your music is better to other ears than you think! How long have you been at it, and have you shown other people? I don't think anyone but me heard mine for years after starting.

snipo1019~3Y

It's definitely not narcissistic to be able to talk about your strengths. It's more about how you say it, and the fact that you're worried about sounding that way means you probably don't have as much to worry about as you think!

The way it was explained to me, someone with a good enough ear for sounds and patterns can keep listening back to what they wrote and constantly tweak it to make it sound better. So you don't need a music theory background to to make good sounding music. However, knowing music theory changes the decision making process of writing the music in the first place. It's kind of a "know the rules to break them" kind of thing, except the trick (and where you're possibly having some difficulty now) is to balance knowledge and intuitions so as to not constrain yourself to canonical phrasing and patterns. Easier said than done!

I actually only started composing this past May, at the ripe old age of 25 (I've been doing rearrangements/transposing for an orchestra I played in for about 4-5 years as well but that hardly counts since I wasn't actually writing anything of my own). I've only shown my music to a handful of people, either close friends or people who I trust won't criticize me too hard. People generally say nice things, but I'm always worried they're just doing that so as not to upset me. I want to show it to someone who is well versed in music theory because they could help me improve, but I'm honestly terrified that they won't take me seriously and it'll just squash what little confidence I have.

The way it was explained to me, someone with a good enough ear for sounds and patterns can keep listening back to what they wrote and constantly tweak it to make it sound better. So you don't need a music theory background to to make good sounding music. However, knowing music theory changes the decision making process of writing the music in the first place. It's kind of a "know the rules to break them" kind of thing, except the trick (and where you're possibly having some difficulty now) is to balance knowledge and intuitions so as to not constrain yourself to canonical phrasing and patterns. Easier said than done!

I actually only started composing this past May, at the ripe old age of 25 (I've been doing rearrangements/transposing for an orchestra I played in for about 4-5 years as well but that hardly counts since I wasn't actually writing anything of my own). I've only shown my music to a handful of people, either close friends or people who I trust won't criticize me too hard. People generally say nice things, but I'm always worried they're just doing that so as not to upset me. I want to show it to someone who is well versed in music theory because they could help me improve, but I'm honestly terrified that they won't take me seriously and it'll just squash what little confidence I have.

kalkra19~3Y

I know nothing about music or music theory or any of that, but I liked it.

Marwan6~3Y

Awesome!!! And have a great christmas. Its only 5 days left.

astralwolf91~3Y

Whats the difference between the Mixolydian and the usual thing people use? Are there examples I can listen to that elucidates the difference. I have 0 knowledge on music theory btw

Tobias 1104~3Y

I made this for a post about Sindrel Song I've yet to actually post: [LINK]

Essentially, scales are made of 7 notes, each spaced either next to each other or skipping a note. For example, the notes in bold here make up the C major scale:

C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab A Bb B C

These spaces are either 'tone' (T; skip one) or 'semitone' (S; adjacent), in this case: TTSTTTS

Changing the arrangement of these gives different modes. Mixolydian swaps the final TS to ST, so C Mixolydian is:

C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab A Bb B C

Or at least that's the technical theory stuff. In practice, it just means that C major uses all the white piano notes and uses the C chord as its base (tonic; the chord that 'feels like home'), while C Mixolydian uses the same tonic but uses Bb instead of just B.

Simple, right?? It took me years to understand this stuff, but apparently I just did it naturally before the intellectual understanding crystallised.

I made this for a post about Sindrel Song I've yet to actually post: https://images.alorafane.com/MajorMinorMixolydianPhrygian.wmv

Essentially, scales are made of 7 notes, each spaced either next to each other or skipping a note. For example, the notes in bold here make up the C major scale:

#C# Db #D# Eb #E# #F# Gb #G# Ab #A# Bb #B# #C#

These spaces are either 'tone' (T; skip one) or 'semitone' (S; adjacent), in this case: TTSTTTS

Changing the arrangement of these gives different modes. Mixolydian swaps the final TS to ST, so C Mixolydian is:

#C# Db #D# Eb #E# #F# Gb #G# Ab #A# #Bb# B #C#

Or at least that's the technical theory stuff. In practice, it just means that C major uses all the white piano notes and uses the C chord as its base (tonic; the chord that 'feels like home'), while C Mixolydian uses the same tonic but uses Bb instead of just B.

Simple, right?? It took me years to understand this stuff, but apparently I just did it naturally before the intellectual understanding crystallised.

astralwolf91~3Y

Interesting, thanks

MontyCallay99~3Y

Cool that you got to releasing this so soon! There's an ideosyncratic quality to your early music where one can notice how it ended up developing into the MARDEK soundtrack... for someone who's played the games, it may be interesting for that reason alone. I feel like I've heard some of these before, from when you had them on Fighunter back in the day or even when you talked about your music here, so I'm personally looking forward to the release of your more recent stuff!

Considering that, especially in your earlier years, you prided yourself on not focusing on more mainstream music for inspiration, what influenced you when composing these? It feels a major factor was music from video games you played in your childhood.

I didn't get to commenting on your post about Belief/AFC, but I remember preferring Belief as an idea over Atonal Dreams when you first laid out your plans! I think there's a lot of potential there for a game that can really shine primarily through gameplay, where it's clear how that itself is the draw of it, as opposed to Atonal Dreams, which is really supposed to be a prologue to a much grander story and an introduction to the entire universe. But I hope you'll find the motivation to continue with Atonal Dreams in the new year, maybe taking a break and thinking about other projects is a good diversion!

