10 Ways to Make Your Music Sound Like Spyro (Stewart Copeland Analysis)
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- čas přidán 3. 01. 2019
- Having transcribed and analysed Stewart Copeland's score for the first entry in the Spyro series, I have tried to summarise some of its main features, and have suggested ways to integrate them into your own compositions.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:35 - Background on Stewart Copeland and the Spyro project
1:16 - The rhythm section and the roles of each instrument
3:29 - Auxiliary percussion: crotales and bass drum
4:00 - Polyrhythmic texture: a tool for stratifying parts
5:04 - Dynamics and phrasing: percussive melodies and ghost notes
5:39 - Countermelody and its textural role
6:01 - Rhythmic and melodic traits of bass-lines
6:25 - Overview of harmony and form
7:25 - Commonly used modes and scales
7:53 - Preamble to the list of guidelines
8:29 - 10 Ways to Make Your Music Sound Like Spyro (w/audio examples)
10:05 - "Spyroid Gland": and original piece demonstrating the rules in action
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VIDEOS FEATURED:
Spyro Reignited Footage: • Spyro Reignited Trilog...
Magic Crafters Footage: • Spyro the Dragon -- Pa...
Dry Canyon Footage: • Spyro the Dragon (PS1)...
Stewart Copeland Meets Elbtonal Percussion: • Stewart Copeland meets...
Varèse's "Ionisation": • Edgard Varese - Ionisa...
Dark Hollow Footage: • Spyro the Dragon - Par...
Misty Bog Footage: • Misty Bog Walkthrough ...
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There is a community of enthusiasts dedicated to Spyro pastiche - have a look at what they make: / @spyrosoundfontcollection
For anyone interested in Copeland's practice as a drummer, watch The 80/20 Drummer deconstruct some of his beats: • The Top 5 Stewart Cope...
VISIT MY BANDCAMP: samuelrhoward.bandcamp.com/ - Hudba
AMENDMENT: in the video, I claim that Copeland used his own samples, citing a comment he made in the featured interview. However, Spyro Soundfont Collection has countered this claim, having dilligently listed the instruments and libraries used in the soundtracks of the original 3 games. Find their list here: drive.google.com/file/d/1fcNCNgiwp2htwQ0YLSY5cNXRiOB2ZfEn/view
Who do I blow to get these sounds?
I found them in the description of this video while I was researching. If the link's still valid, you should be grand: czcams.com/video/YjHjLxwmoF0/video.html
Copeland claimed to have had recorded his own orchestra samples. There's still a chance they're in some random symphonic library, but at the moment they haven't been found (and we've looked basically everywhere lol). Tracks like Tree Tops and Toasty use these Utah-rian string sections, whereas Crystal Flight use "Slow Orchestra Sustained".
Furthermore, basically nothing from Peace Keepers has been found: the horns, drum rolls (don't mistake them for "Orch Percussion") etc have not been found. Ironically though, one of the more complicated sections was found to be "Orchestra Pentatonic"
This ammendment is unnecessary as he was telling the truth.
Thanks for the clarification and for sharing your knowledge of these details. Very interesting to note.
I recall an interview with Copeland where he stated he was always excited to work on new tracks because he could use all the new sounds. I assumed by this he meant whatever sound font updates he had gotten in the intervening time from the previous Spyro game he'd worked on.
In an interview…he said he would just have fun playing the game then just put the songs together randomly with no structure.
Spyros music is literally a reflection of his feelings on playing around each level.
Now that is beautiful.
Yeah beautiful... The soundtrack has a very distinct atmosphere.
But I have to say, after having heard some of the unused tracks for the first time decades after having played the games, and again with this Spyro inspired track, the tracks aren't really that different from each other. With a few exceptions (like beast makers home) they are kinda generic and interchangable.
What I meant to say is, I don't feel like he made each track with a specific level in mind.
@@tychoclavius4818 yeah, I know he played some of the levels to feel inspired when he was stuck.
