Symphonic Tales of The Silmarillion - Compositional Diary #2 - 'There was Eru, the One'

Heaven yeah, the first movement is ready :-) 'There was Eru, the One'


As I mentioned earlier it's titled 'There was Eru, the One'. I'll try to go into as much details about its composition as I remember.
First of all, I've started out with a pre-existing classical/electronica hybrid template I generally use for orchestral composition and production. It's, as always composed, mixed and processed in Cubase 7.5. I still use 7.5 tho I have 8.0 installed, but I have had some performance issues with my 80+ channel templates I created in 7.5.

Musically the first that was born was the piccolo flute's rhythmical staccato, keeping its C pitch constantly in the center of the composition. Of course there came the chord progression built around the staccato flute, built with full ensemble instruments of EWQL Hollywood Orchestra and Symphonic Orchestra. The drawn line of the piccolo staccato was kept floating without deciding between a major and a minor key, and thus connecting the two parts that slowly emerged from the harmonically constructed context of C major of the first part and the c minor of the second epic part. Yeah, I know, I keep it simple and low profile with the keys, but this kind of topic didn't either need chromatic variation or a really mixed bunch of transitions. I was keeping it simple and clean as I feel the topic of Eru Ilúvatar demands a pure vision on the material.

So slowly the two parts, major and minor were done, and also (forgot to mention), the heavy Loom additive synthesizers were already added to symbolize the Void, the Mechanical magic of the Tolkien universe that is yet to be born through the will of Eru and also through the mightiest Ainur Melkor who turned bitter and evil soon later. (Yet this deep mesmerizing synthesizer is just a signal of what is yet to come in the complex history of Arda, Earth).

So then I felt the need to present Eru to the listener, and (no surprise) I took the means of fanfare. A quite simple, harmonically very clean and also very simple rhythmical structure, to represent the purest form of omnipotence.

Then when it was done came the job to build up the C Major harmonic and melodic build up. Quickly it was set up on the strings and then varied with the addition of brasses at some parts, then usage of woodwinds later and also finally the all soothing harp was woven in. The crescendo part was the last to be polished for proper sounding and greater variation.

Next came the details of the c minor part, addition of heavy, epic string legatos, going down with majesty, and meanwhile the horns, trumpets and trombone strengthened to an epic melody to be kept along the way of the journey towards the culmination of the track. When this was done it was clear that the epic part needs to reach its full potential with a big tempo jump and addition of heavy percussion. The latter was again achieved with the fantastic SD2 Godzilla Hits... A periodically sliding higher drum in 5/4 against the thump of the 4/4 main drum and an almost snare like hit in a syncope pattern. This gave the whole part a heavy, and strong sense of movement and power. The strings now dominated the harmonic context with the stagnant slowly changing choirs. The trumpets playing the main melody quickly jump to the fantastic sounds of the EWQL Gipsy solo violin that lasts till the end. The full strings ensemble was then going into an ever grinding staccato replacing the piccolo in the role, giving a really tense background to the mostly slow, and sometimes quickly jumping solo melody. The interlocked semi final crescendo was using the elements of the opening fanfare part of the movement, and the final crescendo is a variation of that with a heavy thumping ever louder orchestral beat till the final staccato note.

The C Major part is called 'Eru, The One', while the epic ending is called 'The Flame Imperishable'.

A bit of mixing Equalizer setting here and there and setting up the Oxygene 6 for the pseudo master was the last step, before unleashing the first movement onto you! I hope you enjoy the first fruit as much as I enjoyed creating (and listening and listening and listening till all errs was quenched from the final version :)). Thanks for your attention! Now till I'm busy with planning the next movement listen and enjoy, share, spread the word, give me feedback, comment...whatever: be happy my friends!

Free Music Free Licensed - Part #1 - Scourge #2

Free Music CC-BY-SA Free Licensed music by me - first part: Scourge #2 tracks

I had the idea to start a new periodical section on this blog related to the accumulated commercially usable free licensed (CC-BY-SA aka Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license) I've created on the road of my musical career, so my followers can have just a good listen -- or either choose to select some of the thus provided tracks for their own project, royalty free, in case of proper attribution in the software and the bundled installer or proper attribution and licensing of the video end product where you may decide to use them.

This episode will be about the album called "Scourge #2 - Game Music", released on jamendo.com under CC-BY-SA license. It's been quite popular since its recent release, great instrumental listening while studying, no annoying lyrics, just pure symphonic orchestral fantasy soundtrack music.

