Thread by @edothillman

So, I’ve decided, now that the soundtrack for #Ashen has released, to take a bit of a look back on my experience of scoring this world, working in games for the first time, and very much stumbling my way through my first large-scale soundtrack.

I’m going to start here posting a bit about a few key tracks off the soundtrack and then compile these together for a bit of a more in depth blog post at the end. So with that being said, let’s thread.

ASHEN Back in early 2017 I wrote and recorded around 30 minutes of music for Ashen (or rather, the idea of what Ashen would be). This was concept phase for me. Trying to find that exact little slice of style that I wanted to inform the rest of the score.

This piece was among that first batch I sent over to Derek (director of Ashen) and it resonated strongly with him. From there this piece became a bit of the backbone that the rest of the score was built upon. It was also the main menu music for most of development.

From the beginning, the sparse and featureless look of the world of Ashen drew me to simplicity. As I dove deeper into the lore, that decision strengthened. In my mind I decided that any strict form or expression of music in this world would have been all but lost in the darkness

That the only music that would have survived would be attached to the world itself and not carried on by civilization. This led me to tread very lightly when it came to structure and melody. I wanted to portray the music as inherent, rather than composed.

With this main theme I started with simply the piano. A 4 chord motif. Repeated. This became the main motif for the Ashen itself and the light returning to the world. You can hear it echoed through the music in areas closest to the Horn (more on those areas later).

From there we introduce a single cello. A single line of melody in sync with the motif of the Ashen. Our main character. And then, as the piece progresses, that cello is joined by another.

This form came together as sort of a direct reference to the way the game is centered around passive multiplayer. Working together towards bringing light back into the world rather than the story of a singular hero.

As the piece progresses, those two voices are joined by even more (violin, choir, synths, strings) in an effort to strengthen the light, mirroring the development of Vagrant’s Rest in the game.

This idea of pulling the world out of its darkness by forming community and working together always felt like one of the strongest ideas of this game and so it was something I was very keen on focusing on in the main theme.

The cello on this piece is performed by my incredibly talented cousin, Charles Asch. The vocals you hear are sung by my beautiful wife, Janelle. You’ll see those two names pop up a lot over the next few posts:)

2. THE FOOTHILLS The Foothills was the very first area I was able to explore in game. Because of this, it was also the area I screwed up the most. I have about 8 or 9 separate versions foothills music sitting around. From major edits to total do-overs.

Because this area was built for the longest time it also became a bit of a testing grounds for trying out different ideas on the implementation end of things. For example, at one point all music in the game was going to be quest based, changing each time you complete a portion of

quest (you can still hear this in game during the “Hammer, Spark and Stone” segment).Also, at one point, I was really into the idea of the music reacting to the natural elements in the game in real time, the intensity of the wind dictating the volume of certain stems in the music

The Foothills is the area I showed off my inexperience in games the most. Especially a game this size. The Foothills (and our audio lead) really bore the brunt of all of these ideas, changes and BUGS.

Eventually (honestly quite near to the end of the development) I settled on music that felt right for The Foothills.

My desire for the area centered around it’s connection to your town, with the swells you hear in the piece mirroring those you hear in Vagrant’s Rest. Those swells also place it close to the horn as they echo the two chord rise pattern found in the Ashen main theme.

3. VAGRANT'S REST - - The music for Vagrant’s Rest was an example of me composing music around some technical and conceptual ideas I already had. I knew I wanted a dynamic system, one that would shift and change as the town grew.

I was playing a lot of Breath of the Wild at the time and was very inspired by the sense of comfort you get when hearing the music for a town or stable drifting through the air as you come near as well as the dynamic music systems they used for Tarrey Town.

As with most instances in games, you’re able to get away with maybe half as complex a system as you were thinking of, especially with an audio team of just two people.

Originally I wanted the Vagrant’s Rest piece to grow from just a few guitar notes to a full piece as your town builds PLUS bringing in the extra melodies for the people in your town. This ended up being just out of our reach as we got closer to the end and the bugs kept on coming

Eventually it came down to whether we wanted the piece to build, or we wanted the melodies, not both. So, I rewrote the base piece to sort of lightly include most of the build of the piece and kept the melodies in place. To me they added just a bit more to the experience.

Musically I wanted Vagrants Rest to stand out from the rest of the score. To feel apart from the dangerous world. Someplace fully safe and secure. I ended up using my wife's childhood classical guitar to try and capture that feeling.

