Sneak Peak: Music for Episode 201

The image features the musicians of London Symphony Orchestra. No, we didn’t get them to record the music for us, but maybe someday.
Season two is going to add music to our episodes, themes that will highlight the action. As a preview to what to expect, I thought I’d share some of the themes you might hear in episode 201. As the podcast is set in the 1890’s I thought it would be appropriate to have themes played by an orchestra.

The music is using leitmotif as discusses in Preparing for Season Two – leitmotifs. Since Dr Sage and Abigail open the episode, it is only appropriate to put their themes together.

Professor Savant finds himself in a very difficult situation, one that may not have a good outcome. We only get a bit of this theme, but things are definitely looking dark.

Later on in the episode, things get mysterious. Dr Sage is trying to sort out the details, but her guest is not forthcoming with information.

We have a several returning characters in this episode. It is appropriate for the characters to have their own theme. Can you guess who this might be?

There is a moment of discovery in the episode. I wanted to use the leitmotif for Dr Sage in a heroic way.

Meet the Sage and Savant Orchestra! The sounds you hear are compliments of the sophistication of modern computing. The themes are scored like I would for a live orchestra. Each line of music, each instrument is then assigned a sound module. Sometimes, as with the violins, there are several modules that make up an individual line of music to allow for the various sounds an instrument can make.

As with the violins, there are times when they need to be aggressive, and other times when they need to be more pensive or lush. Depending on the style of performance I want for each note, I adjust which sound module plays it. When the entire line is complete, I can adjust the dynamics (volume) to create crescendos and decrescendos as appropriate.

The whole process is time consuming, but I think the final result is worth it. I hope you think so too.

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