Cartoon Music and Grant Kirkhope
Just realised in my post below on the cartoon task I failed to mention where my inspiration came from for the main musical theme heard briefly at the beginning and in an extended form at the end. I wanted it to be instantly catchy and also give a nod to the marching band style to fit the theme of the cartoon. I tried to achieve this using straight quarter note fifths in the bass which is very much a cliche most people would be familiar with.
However, most of all I found a great deal of inspiration for this style of composition in Grant Kirkhope’s work which I am familiar with through my memories of playing Banjo-Kazooie, a 1998 N64 game. All be it fairly simple sounding stuff, I found it to be often more harmonically complex than I had expected. His melody writing is what I found most relevant here. So simple, but incredibly catchy, often through use of melodic sequence (taking a melodic phrase and repeating it up one step within the key signature). It also helped me think about orchestration, arrangement and form. Maybe his work is of use to some of you guys too!
Heres a link to an example on youtube, with plenty more in the related videos. He also did the soundtracks to Goldeneye and Perfect Dark for anyone familiar with those games and their brilliant soundtracks.
Enjoy!
