Growing up in a creative family, I was exposed to music at a very young age. I've been in a variety of musical ensembles of various shapes and sizes ever since then -- from concert band in middle school, to choirs in high school, to both at once for much of my undergraduate career. Currently, I am music director and president of In The Buff, the best men's a cappella group on CU-Boulder campus (it's true, I swear!).
At 10 years old, I discovered the joys of music notation software (thanks, Finale Workbook) and started composing my own work. At the age of 12, I discovered the joys of DAWs (thanks, Acoustica Mixcraft) and continued to hone my skills. It wasn't until 2016 that I began composing music for Boulder-based video game development studio Serenity Forge. Since then, I've been working on a variety of projects with them which have allowed me to grow immensely, both as a musician and as an individual.
I started writing arrangements in 2014 upon joining my collegiate a cappella group, In The Buff. Ever since then, I've had the pleasure of arranging songs for various groups to sing at private events, concerts, street performances, and even on national television:
In The Buff has recently performed in a variety of a cappella competitions; the most notable among these was ICCA (International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, better known as "that a cappella competition from Pitch Perfect"), where our group not only won 3rd place in our region's quarterfinal, but also received the "Outstanding Arrangement" award for the three-song, 12-minute set I arranged. They even misspelled my name on the website, but I honestly can't really blame them.
It was at this ICCA quarterfinal that we met fellow Colorado-based a cappella group, In The Stairwell. Hailing from the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, this all-male group put on a fantastic show and we had a great time getting to know them. Recently they've had monumental success on NBC's America's Got Talent, where they first wowed the judges with a performance of 'Drag Me Down' by One Direction. It was at this time that I agreed to produce future arrangements for them, including 'Bye Bye Bye' by *NSYNC (which helped them survive judges cuts and move to the quarterfinals) and "Some Nights" by Fun, featured in the video above (which subsequently helped them secure a place in the semifinals!). I'm extremely proud of how far these gentlemen went while on America's Got Talent, and could not be more honored to have provided their arrangements; I wish them nothing but the absolute best in their future endeavors, musical or otherwise.
I started composing for fun many years ago, but it wasn't until 2016 that some friends of mine working at development studio Serenity Forge gave me the wonderful opportunity to write the scores for two of their games: Mystic Melee and The King's Bird. I've had an absolute blast working with these guys, and I can't wait to see what the future holds.
Mystic Melee, featured in the video above, is a platformer that focuses on a combination of physics-based movement and elemental spellcasting combat. The story focuses on four arcane wizards whose fates become intertwined as they join forces to face an evil mastermind who threatens every corner of the cosmos. Mystic Melee was released to the public as a Steam Early Access title on September 19, 2017; check it out here!
The sample featured here is a promotional mix of various tracks from within the game. In order, these tracks are: Arboria, a forest planet with a hidden water temple (0:00 - 1:28); Summitar, a mountainous planet where the protagonists must climb to treacherous heights (1:29 - 2:42); the Waystation, a man-made satellite where the protagonists take the first steps towards adventure (2:43 - 3:54); and Mechanica (my personal favorite track!), the robotic lair in which the evil mage Graven hides (3:55 - 6:30).
As my first paid project with an official game development studio, Mystic Melee holds a very special place in my heart. Combining orchestral and electronic styles has been an absolute blast, and I cannot thank Serenity Forge enough for giving me the opportunity to work on such a fun project. I've learned some extremely useful things through Mystic Melee, including how to properly revise, how to create loopable tracks, and above all else, how to transition from a hobbyist mindset to that of a paid, project-based musician.
The King's Bird will be released in Q2 2018 for PC and for major consoles. The game's official website does a better job of describing the game than I ever could:
Escape into a world kept secret by a tyrant and discover the truth about your freedom. A momentum-driven game that seamlessly combines parkour with aerial movement. Dash, glide, and flow through the world with precision and grace.
