Mantra

This is an idea I’ve been mulling over and modifying since Christmas.

The original impetus for this massive project was to be a “sample” score to launch a personal website and garner the attention of prospective collaborators and film music fans. Eventually, I actually had a story to go with it, and I had about 3 CDs worth of titled cues. It became an unnecessarily elaborate “fake score” to market myself. Then, I decided why make it a fake score, and why not make it usable in a video game? That is, why not make the cues less capricious and organic, and more loop-able? So then it became a “fake video game score”… and then I developed the story even more.

And then it became a hobby. I spent more time conceiving of a storyline, characters, and their universe than I did actually writing music for it. I was waiting until I could get hold of some of the Captain’s ethnic sound fonts, which would require me to figure out a few ownership problems with Logic Pro 7 I’ve been procrastinating. I called the Captain a while back about this project idea, and I ended up talking for about an hour about the story and its marketability.

A couple Wednesdays ago, I was hanging out with the unsinkable Herr Vogler, and he told me something I’ve heard a few times before: I should seriously consider writing a book. I never took the recommendation seriously before that, but I started thinking. Maybe it was because I feel so strongly that my talent is going to waste, but I was reminded of a few things. First of all, I was serious about writing when I was in junior high, but nobody’s ambitions at that age count for anything. Secondly, I was reminded that I was almost out of paper plates. Finally, I thought of the other times the same thing was recommended. Even Dr. Carol Hess, the author of the English language itself, said I was a great writer. Granted, that wasn’t fiction, but still. I should have listened.

So I’ve been deciding what to do about this since hanging out with Brad. Should Mantra be the composition project I hit hard next? Or should I work on adapting it into a sci-fi action book series? I’ve been juggling some priorities. Obviously, the job/apartment search is immediate, albeit fruitless. Reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire doesn’t seem so important right now. And my PS2 doesn’t even work anymore, so there’s no distraction of video games. So Mantra is becoming a priority, but in what capacity? That is the question.

I don’t want to go into the plot too much, in case I do decide to write a book trilogy about it. Personally, I’d really like to see it adapted into a video game for which I may compose. After all, it will probably never be a miniseries or anything. On the other hand, you never know what kind of crap will get adapted for the screen farther down the road.

Ultimately, I just want this project to somehow propel my dead career. Maybe I can earn a few bucks by getting a book published, or maybe I can use the music to get hired to do other projects. It’s better than nothing. Even though I’ve really told you nothing, at least I have the title up, so I can prove one day that I came up with it first. If there’s anything I’ve learned from the Captain, it’s that someone else coincidentally uses your title before you can do anything with it yourself.

I just don’t want to pitch the story on my blog just yet, because there are a few more dimensions that need development. I hate to do the comparative pitch thing because it immediately undermines originality, but… I would say that the setting of the story and the musical style are both like “a cross between Halo and Battlestar Galactica.” It sounds horribly contrived and dime-a-dozen, but that’s what all pitches sound like.