I composed twenty hours of music for Vanguard over a period of about two years. During that period I wrote every day without fail which really helped me nail the size and scope of the massive game world.
The music for this game was designed and composed in a modular fashion for each distinct environment and was created to be interactive. Each piece is composed of twelve layers that are triggered on and off by a series of in-game events or actions by the player; as well as environmental variables such as time of day and the length of time the player spent in a region. Each region also had ten layers of combat music which was seamlessly transitioned when the player was in battle.
I had a personal goal of composing at least half of the pieces outside of standard 4/4 timings, so many of the pieces are written in 5/4. 7/4, 6/8, 11/8, and other non-standard meters. I also experimented with whole tone scales, and twewlve tone row composing.
The game world inhabitants were as culturally diverse as our real world, so I was able to use instruments and voicings from around the globe.
I enjoyed working on a game which offered so many opportunities to the composer to experiment and push the envelope.
During the last eighteen months I stepped in to join the production staff and get the game focused and shipped before moving on.