This sample, like that for Mystic Melee above, is a mixture of a number of tracks within the game. They are, in order: the cinematic opener, which introduces players to the main musical motifs within the game (0:00 - 0:45); the looping menu music, sharing the same theme as the cinematic opener (0:46 - 1:46); the Forest Kingdom, in which the protagonist blissfully experiences true freedom for the first time (1:47 - 3:27); and the Flying Kingdom, at which point she begins to realize that something is terribly wrong (3:28 - 5:33).
The musical direction (and the creative direction as a whole) was geared towards building a world that was reminiscent of a number of Earth's cultures without being directly and entirely attributable to any one of them. This 'culturally ambiguous' approach to the art lead to a very unique style of architecture, environment, and general tone to the game as a whole. In order to best fit the music to such a world, I researched a number of different cultures' music. Drawing from Native American, South-East Asian, Celtic, and even Sub-Saharan African influences, I began to create a style of music in which flute lines fluttered, ethnic percussion pounded, and choirs, pianos, celestes, and string orchestras filled in the rest of the sound. The result is a fantastical, shimmering, and wistful soundtrack that I hope is worthy to accompany the protagonist on her journey through a magical and mysterious world.
Before I started working with Serenity Forge, the music I wrote was almost entirely written as a hobby in my free time. Of those tracks, I've compiled a few of my favorites here (thanks, Soundcloud embedded playlists) along with short (definitely not short) descriptions of each of them.
This track actually began as an a cappella arrangement; my group needed some fresh holiday music to sing, and they'd decided that they wanted one without lyrics. There's no way I'd pass up an opportunity to arrange an a cappella "instrumental" piece because MAN are they fun! They totally combine the best parts of orchestral and vocal instrumentation. Anyways, so I arrange this a cappella mashup of "Carol of the Bells" and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", and it's a ton of fun to perform. After learning it, one of the other guys in the group tells me, "hey Max, this totally sounds like it could be played by a full orchestra." And I'm like, "hmm...well, I did just buy a fancy orchestral library..." (it was Spitfire Albion Legacy -- my very first library I ever bought!) and I needed an excuse to put it to good use after spending all that money on it.
And so, I did. It was really weird going from a cappella to orchestra -- usually it's the other way around -- but it was refreshing because it was more of a transcription than an actual piece. Like, all the parts had already been arranged for a cappella and so they were guaranteed to fit together musically. Apart from "Carol of the Bells" and "Hark!", I added subtle references to both "We Three Kings" (0:28-0:32) and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (1:56-2:01). Being my first piece using the library, there are certainly some technical aspects of it that I could probably better execute now, but I like to keep it around because it takes full advantage of the library (strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, and even aleatorics). Plus, it's always just nice to have a seasonal piece lying around anyway.
This is definitely one of the more "cinematic" tracks I've written. I'm really glad I posted a lengthy writeup in the description for the song on my Soundcloud, because that means I can save myself the effort of explaining the track and just post the description here! Efficient.
Anyways, from Soundcloud:
The goal of this piece was to tell a story about a thief at a museum; the thief must enter the museum late at night, steal a diamond, and leave without alerting any of the nighttime security guards on patrol.
The "characters" in this story are denoted by the different instrument sections -- strings to represent the thief, brass to represent the security guards, and the celesta (bells) to represent the diamond.
The security guards' patrols are very straightforward and uniform; this is reflected by the simplicity of the brass parts, which generally repeat at regular intervals and have a uniform rhythm.
The thief must be cunning, taking note of the regularity of the guards' patrols in order to sneak by unnoticed. When the guards are nearby, the thief must stop and hide. This is portrayed not only by the way the strings rarely play at the same time as the brass, but more importantly by the diversity in the string parts. Sometimes they play quarter notes, and other times they play eighth notes. Sometimes they float on sustained notes above the rest of the orchestra, and other times they stop abruptly -- only to ramp up again in a vigorous walk down the scale. These varied musical patterns all represent how the thief must stay one step ahead of the guards in order to sneak by unnoticed.
