I wrote this for Austin Wintory's recent composing competition. The prompt was to take a specific melodic portion from the game Stray Gods: A Roleplaying Music, and rework it into something new. The instructions were to use the sequence of notes, irrespective of rhythm or implied harmony.
The biggest challenge here was getting the original melody out of my head enough to do something different with the notes. Since the prompt stated to use the "sequence" of notes, I made sure to (mostly) use them in the same order whenever stating them. After I had done this I explored where they might go next, given the new context I had given them.
As a setting, I imagined the beginning of a story taking place in a "high desert" locale, which, living near Reno, I'm quite familiar with. The story could be a sci-fi or a kind of neo-western. But I wanted to begin with a serene statement of the melody and then follow with a section which adds more action.
In this video I displayed the sequence of notes provided by Austin in the prompt to display when I am stating this melody. The visuals are from some footage I took recently when shooting the video for my Wayfaring Stranger video.
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