So that's why each track feels like the lvel it's from; he literally bottled the level's mood and displayed it on top for emphasis.
Stewart Copeland is the best composer, i really like his style of music especially with the Spyro instruments.
Same.
1. Midi electric guitar
2. Mixolydian Scale which modulates up a 4th and back
3. Spyro!
The music of Spyro has always fascinated me, so I must thank you for this interesting in-depth video, great job!
Thanks ever so much! Glad you enjoyed and appreciate you taking the time to watch
I have ~zero knowledge of making music, can't read notes, don't play instruments, but this is so fascinating! I like your song at the end! Gives me instant Spyro-vibes :-)
Thanks ever so much for the kind words! I'm glad you found it interesting even if you don't yet regard yourself as knowledgeable on music - perhaps this was a step into that world... Glad you liked my piece!
I'm not even a musical artist and I barely know anything about music theory but I am such a nerd for this kind of stuff, I love learning about what really makes music sound the way it does, how it gets its signature sound, especially in spyro because there's something about the composition of all of the songs that makes it so.. satisfying? I love when it just ramps you up and then has like this amazing finishing note at the end of the chord, it's just so good. Plus the way all of the instruments are balanced and how so many simple melodies could create a composition that's complex and also fun to listen to! I always wanted to learn the technicality behind all of it so this was super informative! Makes me want to start writing music honestly!
Oh also, I loved your original song at the end, it had that satisfying feel to it that I mentioned and I honestly would love to play a level of spyro with that song in it! It was fun to listen to and makes me wanna jam out haha. You really did a lot of research and put a lot of work into this video and it shows!
Thanks for the excellent feedback. You should start writing asap - download Reaper (it's probably the cheapest DAW that's worth its salt, and the free trial is indefinite and comes with no limitations) and some free VSTs (a soundfont player like Sforzando will be helpful too), and you can just start playing around by entering in notes. Learn to read and write in standard notation (it makes learning theory easier because it gives you an efficient way to visualise it) too, but do this alongside experimenting with ideas (rather than instead of).
I agree about Copeland's soundtrack, and I think his background in percussion shows - the parts are so densely interlocked but so clearly expressed, its cohesiveness reminds me of knitted wool.
This was incredibly informative and entertaining! I can only imagine the amount of research that must have gone into making this analysis! "Spyroid Gland" sounds absolutely awesome! Keep up the incredible work! Also, thank you so much for mentioning us in the video description! Hope you've had fun playing around with some of those old sounds!
Thanks, glad you found something of value in it - due to communities such as yourself, it was much easier to research the actual tech Copeland used, which let me focus much less on trying to mimic the timbre quality and much more on replicating the actual compositional traits of the music, which was excellent. I plan to return to some of the pieces in the future so as to cover them in more detail as I still feel I didn't get into the nuts and bolts of it quite as much as I could have.
@@SamuelRHoward I definitely struggle with focusing on how the instruments and samples sound, versus the actual composition, which is what's most important. Awesome! I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for that in the future! Also, in case you didn't receive a notification, I finally replied to a comment you left several months ago on a video of mine asking about where some of the samples come from. Apologies for not replying sooner, I really should log into this account more often to check on comments!
2:53 I love that nod to Synchronicity's album cover signifying each of the band's respective colors! Blue for Copeland, yellow for Sting, and red for Summers!
Meticulous observation!
When i was younger i didn't really pay attention to music on video games but now i'm much older i have realized how they are. I quite like the music on Kula World as well.
LOL im listenin to your original spyro piece and literally thinking "wait which spyro game was this theme from.." you got me
It's from "Spyro 5: The One With the Best Soundtrack".
A really good piece you've made here - both the essay and the original music at the end; so many of those driving factors behind his music that you incorporated there, and besides the distinct lack of kick and that classic snare-drum (perhaps intentional?) it sounded like a classic piece for the series.