The diamond, denoted by the celesta, only shows up near the end of the piece -- once the thief has actually found the diamond. With the treasure in hand, they must leave the way they came, as denoted by the reprise of the original melody with the added celesta counter-melody.
Wow, that was even longer than I'd expected. I'll be surprised and kind of flattered if you read all of that. Tl;dr version: thief (strings) is stealing diamond (celesta) from museum, guards (brass) are protecting diamond, thief sneaks past guards, gets diamond, escapes unnoticed. I feel like I've said plenty on this piece, so let's move on, shall we?
Ahh, the piece that (kind of) kick-started my work with Serenity Forge. I wrote this as a high-intensity, chiptune-esque, video-game-style, how-many-hyphens-can-I-fit-in-these-descriptors song because I felt like I was focusing too much on orchestral work and needed to keep up a more diverse skillset. I'm not entirely certain anymore, but I'm pretty sure the "oom-pa oom-pa" thing between the bass and the synth (1:06-1:22 and 2:26-2:38) was inspired by the soundtrack in Undertale during the battles with Papyrus ("Nyeh Heh Heh!"/"Bonetrousle", I believe).
Anyways, when I'd first started working with Serenity Forge, my very first project with them was to score the announcement trailer for their then-upcoming game, Mystic Melee. I ended up repurposing "Somewhat Chip'd" to fit the bill, cutting the track down to a more appropriate trailer length and revamping the instrumentation to be more reminiscent of something you might hear on a Sega Dreamcast. Funny to think how convenient the timing was, too -- not 2 months after I wrote it, and then it ended up in a totally unrelated trailer.
This was mostly the result of testing out some new libraries I'd gotten -- a soft piano, some atmospheric-ish pads, and an Irish whistle. I ended up putting them together into a simple melody and an even simpler chord progression, and the result was surprisingly unearthly, introspective, and...lonely? My mind, in all its geekiness, started creating a backstory for some lone individual in the far reaches of the galaxy, whose failed research venture resulted in his ship crashing on a distant and lifeless planet, his communications being cut off, and all the other members of the crew dying in a fiery blaze. Fortunately, he was able to rescue the rations and drinking water from the ship's burning carcass, and now lives a solitary life on the planet's surface. Though many years have passed since the accident, he somehow continues to cling to the ever-dwindling hope that he'll be rescued, but his future looks more and more bleak with every subsequent sunrise on this alien planet...
...Yeah okay, that was pretty cringey. But it was surprising to me how such a simple song could conjure up such vivid images in my mind. I wasn't even going to post it online, but the more I listened to it the more I ended up liking the atmosphere it created. And for bonus points, one time my aunt said it was pretty, so there.
Man, what a name. It's pronounced somewhat like "Dreet DRYAHkta" and roughly translates to "druid's magic" in Irish Gaelic. From the Soundcloud description:
I've always loved the unique sound of traditional Celtic music, and I figured it was about time I wrote a fantasy-themed tribute to it.
Fun fact: the original title for this piece was going to be "Highland Magic," but after doing some research I learned that the Highlands are actually Scottish, whereas the bagpipes I used are Uilleann pipes, which are strictly Irish...oops. I wouldn't want to promote cultural ignorance.
I wasn't kidding about my love of Celtic-style music. There's something so wonderful about it that I can't get over. Have you listened to the Outlander soundtrack by Bear McCreary? It's real Celtic-y, and real pretty. Anyways, this song was proof that the Irish whistle library I used in "Alien Sunrise", while great at carving out lyrical solos, isn't too bad at quicker melodies either.
If you've ever played the Star Fox games, you'll probably be familiar with this song. The theme of Wolf O'Donnell, the villain, is a fast-paced battle song that had some surprisingly beautiful melodies and chords...if you could hear them before they flew by at like, a bajillion beats per minute. I decided I liked the theme enough to write an orchestral cover of it at a much slower tempo, which robs the theme of its heart-pumping action and puts in its place a much more somber, expressive tone. Crazy to think how a song can be given an entirely different meaning through nothing more than changes in pace and instrumentation.