Wanderlust

This is a hybrid orchestra/electronic soundtrack for an imaginary video game, Wanderlust written for the OST Composing Jam #4. I imagine this game to be an adventure/exploration/collector 3D platformer. In this story, the child from the “Runaway” theme image is now a young girl and after struggling her whole life with wondering where she and her family came from, decides to run away to find her home that she believes to be lost. The entire journey takes place in a dream state as she runs away through the Amethyst Forest finding her way to the crystal-clear forest pools before finding the Starry Cave. In the cave, she encounters a horrific creature. As she cowers in fear, she realizes that the creature seems to grow. But before hope is lost, she hears her mother’s voice telling her to stand up. As she does so, the creature retreats and becomes less menacing. The cave brightens and she realizes that her fear feeds the creature. She takes steps toward the creature with increasing confidence and the creature shrieks and scurries back to the depths of the cave. She then realizes that what she was looking for was not lost. Her home is with her mother and that with her, she is safe no matter where they runaway to.

I tried to write my OST to fit both the theme “Runaway” and the image prompt. I wrote music set in a world with a forest that had an eerie yet whimsical feel like the image, and also took inspiration for my main character from the people in the image. In addition to the music accompanying the story of the girl running away through the forest, I also tried to embody the theme within my composition style and approach for this jam. The first way I did this was by “running away” from the home key. I used modulations frequently and used almost every note as a tonic note throughout the OST. I took this a step further and as the OST progressed, I even “ran away” from the major mode and used every mode of the major scale in progressive darkening of the sound to emulate moving away from the warmth of the major key, representing home, to mirror the feeling of being more distant from home the further you progress in the game. (Track 1 – Ionian, track 2 – Mixolydian, track 3 – Lydian, track 4 – Dorian, track 5 – Aeolian, track 6 – Locrian with a flavor of Phrygian and chromaticism, and track 7 – back to major). This continues until the resolution theme which returns to the home key of C in the major Ionian mode. To further represent the main theme of running away and returning home, one of the main motifs used is an octave jump up then back down representing moving away and coming back home.

I created this soundtrack using Logic Pro X and BBC Discovery Orchestra. During this jam, my time was limited, so I challenged myself to write music that I enjoy listening to rather than writing what I think other people want to hear. I’d say I succeeded in writing music that I enjoy, and I sure hope you enjoy it too!

https://soundcloud.com/user-639826435/sets/wanderlust

Head over to https://bluelavamusic.carrd.co/ for more!