Yes, I left out the drumset intentionally! I noticed on some of my favourite pieces, Copeland used an array of percussion but didn't always necessarily use the kit, although it does feature quite often in a lot of the soundtrack. Thanks for taking the time to comment, and for spending time watching the video
Dude Stewart’s work in spyro the dragon is how i learned how to write music
Similarly, Stewart Copeland is the sole reason I started learning the drums, and I have his rhythms in my blood due to growing up with Spyro :D
I didn't even know what syncopation and polyrhythm were until I realized I had already been utilizing them
Can't believe this video only has 4,600 views. And 0 dislikes, never seen that before. Great video my guy, I've actually always wanted to write music like this soundtrack.
I would be surprised if anybody dared to dislike this work of art (although in reality it probably means I could do with a better outreach!). Thanks very much, glad you enjoyed the video - and let us know if you do start writing this sort of music, it will be interesting to hear it.
Exellent work Samuel.Steward himselft said the music in spyro is one one his best works.
He also said he put in it some rytmatist and police influences in it,some "guitar" parts clearly reminds Andy summers long chord and Sting quick and simple note progression (like Cant stand loosing you/Shadows in the rain bass line). Spyro the dragon has ,in my opion,the best soundtrack that outlines the musical genius of mr copeland
Thanks very much! Yeah, the Spyro soundtrack exemplifies Copeland's style, it's great stuff - I still need to hear the whole medley he orchestrated for his tour from a year a two ago
@@SamuelRHoward I can't find anywhere the tour hes done. Id love to hear him live tho.
Amazing job for your videos (loved the frank zappa ones) again,you should put out some more stuff
Yeah, I could only find a brief clip of it on CZcams, unfortunately - hopefully more footage will emerge. And thanks very much, I'll try to get my arse in gear! Currently working on another analysis video which has been on the back-burner while I've been arranging a new piece of music, but I'll have more time since that's nearly out of the way now
Awesome video man, love the breakdown.
Cheers mate, much appreciated!
Your track sounds very authentic 👌🏼 great presentation as well, very in depth
Thanks for the kind remarks! Appreciate you taking the time to comment.
This is soooo stellar!! thanks so much! :) I've been learning spyro songs on bass for a long time and love the spyro music so much.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed. The bass-lines are the best parts, in my opinion - quite syncopated, hypnotic and fun to play.
@@SamuelRHoward I totally agree. ✨🔥✨
Fantastic analysis
Thanks for the kind remarks!
Stewart Copeland is the best guy who could make such great music even being the drummer of The Police.
Fantastic stuff!
Oh I remember trying to look something like this some time ago even though my music skills are almost non-existent. Glad that I found it now though, and thanks for making it even though most of the terms went way over my head.
Glad it's been at least of some use - sorry it wasn't always completely clear, I originally made the video assuming an intermediate level of music theory knowledge (just so I could delve slightly beyond the surface), but hopefully that just means that the more you learn the more you can get out of it!
@@SamuelRHoward No problem, you make the videos that you want to make for the audience that you want to reach. This video still taught me some things, and if I get more serious about music, then rewatching would probably teach even more.
Awesome video and a brilliantly simple dissection.
Thanks, glad it was clear!
Wow this is unbelievable! Fantastic work on the research and your custom Spyro track sounds perfect! I have been trying to transcribe some songs of the trilogy and I've noticed some of these things.
Thanks for the kind words - hope your transcriptions are coming on well, be sure to let us know if you make any more observations!
Incredible! Thank you so much for this video.
Thanks for watching, and for the kind feedback!
If I didn't already know spyroid gland wasn't from the game, it would have had me stuck wondering how I couldn't place it
Best feedback I can imagine - thanks!
Very good information :)
BEAST MODE
Thanks for making this, this is really useful for those who really want to create custom spyro tracks. only 1 error in Spyroid Gland is that Martin 6 String was never used in Spyro 1, that came in in Spyro 2. Still good, but considering your basing this research off of spyro 1 it is a bit weird.
