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Message: 6022

Author: colin_broom

Date: 21/01/2007

Subject: Re: Manic Miner: The Opera

 

Hi Igor,

Firstly thanks for taking the time both to listen to the music and
also to write such an obviously considered response. A couple of the
points you make I'll respond to here

Firstly, these three bits of music were meant to sound like extracts
of an opera, not a whole opera in itself. In the context of the radio
show in which they were first heard, the idea was that one would
periodically come back to the opera at a later point, almost like a
recurring sketch or scene that has moved along a little each time.

> Willy's voice is in true opera traditions (with some old-style
> english-german-like, if I'm right, pronounciation of R and L sounds

It is the voice of a classically trained singer, yes. My basic
requirements for the voice was a tenor, who could sing without too
much vibrato and in a manner that would be easily understood.

> Second theme (Eugene's lair) has, to my mind, less individual and
> more forgettable structure (it is chaotic a bit), though, in fact,
> the level itself isn't so crazy as the sequence of sounds. Don't you
> think so? Your theme suits Broadsoft "crazy-like" games much more, to
> my mind.

This is interesting. It's actually one of my favorite of the three
(probably because it was the most difficult to write). In one sense I
guess I would agree that in the game the Eugene's Lair level isn't
particularly chaotic - but then again, almost none of the game is
especially chaotic. However, if nothing else, the nature of opera is
most often high drama - even melodrama. As a player of the game, the
level is not chaotic, however if you were Willy in that scenario, and
was having to avoid killer toilets and the wrath of Eugene, my feeling
is that it would feel considerably more chaotic and tense.

> Third theme ofcourse reminds Manic Miner much more and if I would
> create the opera about Willy, I would probably begin with this theme,
> because everybody, who hear even a few first notes would remember the
> original sounds from the old-kind game and would hear all the parts
> with remembering emotions from their youth. Plus, I wonder, what
> makes you associate Grieg's "In the hall..." with "Warehouse" level
> rather than with other much more individual rooms, to my mind?

The decision to put the original Manic Miner (Greig) theme in this one
was more musical than symbolic or contextual. The bottom line is I
knew I wanted to use the original theme somewhere, but not through all
of them as, a. It would restrict me musically, and b. it would become
a little tedious (in truth, when I play the game, I always switch the
music off!). It worked better in the context of a slow movement than
a fast movement and as the warehouse was to be the slow movement, then
it made most sense there.

> Plus I don't see, to tell you the truth, the whole composition of the
> opera - maybe I didn't understood every word, being said by Willy,
> but I didn't catch the whole -beginning-central part-culmination-and
> the final part structure. Looks like to me that it is just a
> collection of three moments from Willy's adventure.

Well, as I said, this is not a whole opera (if it was, it be the
shortest opera in history!), it's meant to sound like extracts from a
much bigger opera. Obviously the listener won't hear the whole of the
larger opera (because it doesnt exist). So there isn't an overall
shape, and you're exactly right when you say that this is a collection
of moments from Willy's adventure - it's precisely this. To hear the
whole journey one would have to hear the whole opera, but it doesn't
exist! :)

All that said, the more I thought about it as I wrote it, the more I
concluded that it's actually a great subject for an opera, and I
started figuring ways of doing the whole thing. But to be honest, I
have too many other projects on and it probably wouldn't happen. But
if it ever did I'd let you know. One thing's for sure: it would cost
a fortune to create all those rooms on stage!

> Finally, I repeat once again, that you fresh idea is superb, and the
> result is very good.

Thanks again for your comments.

Colin Broom.

 

 

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