Shop-n-Spree 3 Shopping Paradise was an incredibly fun project for me. Very challenging too. Below you'll see the map images for the five themed areas of the game. I had to create a musical identity for each one: Paris, Rio, Egypt, Hollywood, and China. I didn't have much experience in those styles. Research was an especially interesting and fun part of the writing process. Each themed area has two one-minute tracks, I've selected one of the two below.
The Hollywood theme recalls the musical ideas established in the previous game. The piano, instruments, and especially the harmony and harmonic changes are all suggested by my score for the 2nd installment in the series. There's a touch of the new jazz guitar as well as a slightly grander touch of orchestral instruments.
The Egypt track, despite having the easiest building block, turned out to be quite a challenge. The 'oriental' scale, which is often used in egyptian themed tracks, features two augmented seconds. The frequent use of those areas of the scale in the melody will bring out the "Egyptian" sound.
The tricky part was making the scale sound happy and upbeat enough for the game. Writing a mysterious egyptian piece is easy due to the built-in chords of the scale. Happy, not so much. In the end I love how it turned out, the piano adds a nice touch by unifying the sound palette.
The tricky part was making the scale sound happy and upbeat enough for the game. Writing a mysterious egyptian piece is easy due to the built-in chords of the scale. Happy, not so much. In the end I love how it turned out, the piano adds a nice touch by unifying the sound palette.
The rio theme was quite a challenge as this was my first time writing anything with a brazilian touch. I went for a more 'bossa nova' approach, so there are quite a few jazzy chords in the music. What really makes this piece work is the strong melody and instrumentation, especially the percussion. This is where the small, specialized libraries at Big Fish Audio come in really handy by the way, purchased a special brazilian package just for the percussion.
I'd always wanted to write a "parisian cafe" piece so here was my chance to do just that. The accordion, piano, 3/4 meter hopefully communicate that feeling well. The clear melodies and the touch of accordion really help place the piece in that "world."
The China theme was probably the easiest one to write. I went for a pretty simple approach which featured a flute line to begin the piece. The cool thing about the track is that almost every instrumental line follows its own idea independently, which is something I like do in my own personal music. Since the pentatonic scale is so consonant, that actually works pretty well. Hope you've enjoyed the music!