Cheers, glad you enjoyed it - and you're right, when I found the soundfonts, I went a bit mad with them on Spyroid Gland, so it's not a perfect facsimile of Spyro 1. But not to worry - I mainly chose to analyse the first game just because I prefer its compositions to the rest of the series
Interesting watch.
Amazing video! Interested to know what you'll do next! =)
Thanks! Currently in production is a Zappa analysis, so somewhat of a departure from this material, but I think some of the pieces I touched on here could warrant a more detailed examination quite soon in the future
Very sharp video man
Thank you very much - and I commend your excellent taste!
@@SamuelRHoward No problem man. I grew up with this soundtrack. Your accent though, it sounds very Scandinavian. Finnish-like, almost
@@aximtaioreunin7917 It's Yorkshire, UK - similar Old Nord roots to Scandinavian, but unfortunately not quite as poetic!
@@SamuelRHoward Haha! Maybe so. One question: do you know how Copeland achieved a certain spacey echo in his compositions, considering he used MIDI instruments on GarageBand. The kind of echo in Lofty Castle for example
@@aximtaioreunin7917 I could only really guess at this, but with specific regards to Lofty Castle, it sounds like a lot of the "echo" is coming from the synth pads. Of course, since it was the PlayStation, I would assume that whilst the track originates from MIDI, Copeland would have been able to just apply global reverb/other fx to the master - but I would add that I don't know the first thing about how music was processed by the PlayStation, so my speculation may be totally wrong!
Love the song at the end, but if I may make a few suggestions I'd say change the martin 6-string to something else as it wasn't ever used in the first game, and nor were the crotales. the instrument actually goes under the name bell players. but other than that from what I can tell you've nailed the style spot on. I'd love to see more of this style from you :)
Thanks, and yes, astute observations - having accepted the guitar as part of the general Spyro sound, I actually didn't notice (maybe I got carried away with the VSTs!), so thanks for pointing that out. I wonder if the bell instrument might still have been crotales, though, as to my ear it certainly sounds like them - sometimes, as you probably know, "bells" can refer to things like crotales, glocks, etc, so it might have been a different sample of the same instrument?
@@SamuelRHoward yeah they're both crotales, but the one used in spyro 1 went under the name bell players. the Crotales instrument is actually used just in the later games. but yeah once again I really like the song. but yeah once again really cool song man! I'm part of the team Cope Land, not sure if you've heard of us, and this has kinda helped me get a better understanding of Copeland's style. Go check us out if you want, and if you're interested we'd love to have another member :)
@@MistyRockandRoll Thanks for the information, and for adding a better level of accuracy to the discussion! I don't know team Cope Land, but I'll have a look, thanks for the heads-up.
I was also fan of Spryo 1 music way before it was cool.
You're clearly a person of immense taste - I'm pretty sure the music was 90% of why I liked the game so much
@@SamuelRHoward Well, i've learn piano initialy only to play Spyro's solo. Now i'm 3D movie director and i put purple color in every project i made. I still compose music since i'm 12. There is an exemple :) czcams.com/video/QbZOP3NcaxU/video.html
@@Amenophis42 This looks and sounds great, the modelling is class. Really like the organ patch in the soundtrack too! Top stuff all around.
Imagine a world where the Spyro Music format was sequenced. Like Crash Bandicoot it would use sample banks and .SEQ (midi files) for music playback. Think of all the arrangements we would cover by looking at the midis directly taken from the game. Think about the midi swaps and music mods in-game and the entire instrumental collection would be much bigger. .. Games like Pandemonium! and Disney's Herculues music are far impressive to be streamed audio, and those were all compressed really well for it to be sequenced. I honestly don't see the reason why insomniac implemented the Spyro tracks into streamed 'CD' audio. I'm pretty most of the size found on disc comes from music audio (Though i could be wrong). But Sequenced format is truly the art of PS1 music's limitations and its a shame that Spyro never got this treatment..
Apparently, Copeland still has the original midis - I was shown an interview where they're discussing the process of transcribing the soundtrack and he comments "I could have just sent you the midi" - so maybe one day they'll see the light of day?
