A swift and adventurous track that amplifies a feeling of bravery, "Strategy" is designed to loop as if for use in a video game scene.

This song came about as the result of an experiment in which I tried to step a little beyond my comfort zone at the time as a composer.  It was a fun piece for me to compose and realize, and the process for completing it actually went a lot more smoothly than I expected it to.  Any parts of it that you like or think could be improved?  Leave me a comment and let me know!

Strategy

This is a composition to portray the peaceful serenity of a pastoral home, situated in a serene countryside.  It was written for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, violin, harp, and string orchestra, and was composed, edited, and finalized by me, Andy Willmore.  I hope that listeners will find it a pleasing, melodic, and perhaps even nostalgic listen.

About the composer: Andy Willmore is a composer with a strong interest in orchestral video game music, and a growing desire to expand his musical skills and palette. He began composing out of a strong desire to hear his own melodies and harmonies realized, and has since taken to learning more about composition and music technology alike.

A Quiet, Peaceful Home

This musical piece is an original composition that I composed.  Titled "Solemn Melody" and written for solo cello, it served as a short exercise through which I explored how to create an engaging melody with a single instrument.  The melody's overall 'shape' - or the cello's journey up and down its tonal scale - was also a big part of what I focused on in creating this piece.

About the composer: Andy Willmore is an aspiring composer with a strong interest in orchestral video game music, and a growing desire to expand my musical skills and palette. He began composing out of a strong desire to hear his own melodies and harmonies realized, and has since taken to learning more about composition and music technology alike.

Solemn Melody

"Clash on the Fields of Battle" is a cutscene-style piece that I composed, mixed, and otherwise edited on my own.  My intent with the piece, though I did not create the music to an actual cutscene, was to practice musical transitions in the piece itself, while also creating an engaging and powerful sonic experience.  Give it a listen, and if you feel so inclined, let me know what images and ideas come to your mind as you hear it!

Clash On The Fields Of Battle

Imagine that you are in a vast land unfamiliar to you, a beautiful land with many sights to behold; mountains, waterfalls, forests, lakes, cities and villages alike, each with its own unique charm, its own stunning and serene appearances.  You visit the places across this land, one after another, each as dazzling and as wondrous as the next - like gemstones  woven into the threads of a silk tapestry, all places have value and shine.

Now, imagine that you have seen all of these places across this land under the light not of a single, nearby sun around which this land travels; there is no Sun here.  Rather, you have beheld this world, and all of its places, by the light of a truly tremendous number of ever-glittering stars.  That image - of a world enveloped in gentle, wonderful starlight - is the inspiration for this piece.

Under The Light Of The Stars

This composition is another fiction-based piece, designed with the image of a large, impressive desert city in mind.  With towering, strong stone walls, bustling streets, and a presence on the world stage as both an oasis in the sands and a military stronghold, this place leaves a memorable, and powerful, impression to all tourists and travelers that journey to it.  Take a walk through the sun-baked and shady streets alike; behold its life, whether animal, plant, or human; expose yourself to the songs, the culture, and the people; and marvel at the signs of its ancient past.

But, never forget that this is a territory that you are new to...and that navigating these streets, and this city, safely can be a tricky business at times.  Whether that is because of the more shady residents, or because of the militaristic, prideful prowess of the city and its rulers, I leave to you to imagine.

The Fortified Desert City

Beyond the sparse centers of civilization in the area - where there are any - a land of dust, heat, and tough soil and stone can be a lonesome, hard one to live in.  These are the gritty deserts and rocky wastes of varying forms where only the most alert, opportune, resourceful, and down-to-earth of living beings survive.  A trek through such a place can be a dangerous affair on multiple levels, and if you travel alone, the quiet will likely be your only consistent company, if you're lucky.  If you aren't, though, and you get caught unawares by a hungry predator, a sudden storm, or the heat and dryness itself...well, what was once quiet but there may also vanish into silence.

Welcome to The Dustlands.  Whether you will survive here - or rather, for how long - is up to your wits, your resources, and circumstances beyond your control.

The Dustlands

"When you think of a 'march' in terms of the style of orchestral piece of music, what do you imagine it to sound like?  For myself, unlike a number of composers who have illustrated an orchestra portraying a more orderly, uniform picture, the word 'march' carries a feeling that is often linked to what many marches are, and have been, used to depict: power.  This is true on a number of levels - from the military power of a state or nation, to the skill of those who defend it, to the number of people who stand by it, many marches throughout history have been displays of power.  And so, in creating this piece, I asked myself: "What does that power statement in a march, itself, really sound like...?"

This piece is the result.  It takes some orchestral liberties, and is not going to portray any traditional or celebratory tone as many marches through a town or a city today will, nor does it portray a conflict, but it isn't meant to; it's meant to capture and expound on that idea of the orchestral equivalent to those things that marches have historically shown: the talent, size, and power of the performance as a whole.

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This piece is one that I mostly completed about a month ago, but I wanted to make some revisions to it before sharing it here.  It's not designed to loop, but it is a good example of some of how my composing ability has been developing recently.  With every composition I make, I find that I am learning and developing more as a composer - and I intend to continue doing exactly that.

Forward March

Andy Willmore is a composer with a strong interest in orchestral music, and a growing desire to expand his musical skills and palette as he continues to compose for electronic projects like film and video games.  In fact, he is highly inspired by music from video games, and has a growing interest in film scores.  He has even done work with merging music with sounds form nature for Yellowstone National Park.

Andy began composing out of a strong desire to hear his own melodies and harmonies realized, and has since taken to learning more about composition and music technology alike.  Other interests of his include taking time to be outdoors in the natural world, where he finds a lot of his musical inspiration, and some wonderful sounds with which to work.