OST Composing Jam #7: Postmortem
In the middle of July, I participated in OST Composing Jam #7 on itch.io. The jam was much like the game jams I participate in from time to time, except the focus of this jam was to create a soundtrack for a fictional game.
In only 10 days.
Relax though - the minimum requirements were doable: a submission had to be at least one track (duh), a minimum of 3 minutes in length (easy-peezy), and encouraged to relate to the jam’s theme in some way.
Pfff. Piece of cake! And a fun challenge to work my Creative Muscles. Heck yeah!
I spent the first day of the jam coming up with the game idea, based on the jam’s themes. I asked a few questions: Who are the characters? What is the story about? What mood(s) should the story convey? Once I had answered those questions, I knew the music would follow much more effectively than just throwing notes to the wind. And I was right.
This was the conceptual theme for the jam. Participants were encouraged to use the image, the text, or both as inspiration for their submission. Art by @kawaakar._
The next day (or two), I set to work writing the melodic themes for the soundtrack. These were to be the basis for the bulk of the musical material. I wrote three themes in total, one for each character of the game idea.
The narrative I created was about a young girl named Umi who is, in her dreams, visited by her late mother who was a marine scientist and died during a research expedition. One night when Umi dreams, her mother is not present. The game takes place entirely inside of Umi’s dream (hey, there’s the title!), which is explicitly nautical, and centers on the search for her mother.
I wrote a melodic theme for Umi, which is rather playful and with a childlike innocence; I wrote a theme for her Mother, which is tender and nurturing; and I wrote a theme for the Ocean, which is slow and resolute like the gentle push and pull of the water.
After I had the melodies completed, I made a list of tracks that were needed in order to communicate the story while also presenting it as a video game soundtrack. This bit had a fair amount of trial and error: How many tracks do I need to tell the story? How many to make it sound like a video game? How much is too much? Too little? Most importantly, what am I able to confidently accomplish in 8 days?
The last question was the biggest.
I kept in mind two major goals for this jam:
Create and submit a result which I’m proud of finishing.
Push my boundaries and compose in an unfamiliar style.
Throughout the week of the jam, as I sketched one track after another, I ultimately decided on submitting a total of 5 tracks. The first was for an imagined title screen for the game, and worked as a brief overture of the entire soundtrack in which each of the three musical themes could be presented. The second and fifth tracks were narratively focused as if for a cutscene, to help push the story (and its emotional journey). The third and fourth tracks were for imagined levels and to assist in the emotional journey as well.
The submission requirements were at least one track and at least three minutes of music. I submitted Umi’s Dream, which is five tracks and over 10 minutes of music - music which challenged me (track four, Bubble Reef, took me several hours to write; props to Thomas Newman for the inspiration) and that I’m proud to have made.
Now, the second part of the jam - post-submission - is a rating period in which anyone who submitted a project is encouraged to rate each others’ submissions. Five categories, 1 to 5 stars per category. But I’m not concerned about whatever my cumulative score happens to be.
What I AM delighted about is the feedback given on my submission page for Umi’s Dream. There are several comments commending me for the cohesiveness of the entire soundtrack, the level of storytelling present in the music, and the way in which I captured both the nautical and dreamy concepts through the musical effects.
A brief note: I popped into the community chat at the beginning of the rating period (keep in mind this is a slew of composers - the imposter syndrome is rampant), and there was a unanimous fear of receiving gosh-awful feedback. To everyone’s surprise, the feedback amongst each other was highly supportive.
I don’t want to seem like I’m just tooting my own horn here, so I’ll also mention that I did receive a solid amount of critical feedback. Much of it distills into the same few overall points, which I look forward to improving upon with my next project(s).
OST Composing Jam #7. 10/10. I had a blast. I learned new tricks for composing and producing music. I’ll definitely participate in another OST Jam in the future.
And if you haven’t heard Umi’s Dream, you can listen to it here.
