My new project - Gaming Music, a resource for GMs

DarkMagus

I want to annouce the founding of my newest project for OP. Gaaran (that rogue!) has already discovered this, but I wanted to officially announce "Gaming Music: A resource for GMs":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/gaming-music. I wanted to expand my Music Reviews page, and when I realized that the use of tags would be so incredibly helpful in letting users filter or serch for specific moods or sounds I decided to make this its own campaign.

It's still a little bare, I just started last night. But I wanted to get some feedback from you guys to see what you thought about this. I'm no master at professional layouts like some of you guys, but I think it is pretty easy to navigate and not too bad on the eyes. On my main wiki page I have short blurbs about various albums with links to a page for that album. On that page there is a picture of the album cover, a link to Amazon where it can be purchased or MORE IMPORTANTLY users can check out samples of what it sounds like, and a more detailed description of the album.

I have TONS more music to put up and am open and looking for suggestions about anything: music, layout, funcationality of the site, hygene (you jerk! j.k.), etc...

DarkMagus

erwin

Conan The Barbarian OST - Basil Poledouris

"Battle of the Mounds":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=monoYkJNe_k is a thing of bloody beauty. The break down at like 1:55 always gets me.

Good stuff though man, I'ma keep my eye on this one.

DarkMagus

Thanks! It's definately on my "to do list":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/gaming-music/wikis/to-do-list. I have used it from time to time. Good fallback music for any typical fantasy setting.

Duskreign

Dark Magus... this is fantastic.

"Have a listen at Two Steps From Hell.":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRLdhFVzqt4

erwin

Ahh, I missed that. The list is more expansive than I thought haha.

libranchylde

I saw that this morning. i really think this is cool. a really good idea. you of course are going to include Dr. Demento right? the Dead Alewives Club?

DarkMagus

Can't say I'm familiar with either of those artists, other than the Monster Mash of course. Maybe I can find some of their work on you tube?

RaseCidraen

The Dead Alewives Watchtower was the penultimate lampooning of the D&D culture - it was an audio track created by Dr. Demento that stereotyped a great deal of D&D. It's amusing, and sometimes sad.

gnunn

I would add Apocalyptica - "Amplified" -This is one of my go-to battle albums
Also, another excellent Joe Hisaishi is - "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind"

gaaran

I always looked at the Dead Alewives Club as mocking those who didn't understand what D&D was that grouped it in with satanism and crazy stuff like that. Rather than mocking D&D players, it mocked those who villainized D&D.

RaseCidraen

Thanks for that gaaran! I wasn't in my right mind yesterday - kept forgetting where I was, misinterpreting things, and generally being in a funk. I'm back in the swing of things now!!!!!!!

FemmeLegion

The two albums I own that I would definitely reach for when trying to establish "mood music" are:

David Arkenstone, _The Celtic Book of Days_

John Doan, _Eire: Island of the Saints_

Now, I suspect that if anyone were to go and listen to the sample tracks on iTunes, they'd say "Meh". I wouldn't be using them to set battle scenes. I'd be using them as "theme songs" for cities. And then, one day, when the time is right, I will bust out the "wrong" song for a given city, and the players will know something is wrong, even if they don't know how they know.

RaseCidraen

Clever! Very Pavlovian of you! I like it.

Training your players to respond subconsciously!

DarkMagus

Thank you lady and gentlemen they have been added to my To Do List. :)

Curufea

Speaking of audio - I recently came across this magnificent public domain resource-
"The Freesound Project":http://www.freesound.org

Anyhow suggestions - I highly recommend the energy pumping music of FPS games as inspiration - especially Half Life. Also the choral classic (okay, to be pedantic, romantic period) music use for Homeworld gives it an epic feel. Choral voices in large numbers really helps make things epic. Same with strings for that matter - it's really only brass that you don't need huge numbers to make something "big".

Composers - James Horner and John Wiliams (of course) for modern sound tracks, but also the BSG tracks by Bear McCreary and Richard Gibbs have a really nice mix of scifi and tribal as does the Farscape tracks by Guy Gross.

Folk music is great for Dogs in the Vineyard games, so the soundtrack for O Brother Where Art Thou? is a good start.

