{"id":449,"date":"2012-10-29T08:02:41","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T15:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/?p=449"},"modified":"2012-10-29T08:04:10","modified_gmt":"2012-10-29T15:04:10","slug":"choosing-the-soundtrack-to-civ-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/choosing-the-soundtrack-to-civ-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing the Soundtrack for Civ 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyle Roderick, a master’s student in music at Texas Christian University, recently contacted me with some questions about the soundtrack to <\/em>Civ 4. I am sharing my answers here for anyone else who might be curious about how it was created.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q. Why was preexisting music chosen to underscore the game? Why not have a\u00a0wholly original score?<\/strong><\/p>\n

By choosing preexisting music, we were able to include pieces of the\u00a0highest quality which also gave a historical flavor for relatively low\u00a0cost. Creating our own score would have been expensive, required a lot\u00a0more work, and would likely be much shorter in time. (We had almost no\u00a0practical limit on how many historical pieces we could include.) Most\u00a0importantly, Civilization<\/em> games are improved by real bits of history,\u00a0even if incidental, such as relevant historical quotations, the names\u00a0of great people, accurate wonder visuals, and so on. Music was one\u00a0more tool for us. However, we did write music for certain key parts of\u00a0the game, such as the classical age, which has no preserved musical\u00a0pieces. Also, we did commission a piece from composer Christopher Tin\u00a0(my college roommate, by the way) for the intro screen, which became\u00a0“Baba Yetu” and actually won a Grammy award, the first ever for a\u00a0video game!<\/p>\n

Q: Why this music? How did you go about choosing the pieces which would\u00a0underscore the various game periods?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I selected the music based on my own collection of classical music.\u00a0I spent a few months listening through as many works as I could while\u00a0listing ones which might work well. I then added them to the game to\u00a0see how they matched the experience of playing Civ<\/em>. I discovered that\u00a0many of my top pieces worked poorly because they had too much dynamic\u00a0range – a great climax might work well in a concert hall, but it can\u00a0be a little disorientating as background music during a turn-based\u00a0strategy game. Thus, much of the soundtrack is built from dance music\u00a0(such as Brahm’s Hungarian and Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances) or middle\u00a0movements of larger concertos or symphonies (such as the 2nd movement\u00a0of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony). One climactic piece I did leave in,\u00a0regardless of how it broke the mood, was the final movement of Bach’s\u00a0Double Concerto simply because I love that piece so much.<\/p>\n

Q: Much of the music which accompanies the Medieval game period is from the\u00a0real-world Renaissance, and the Renaissance game period is underscored by\u00a0Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart. Could you comment on these perceived\u00a0discrepancies?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the best pieces (and especially my personal knowledge\u00a0of them) are not distributed evenly across history, so I had to fudge\u00a0the dates a bit. Design is a series of trade-offs, and – in this case\u00a0– sacrificing historical accuracy for the highest quality of music\u00a0made sense. Giving Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven their own era meant\u00a0they get plenty of time to shine while still leaving room for the\u00a0great Romantic composers. I was also unsure of what to include from\u00a0the actual Medieval period, so this shift strengthened the whole\u00a0experience.<\/p>\n

Q: The modern era is represented solely by American minimalist composer John\u00a0Adams. Why only Adams, were other composers considered?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The repertoire from modern period is much more varied than that of any\u00a0other era’s, which meant that finding a consistent style and tone\u00a0would be difficult. Furthermore, the chaotic structure and casual\u00a0dissonance of much of modern music would be a difficult match for the\u00a0mainstream audience of Civ<\/em>. John Adams is a singular composer from\u00a0this era; even though he is as well-schooled in minimalism as Glass or\u00a0Reich, he composes with the heart of a Romantic. His works have a\u00a0certain movement and thrust to them which makes them a better fit for\u00a0the less experienced ears of the average player. By using only Adams,\u00a0I was able to maintain stylistic consistency for the era while also\u00a0finding a palatable way to stay true to the stylistic innovations of\u00a0the periods.<\/p>\n

I would like add that I will always be grateful to whoever at 2K Games\u00a0actually approved by request to include so much John Adams. The price\u00a0was not low, and it was certainly an idiosyncratic choice. I was somewhat expecting them to balk at it, and I’m glad they supported me.\u00a0(I have similar feelings for them approving the Velvet Underground’s\u00a0“Rock and Roll” as the background piece for the Rock and Roll wonder;\u00a0so many other cheaper (or more expensive) paths could have given that\u00a0moment a very cliched tone.)<\/p>\n