Let's go into a short description of the tracks:
- Scourge INTRO - a shorter uplifting introductory track with choral additions to the symphonic structure
- Temple Exploration - a short, loopable, foreboding track, with exotic instruments and choral addition. Could be used in film or game soundtrack as well
- Plains Awaiting - a low profile, calm exploratory track that can be used easily for exploring outer areas, or easily added as a background music for a historical documentary film. Vibrating strings and easy melodies, harmonies characterize this track
- Towns And Villages - full of strings and brass, and all orchestral sweetness, a great track for wandering around or documentary films in a populated area. Bright melodies and positive harmonies.
- Forests' Weave - a calmer track using lots of strings and brass to suggest a forest or wood area
- Cave Exploration - foreboding track, with didgeridoo and deep sounds
- Light Chapter Interlude - a lighter, merrier, yet simple themed short piece, good for interludes in media
- Mountains Ahead - a calm, yet epic approach to wandering around in mountain areas, exploring new territories in a film or game
- Temple Chapter Interlude - a short foreboding interlude music, uplifting, blend trailer like
- INFERNAL DANCE - a furious epic, long fight in a very original, dance like style solely using orchestral, symphonic means. A good end title music for a tense film, or boss fight in a game.
- Tears of Victory  - emotional, symphonic arrangement, slow, choral parts, good for an epic but emotional ending of a game or film

The whole album is using first grade quality ingredients, were composed in Cubase using EWQL (EastWest QuantumLeap) products and mixed with best plugins available (Waves/iZotope).

Please consider donation if using these track. You can donate directly to the composer/producer Pal Zoltan Illes here:

You can have a listen and download below, or through this link: here
  

Epic Fantasy Tracks - Compositional Diary

Recently I've been investing a lot of time in one of my favorite compositional genre which I am most compassionate about: orchestral music in the fantasy topic. Most of the tracks carry the recently so popular hints of Epic Fantasy style. Let me go into some details about the tracks here.

All three tracks were composed in Cubase 7.5 and most of the virtual instruments are Sounds-Online EWQL ones, and the lightly used synthesizer VSTis are Loom and XFer Serum. Mixing was aided by Native Instruments, Waves and iZotope plugins.

First in the line of compositions is 'Power of the Awakened Ones', which working title started off as 'Storm Within'. It's a three minutes long short and energetic, 4/4 track, constantly building-up one, that has the power of culmination, like so many of the popular trailer music tracks these days. I was playing around with the strings and brasses along with some powerful percussion instruments, and was starting with a sinister introduction part which was in the end removed, when the main melodic idea was inspired and invented along with the epic vocal part that was accompanied with a quick powerful arpeggio. The strings and solo vocals took over quickly the melodic and harmonic dominance in it together with the brasses, but the final touch was given by adding the light, oriental tasting sound of xylophone. It gave the main melody a very nice shine. Also I had plans of adding complementary synthesizers to the rhythmical bass section to give it an edge, and finally did weave it in at the culmination parts. And to reach the final structure, a small calmer part was interlocked between the tense energetic parts. The acceptance and criticism of the track was quite positive, and as a result of great positivity and support on SoundCloud it went right into the SoundCloud Explorer Classical part.

Cover art by: Daniel Warren

Second one is 'The Invincibles' which had the working title of 'Knights of the Ethernal Wisdom'. I was keeping the template of instrumentation. I was going for a 7/8 rhythm, to give it a nice riding feeling. It's speed is a majestic, middle tempo. The first part to be born was the starting brass melody and harmonies accompanied with a heavy, staccato/marcato contrabass/cello strings that later received at some parts an overlay of woodwinds and choral. The variation between minor and major parts is added to give some introspective on the light fantasy nature of the composition. Then came the idea to add a powerful/medieval adventurous melodic line with the fantastic EWQL Gipsy solo violin instrument, and that went as far as additions of harpsichord and strong brasses at the culmination parts. A very light addition of Synths were the last step to give a little buzz to the already heavy quick and rhythmical marcato of the strings. I'm very content with the result, it symbolizes a true companionship of adventurers, with courage, bravery, honor, piety. Again the acceptance and criticism was very positive, and it also landed in the SoundCloud Explorer Classical chart after the first day of publishing it.

Image by: artofjokinen

Third, and most recent one is 'Sailors of Fortuna', which had the same working title. I was going for a quicker, more pulsating rhythmical approach, and an even heavier use of percussion. First of the composition was to lay out the bass line with heavy marcato/staccato strings, contrabass and celli. The playful, pirate era like melody was invented first using the viola and violin section, but slowly the brass took over the stronger parts. Then a longer choral part was added, adding new harmonic elements to the weave, and using the soprano part grabbing out of the context and adding it to the non-choral parts, the melody was extended with shining celesta. Then came the idea to add guitar (acoustic and distorted) to the lighter parts of the track. It gave a really adventurous and modern touch to the material. Also this addition of guitar lines then crept into the stronger orchestral parts in form of choral and higher brass additions (horns and trumpets). As a final step, I felt the urge to add a dance-like even quicker celebration part to mirror the triumphant pirate/sailor thematic of the era. Quick piccolo and xylophone together with some guitars and quick rhythmical strings gave the final form to it. The recipe was well formulated again, and the first day it got int the SC Classical chart again right into the top 30.