FemmeLegion

I'm a fan of Tom Smith (the world's fastest filker), and he pointed me to this:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4368998 - this guy has offered up his entire CD of Celtic-style music for download. I haven't listened to any of it yet, but oh heck yes I snagged it. =)

Dyluth

Duskreign I've just downloaded Heart of Courage now, and my only regret is that I WASN'T playing this track sooner in the campaign! An excellent find indeed for which I am in your debt sir!

As for my contribution to this ongoing list, I do have a few tracks to mention. Just as a heads up, these may be more geared to science fiction than fantasy, but I will allow you all to judge that for yourself. First off we have the Main Title from the 2007 film version of Beowulf by Alan Silvestri. I've been using this song as an introduction whenever a Mandlorian enters the scene. I can easily see this being used to introduce Viking types or barbarians. It can be previewed on YouTube with the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u065rNA8wJA

Next up we have the song Bishops Countdown composed by James Horner for Aliens from 1986. This song ALWAYS gets my adrenalin pumping, and it's perfect for scene's where your party is on the run and hellbent to get the hell out of Dodge FAST! It can be found on YouTube down down here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX1rxPBTyEY

Lastly we have the song Lux aurumque, an old choral piece (I'm not certain from where it comes or who first composed it) that every time I hear it sets a tone of serenity and calm. I currently use it for when my Jedi characters have flashbacks or memories to their days in the ancient Jedi Temple. It's a truly beautiful piece that I can see fitting in any church, temple or monastery in any gaming universe. A version of the song can be found on YouTube here, which was a viral video from a year ago where a conductor created the recording by assembling dozens of individually web cam recorded choral singers into a single piece. Again, I can't recommend this enough:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7o7BrlbaDs

DarkMagus

Thanks very much Curu, Femme and Dyluth!

Your suggestions have been added to our mile long to-do list. Keep them coming! :)

gnunn

bq. Duskreign I've just downloaded Heart of Courage now, and my only regret is that I WASN'T playing this track sooner in the campaign! An excellent find indeed for which I am in your debt sir! -Dyluth

Seriously! I'm building a playlist with their stuff for tonight. I Think "Defenders of the Earth" is just the tune to underscore the military-style "Today is the day when butts will be kicked!" briefing scene I have planned for the opening of my session tonight.

Duskreign

Two Steps From Hell FTW, guys. For serious.

FemmeLegion

Oh, if you need some "let's get dangerous!" music, I recommend "The March of Cambreadth". Drums and highland pipes FTW.

Duskreign

Or, alternatively, the Darkwing Duck theme song.

DarkMagus

"When there's trouble-you call DW!. Darkwing Duck!" Yeeeeeeeessssss!

edit: "Theme":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=375ENQbru8s

Duskreign

Can't have been the only one who heard that in their head when they read FemmeLegion's post :P

DarkMagus

I can't believe I forgot about that show it used to be one of my favorites. It especially helped that my initials are DW!

RaseCidraen

What's worse is when you forget the lyrics, and you just get the background sounds - it's maddening if you have a good memory for songs, because it's reproduced in perfect clarity, but it won't resolve itself, nor will it tell you where it came from.

DarkMagus

Not too mention its especially hard to Google to find out what song it is if you only have sounds and no lyrics.

Typing into google: "click plack clank zoooowie darr"

hahaha

RaseCidraen

Just about the only two songs you can find without knowing the lyrics are "Dun-nun. Dun-nun. Dun-nun-dun-nun-dun-nun-dun-nun-dudle-NUN!" and "Dun-dun-dun-dunnnn-DUNNNNNNNN-Dun-dun-dun-DAAAAAAAAAAANNNN-DUN-Dun-dun-dun-DAAAAAAAANNN-Nun-Dun-dun-da-dunnnnnnn"...

DarkMagus

Funniest google search ever! So I put in your first one and it asked me, "Did you mean: Dun-nun. Nun-nun. Nun-nun-nun-nun-nun-nun-dun-nun-dudle-NUN" and the second one it said "Your search - Dun-dun-dun-dunnnn-DUNNNNNNNN-Dun-dun-dun-DAAAAAAAAAAANNNN-DUN-Dun ... - did not match any documents." hahahaha.

I give up. What songs are they?

RaseCidraen

So the songs I had in mind when I was parsing those out (I forgot to check, silly me.): 1) Jaws. 2) Star Wars :)

DarkMagus

AH! I see it now. At first I was trying to fit one of them to the Pink Panther theme, but that didn't work. It'd be really weird if it did though.