I’ve had to write a number of pieces of music with the name “Final Victory” and will probably write more in the future. It’s kind of an occupational hazard when scoring film, and certainly video games. This particular final victory, from the game Empire Earth 2, is a dramatic sort – more of a “phew, we made it” mood than “hip hip hooray”.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Final Victory

This cue, from the political thriller The F-Zone, is a good example of how composers are lazy and like to recycle. The music opens with a suspenseful harp passage, which is really just the movie’s main theme re-purposed as an accompaniment. I then shamelessly recycle an earlier plot-development theme from this cue, now played by the celli and violas. The oboe player then begins the film’s love theme, which by this point the attentive audience member has heard half a dozen times.

Quite a lot of mileage with barely any new music written! (If pressed, composers will refer to this process as “motivic development”.)

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	A Consultation

This week’s selection intermixes lots of drums with cimbalom, mandolin, and recorder. (An alternate name for this piece might be “massacre at the Renaissance fair”.)

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	The Lowlanders

This week’s selection is a bit of mid-tempo electronica-plus-acoustic-guitar-plus-vibraphone (yes, that old cliche) written for Culture, an XBox Live game.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Sudden Blooms

This blog has been offline for a few weeks, but I have an excuse: I was over in New York attending a fabulous NY Fringe run of Super Sidekick: The Musical, for which I wrote music and lyrics. It did so well that the Fringe extended its run throughout September. If you’re in the NYC area, check it out!

Onto our usual subject matter. This week’s selection is from the iOS game Wizard Ops, wherein the protagonist does what wizards traditionally do, namely don a jetpack. Of course, wizardly flying music was called for. Enjoy!

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Wizard Flight