In the end I feel like it has been a successful venture back into the symphonic/orchestral composition which I was on a hiatus within the last half year. Hope you will enjoy the music as much as I enjoyed the creation of it.

Major material upload to YouTube

Dear friends and fans,

There's been a big series of uploads to the official pZi YouTube channel.

'Music for the Wired Generation'
First there's 7 tracks of the long play album 'Music for the Wired Generation' in a playlist you can find here featuring such tracks as 'Vortex of Freedom: Dune' and 'Spaceman's Ease'. You can still find the full album on Spotify, iTunes, Google Music and Amazon as well.
Playlist of Music for the Wired Generation

  


'Epic Tracks'
Secondly there's a new playlist for my recent epic fantasy tracks made in the classical genre, such as 'Power of the Awakened Ones' and 'The Invincibles'. Daring, epic and powerful compositions awaiting you now on the YouTube channel as well.
Playlist here.

Ambience tracks in top selling Steam indie game 'Ziggurat'

Recently my two earlier tracks of fantasy ambience genre has hit the Steam market in the game called Ziggurat by Milkstone indie game dev company. Amongst other great tracks in the album it is the ones that are played while discovering foreboding areas in the fast paced action RPG game, which much resembles the old classic game Hexen from the 1990's. You can have a listen to the tracks on Jamendo. Both are quite low profile, game music soundtrack alike stuff. I recommend to listen to the full album if you want some unique classical/sountrack experience.
Temple Exploration: https://www.jamendo.com/en/track/1123287/temple-exploration-ambient and
Cave Exploration: https://www.jamendo.com/en/track/1123293/cave-exploration-ambient
The full album is available here: https://www.jamendo.com/en/list/a134283/scourge-2-game-music
The game's official page is available here: http://www.milkstonestudios.com/games/ziggurat/
 

pZi - Ars Poetica

Let stand here a mix of Ars Poeatica / Self Biography for the curious.

Business Contact: "timong.balden @ gmail dot com" , for commissions and licensing released material or custom commissions.

Follow the artist: Facebook , Spotify 

"I was born in 1980, raised in Hungary, a beautiful European country in the heart of Europe, in Budapest, the capital city. Always immersed in music, let it be rock, metal, symphonic, electronic, game music, soundtracks. That's where my influences come from.

Most composed of genres: soundtrack, electronica, orchestral music, epic music, fantasy themes, sci-fi themes, fictional music, new folk/world, chill-out, ambient music, game music

Artistic influences (not including all) in music and literacy:
Classical Music: Beethoven, Stravinsky, Mussorgsky, Liszt, Wagner
Game Music: Jeremy Soule, Frank Klepacki, Inon Zur
Rock/Metal: Megadeth, Metallica, Sentenced, Sepultura
Contemporary Epic Music: Howard Shore, Thomas Bergersen
Electronica: Front Line Assembly, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk
Fantasy: J.R.R. Tolkien, R. A. Salvatore, Wayne Chapman
Sci-Fi: Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury

My mission in the musical world is to mirror a universe and give a visionary glimpse to a place where I myself and my children would want to live. A sanctuary place where the listener can immerse his imagination and turn towards an internal panorama where it's good to exist or to burst us to even better levels of the future. I'm much interested in social and moral questions.

Major releases I've composed and produced are:

2008- : Various game soundtracks, major part classically orchestrated (Link)
March/2014: Galactoscopic
June/2014: Freedom Utopia
November/2014: Music for the Wired Generation

I've started my musical career in 2008 composing mainly symphonic/orchestral music for games, and as a composer slowly started directing myself towards instrumental ambient and electronic music for everyday listening. Focusing on instrumental music, melody, moods and musical story building you should expect me to tell stories, strongly theme based and most of the time easy to adapt your imagination to and immerse.
After a longer period of orchestral composition from 2008 to 2011, I've started to refocus myself on music that let's you relax, boost yourself, travel with it, go on with work or to ease your everyday chores while you put it on the speakers. Since 2011 main focus is on producing those tracks. Especially focusing on incorporating sci-fi/fantasy/new age/utopia music and theme elements into the weave of my pop-rock, chill and fusion tracks.

All through these times I've been experimenting with fusioning my favorite elements of music, that you hopefully might just as well like: electronic music, elements of rock, ethnical instrumentation, orchestral instrumentation and classical themes along with sci-fi/fantasy/new age/utopia elements, just to get the musical stories work like magic and entertain. Please, follow and support if you like what you hear!"