In the beginning of 2010, NDB got a contract for a Facebook game called Air Traffic Control, where the player guides different planes to various runways without making the planes crash into one another.  I’ve seen a few different variations of this model, but the really cool aspect of this project is the time period.  By participating in either the World War I or II eras, the player has access to different planes and different artistic stimuli – one of these stimuli is music!

So, when I sat down and brainstormed what type of styles of music I should write, I immediately thought of Count Basie for WWII and then a pop march for WWI.  Let’s start with WWII:

For those readers who aren’t familiar with the Count, he was a piano player and band leader from the ’30s until the 1970s, though his gigging wasn’t consistent throughout all of those years.  I characterize his sound as having a “lean, but not thin” sound – there were times of thick orchestration, but with arrangers like Sammy Nestico (whose arranging book, “The Complete Arranger,” is one of my faves) and Neal Hefti, his tunes always had this bounce that was never weighted down with heavy chords or a trudging feel.  ”Corner Pocket” is a good example of this, with saxes in unison in an  alternating call-and-response with the brass.  On top of that, simple and non-invasive piano parts, like salt in the stew (too much is salty, not enough is bland, but somewhere in the middle is just right!)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4-ZBQ_UYgM]

I used this style for the “Menu” and “WWII” themes, because it’s still relaxing, yet cool; potent, but not invasive.  While music is awesome and a lot of fun, it can also be salt in the stew, it should enhance the atmosphere of the game without overpowering it, like salt should enhance the flavour of the food, but not taste salty.  Here’s a snippet from “Menu.”

WWI was quite a bit more challenging, because a pop march is thick and has a really characteristic interconnection of melody, orchestration and harmony – it’s like certain things do certain jobs all the time.  Being a music teacher by day and teaching Band has helped me get a sense of the “March” style, but the pop music from the 1910s really wasn’t really in the march style, and it wasn’t really in the small-group vocal style either, it was a weird hybrid of both.  If we look at it historically, it really makes sense: By having popular/simple melodies that people would sing and remember mixed in with instruments/styles that remind us of the war (marching band instrumentation and harmony), it was really a vehicle to rally support for the war, which it did.  A really solid example of this is the Multimedia History of World War I, which is really interesting and a compelling (addictive) site if you’re into period history.

I went through about five variations of this one, sending two off and eventually going with one of them (the fifth one, actually).  I also went a bit more off-base for this one, adding a snare drum and bass drum groove underneath (uncharacteristic of the style) as well as an upright bass and a piano.  It centralized the instrumentation a bit more and I liked that: The drums gave a solid sense of groove, the bass laid down the foundation for harmony and the piano brought all of the woodwind and brass parts into context one another, like the musical glue holding all of the parts together.

The harmony was fun to write, because it’s not often that I get to use IVm chords (in a major key) or a rock-solid augmented-fifth without sounding like a Viennese waltz.

I’m excited to see what happens with this game, because it’s been a fun project and the game looks like a lot of fun!

Kenley