Q: Saint-Sa\u00ebns and Rimsky-Korsakov together are an interesting case. They\u00a0feature one track each in the Industrial game period, both selections from\u00a0larger works: the \u201cAllegretto con moto\u201d from Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019s Cello Concerto in\u00a0A minor, and \u201cThe Young Prince and the Young Princess\u201d from\u00a0Rimsky-Korsakov\u2019s symphonic suite Sheherazade. Why were these two tracks\u00a0included? Were other composers considered for singular inclusion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I played the cello from early childhood through college, so I have\u00a0always been partial to pieces which feature that instrument.\u00a0Furthermore, the Saint-Saen Concerto was probably most difficult piece\u00a0I ever learned, so I wanted include something from it, and the middle\u00a0movement made the most sense. I probably toyed with including\u00a0something from his 2nd Piano or 3rd Violin Concerto, but the former is\u00a0a bit too explosive and the latter is a bit too apocalyptic. As for\u00a0the Rimsky-Korsakov, I wanted to add something from Sheherazade\u00a0because it would provide just a dash of exotic (or, at least,\u00a0exotic-sounding) music. “The Young Prince and the Young Princess” is a\u00a0long, slow dance, so it was the best choice to maintain the game’s\u00a0flow.<\/p>\n

Q: Another interesting case is that of the inclusion of John Sheppard’s\u00a0Media vita. Sheppard is a relatively obscure composer in that his\u00a0significance is usually overshadowed by Thomas Tallis, whose works are not\u00a0represented in the game. Is there some reason behind the inclusion of this\u00a0track?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My knowledge of music from the Renaissance is quite poor, so I\u00a0enlisted the help of my cousin Erik Anderson, who is a cello professor\u00a0at Minot State University, and his wife Dianna, who is an accomplished\u00a0pianist. They created a list of pieces and composers I should\u00a0consider. As a result, I bought a bunch of music from this period, and\u00a0the Sheppard piece stuck out to me because of its austere beauty and\u00a0consistency with the period. I am actually surprised when I look back\u00a0that I didn’t include any Tallis; I guess they just didn’t stand out\u00a0to me for some reason.<\/p>\n

Q: The recording of “Christian Zeal and Activity” was edited to exclude the\u00a0sermon. Was this your decision? How do you feel about this significant\u00a0alteration?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That old recording is an essential part of “Christian Zeal and Activity” (used to great effect by Scorsese in Shutter Island<\/em>), but spoken\u00a0dialogue would seriously damage the flow of a Civ<\/em> game, so I had no\u00a0choice. Indeed, I edited most of the Adams pieces to take out some of\u00a0their more climactic or dissonant moments; “Harmonielehre” is missing\u00a0its shattering opening, for example. Taking these bits out was\u00a0disappointing, as I didn’t want to damage the structural integrity of\u00a0the work, but also one of the many steps made to make Civilization 4<\/em> fit together as a whole, without any single element demanding the\u00a0user’s attention over all the others.<\/p>\n

Q: If you could go back and change something about the soundtrack to\u00a0Civilization IV<\/em>, what would you change? Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am quite proud of how the soundtrack turned out; I often get\u00a0compliments on it, and I certainly never would have dreamed that “Baba\u00a0Yetu” would win a Grammy. Of course, I wish my musical knowledge would\u00a0have been deeper and wider so that I could have built a more varied\u00a0selection; I definitely leaned pretty heavily on Bach, Beethoven,\u00a0Dvorak, and Adams. However, if I was to design another Civ<\/em> game, it\u00a0would be extremely difficult to go through the process over again and\u00a0force myself to pick new pieces; I do view the soundtrack of Civ 4<\/em> as\u00a0a piece of myself that sits inside the game, an enthusiastic jumble of\u00a0my passions and my happenstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kyle Roderick, a master’s student in music at Texas Christian University, recently contacted me with some questions about the soundtrack to Civ 4. I am sharing my answers here for anyone else who might be curious about how it was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civ"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3EGlq-7f","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":454,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions\/454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}