It’s tuned to open D (a tuning I use quite a lot) which gives it that very open, sort of pastorale feel. The only other time you hear a guitar in the score is at the very beginning of the game, when Bataran is telling you his story by the campfire.

4. Listener's Ridge/The Whispers - - The Fjord has always been one of my favorite areas in the world of Ashen. The combination of the Diasora, the Listener’s and the Sea always gave this spot an air of mystery that I really wanted to capture in the music

- Much like the Stormed Ruins, this piece came together through a lot of creation and destruction. Many of the sounds you hear, especially in The Whispers, is musical material of previous versions of the piece, stretched and morphed beyond recognition.

The music here also suddenly shifts to centering around stacked fourth intervals. It felt like this helped to create a more center-less/wandering feel to the harmony.

I also start to bring in more synth elements here as, to me, the Listener’s had this feeling of almost a more advanced civilization, somewhat alien.

Despite it’s size, I wanted the Diasora to feel weightless while in flight. To sound like it’s bones were hollow, drifting effortlessly in the sky. To try and capture this feeling I used a lot of fluttering winds and strings.

Again keeping to the motif of stacked fourths to create a sense of harmonic ambiguity. The music of The Fjord is meant to mimic the feel of the sea. To have the sense of waves moving against the shore. Never fully resting, always flowing in and out.

5. Listener's Seat (a.k.a Seat of the Matriach, Matriach Dungeon) - - The music for the Listener’s Seat is definitely some of my favorite music in the game. It's also another great example of creation through destruction.

I really wanted the realm of the Listeners to feel consistent, soft hushed tones and a slightly alien feel, so much of the base level of the piece is sampled directly from The Whispers and then warped and skewed to create a much more sinister, ominous feel.

My favorite bit I captured was actually a small bit of violin pizzicato that I then rearranged, pitched down and effected. This is the repeating low thumping phrase you hear throughout the piece.

Once I had some of the base elements for the piece I started to improvise little moments in real time. A bit of piano here, a bit of synth there. Divorcing myself of clear structure by simply reacting to the piece.

Trying really to capture the feeling of wandering through the dark with no clear direction. Caught now, under the waves, being pulled deeper and deeper down.

6. Twisted Canyon - - The twisted canyon is one of the darkest areas in #Ashen. The light of the horn is almost totally blocked here and the wide open landscape of the Fjord is replaced by tight corridors and winding paths.

For me, the music in #Ashen felt connected to the elements of wonder and awe in the world. The Ashen, the Listeners, The Diasora, Gefn and most of all the light. Here in this place of darkness, brutes and cultists I wanted to lose all sense of comfort that music can bring.

There is a strong return to acoustic/earthy sounds here after the more electronic/ethereal sounds of the Fjord. Most of the sound you hear in this piece comes from a single cello, a bucket of candles and rusty metal (see below).

This large metal "marimba" lives at the park where I take walks with my kids. All of the metal percussion in this piece (and some in the Stormed Ruins) is sampled from a recording of my kids banging away at this thing with sticks:)

The bucket of candles was recorded by my long time percussion partner, Nate Babbs. Nate recorded a lot of percussion remotely for me that I then sampled and used for a majority of the boss battles in Ashen.

The bucket of candles returns later on in a very pivotal moment in the game that I’ll touch on in the coming days.

7. Refuge/Refuge (reprise) - - Ashen is a hard game. There are enemies at every turn and long stretches of danger. I’ve played over 500 hours of this game and I’m still pretty bad at it. It was with that in mind that I wrote Refuge and Refuge (reprise)

I wanted to give the player a moment, a chance to feel “safe” out in the world. There were originally two areas I chose for this, a high look out at the edge of the Stormed Ruins and a ledge of safety half way through the dark Twisted Canyon.

- Both places to stop, look out, and be reminded of home. The music here is made up of variations on the main theme from Vagrant’s Rest. Including lines sampled directly drifting in and out of the piece as if they were carried to you on the wind.

Unfortunately, game creation is an ever shifting process. As my special refuge zones changed over time I decided to remove one of the pieces from it’s spot in the game because it no longer felt right in that place, luckily you can still find one refuge in The Stormed Ruins.

Even though one piece lost its place in the game I really wanted to include both on the soundtrack simply because I liked them so much. Composers right I suppose;)