Cue of the Week: Attack of the Yen (and contest!)

Continuing the series of Korean music cues from Empire Earth II, here's a more action-flavored piece.

Here's a contest for the sharp-eared listeners in the audience. Somewhere in this cue the main EE2 Korean theme, as featured in the past two Cues of the Week, has been subtley inserted as counterpoint. The first reader who tells me the time (in seconds) that the theme appears and identifies the instrument(s) performing it will receive a free CD of their choice of any of my music scores.

Attack of the Yen

Cue of the Week: Ancient Koryo Prelude

This week's cue is a bit of a prequel to last week's, as it features the same theme - only this time presented by daegum (membrane) flute instead of the full string section. This demonstrates, backwards, how the music in Empire Earth II evolved to follow the player's progress forwards through the various eras in history.

I'll fess up to adding Japanese taiko drum instead of the more indigenous Korean chang-ko. The fact is that the chang-ko looks prettier than it sounds, and has a bit of a clacketly quality that wouldn't have worked as well here. Emotion always trumps ethnomusicological authenticity! Hopefully the ancient Koryo empire won't hold it against me.

Ancient Koryo Prelude

Cue of the Week: Land of the Morning Calm

My apologies for the radio silence, gentle reader/listeners. Not only am I immersed in a big project, but a short musical comedy of mine is being produced this month. Amazing how much of your free time live theater can consume.

Here's an orchestral theme from Empire Earth II, the final victory music for the Korean people. (Actually, it's two themes abutted together, but I cleverly wrote them in the same key and tempo to allow for this very thing.) I didn't use many ethnic elements in this particular cue, beyond the daegum flute doubling the violins. But I did take a cue from Korea's national slogan, "Land of the Morning Calm", and used a string-and-woodwind texture to give the music a light and somewhat bucolic feel.

Land of the Morning Calm