I'm personally visiting with my family for the holidays, especially since everything in my university town has closed down again due to COVID, and it looks like I'll be staying here for a while... so it's been interesting trying to get used to working/studying in a different environment! There's not really all that much else to do, considering that all the non-essential shops and markets are now closed and so on. Is gift-giving still a thing for your family on Christmas? I was scrambling last week to find things!

Considering that, especially in your earlier years, you prided yourself on not focusing on more mainstream music for inspiration, what influenced you when composing these? It feels a major factor was music from video games  you played in your childhood.

I didn't get to commenting on your post about Belief/AFC, but I remember preferring Belief as an idea over Atonal Dreams when you first laid out your plans! I think there's a lot of potential there for a game that can really shine primarily through gameplay, where it's clear how that itself is the draw of it, as opposed to Atonal Dreams, which is really supposed to be a prologue to a much grander story and an introduction to the entire universe. But I hope you'll find the motivation to continue with Atonal Dreams in the new year, maybe taking a break and thinking about other projects is a good diversion!

I'm personally visiting with my family for the holidays, especially since everything in my university town has closed down again due to COVID, and it looks like I'll be staying here for a while... so it's been interesting trying to get used to working/studying in a different environment! There's not really all that much else to do, considering that all the non-essential shops and markets are now closed and so on. Is gift-giving still a thing for your family on Christmas? I was scrambling last week to find things!

Tobias 1104~3Y

My hope was that it'd be interesting to see where the more familiar examples of my music came from, if nothing else! It's why I was curious whether any other game/film composers had ever released their old non-soundtrack stuff like this.

I must have been inspired by the music of games I played, since I liked that a whole lot, but I don't actually know where the specific sound I naturally produced came from! Celtic music tends to use Mixolydian heavily and I liked that a lot, though I never actively listened to it, so it's a bit of a mystery. The inspirations were subconscious, whatever they were!

At the moment my mind's darting around between different ideas, but I definitely don't want to - can't! - abandon Atonal Dreams, so hopefully my motivation will be rekindled soon!

You're lucky actually that you were able to go home for the holidays! A lot of students - international ones primarily, maybe? - seem to be stuck at uni and can't go home, or so I've heard... I hate giving and receiving gifts for stupid anxiety/upbringing reasons, and this year I'll be spending the day entirely alone and probably not seeing anyone. I'm okay with that, probably.

I must have been inspired by the music of games I played, since I liked that a whole lot, but I don't actually know where the specific sound I naturally produced came from! Celtic music tends to use Mixolydian heavily and I liked that a lot, though I never actively listened to it, so it's a bit of a mystery. The inspirations were subconscious, whatever they were!

At the moment my mind's darting around between different ideas, but I definitely don't want to - can't! - abandon Atonal Dreams, so hopefully my motivation will be rekindled soon!

You're lucky actually that you were able to go home for the holidays! A lot of students - international ones primarily, maybe? - seem to be stuck at uni and can't go home, or so I've heard... I hate giving and receiving gifts for stupid anxiety/upbringing reasons, and this year I'll be spending the day entirely alone and probably not seeing anyone. I'm okay with that, probably.

bkjnt2019~3Y

I love the Cambrian Explosion! When I was younger I was really into paleontology and what the world was like all that time ago, and I remember I was so excited when I saw that there was a 'Cambria' with trilobites and everything in MARDEK. Earlier this year I was reading more in depth about that period and was pleasantly surprised to see that I was still just as interested as before. I like the music too! Although it's clearly not as interesting as what you're doing these days, both to my totally clueless ear and presumably in the eyes of anyone who knows anything about music, I still find it quite pleasant to listen to. There's also a clear progression between the very first tracks and those toward the end which is inspiring to listen to. I remember when I was about nine years old our school put us in music classes, and I was excited because I liked the music in MARDEK so much and I thought I could get to partake in the same thing... but then I never could get anything right on the flute, and at the end of the year it turned out that the one I got was broken all along! Oh well! It's interesting what you said about the notes being more important than the timbre and that being the reason there are so many piano solos. I really like the piano, and I feel like that's as much to do with its timbre as anything else; it sounds really good, and I can't imagine most of these would be improved by just changing everything to an electric guitar or something. I do find the titles like 'Sequence in D" or "'Sonata' in F" amusing; it reads like you had no clue what to put for a title and defaulted to what "serious" people were doing; this is the same experience I have today when I have to affix some sort of tile to any piece of writing. I'm glad you uploaded this! I don't have much to say about the models, since it's really not the sort of thing I would pay attention to, but clearly that doesn't mean it isn't important; I'm sure it will turn out fine somehow looking at all the work you've put in.

Tobias 1104~3Y

Thanks for commenting, and I'm glad you got something out of this!

Using a broken flute but being unaware of that for ages sounds like it'd be frustrating! Hopefully that didn't put you off music completely though!

I probably thought I 'had to' use those classical-inspired titles, or maybe it was more like I felt the music was its own thing and the title didn't need to have any thought put into it? Something I've always remembered though is reading that some of Debussy's works had their title written at the end of the sheet music rather than the start, because he came up with the title based on the music rather than vice versa. That's what I do these days!