Love seeing Pandemonium get mentioned anywhere.
Nice analysis, although I’d like to put in my 2 cents. Chord changes don’t seem to happen on some of these songs. On dry canyon for example, I don’t see how the chords you listed fit in the song, when it’s mostly based around a single chord that is modulated to a different key (F to G#) with exception of the bridge of course. This is clear from the bass line. Even wizard peak for example, uses just one chord which changes key once (key of F# to key of B), during the whole song. What I’m trying to say is that chord changes seem to take a back-seat in a lot of these songs, some of which having just a couple of key changes, while the bass line is playing one chord throughout ( dark hollow is another great example).
The chords do generally seem to just be transposed up and down without any modification most of the time (this is evident in the short documentary with Copeland, where he literally just copies and pastes a phrase in his DAW and moves it up a 4th). However, I think that still constitutes a chord change, even though when the chord is transposed, its quality doesn't (generally) change.
The reason I included the Dry Canyon example was to give a visual example of Copeland's handling of song structure. Harmony doesn't seem to be a central concern of the style (as you point out), as the complexity comes from the way different parts are layered up over simple progressions like the modified blues form I outlined in the video, but even though it's bare-bones, there is still an underlying harmonic framework.
@@SamuelRHoward Sure, that makes sense. You definitely depict the general structure of his music really well here, not gonna argue with that! I'll take your word for the chord changes, instead of getting buried in the technicalities.
@@BlaringSIREN Thanks for your feedback, by the way; despite that I hear the changes in Dry Canyon as relating to a tonic, I think your observation that Copeland's general use of harmony isn't traditionally functional is astute
@@SamuelRHoward It seems rather than tonal harmony, he makes use of modal harmony. This article does a good job describing it- www.thejazzpianosite.com/jazz-piano-lessons/modern-jazz-theory/tonal-harmony-vs-modal-harmony/
@@BlaringSIREN I think you're right, use of modal harmony seems to be typical of rock musicians, which I think partially accounts for his preference for the mixolydian and lydian modes (as such I don't think it'd be useful to look at Copeland's music in terms of functional harmony). However, modal harmony can still be described in terms of chords (for example, you would describe the vamp for Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" as alternating between I and IV), which can be helpful for analysing the way in which the chords relate to each other, even if it's not in a traditionally functional sense (like the blues progression outlined in the video)
the volume on this video is super quiet even at 100%
What software do you use to get the instrument samples? Or is it impossible to have since Stewart Copeland sample them all from live instruments
You can use a soundfont player with a DAW. For example, for this video, my DAW was Reaper, and my soundfont player was Sforzando.
Then you just download the Spyro soundfont collection and load it into the soundfont player. Check the pinned comment thread, that should give you a lead on the actual soundfonts.
@@SamuelRHoward thank you so much i truly appreciate. Last question is it possible to transfer the sound fonts on to GarageBand?
@@starrealm2621 I’m not actually sure about GarageBand because I’ve never used it, but as long as it supports VSTs, you should be able to use a soundfont player with it like with any other DAW
I'm working on a big enough project, why am I here?
It's 4 keys with the parallels and relatives, all the chords are big ones too.
I'm trying to find a beat to it. I like 6/8 at 65bpm and 9/8 at 231 bpm.
Wtf I don't remember typing this.
You should take a look at Josh Mancells work on Crash, itd make an interesting video like this one
I agree, and it'd be interesting to contrast the two styles - Crash is still very rhythm-oriented, but in quite a different way. Might cover it at some point!
@@SamuelRHoward Sweet
Josh Mancell also did the theme song to Clifford The Big Red Dog which sounds like a Crash song
This was a good video to watch, however the audio could have been better, its very quiet and there is a lot of hiss (noise floor) alongside the recording. I know its a pain in the ass, but would you consider redubbing the audio particularly for the speaking parts. If you normalise the speaking parts it would simply raise the volume on those bits to be level with the music parts. alternatively, you could simply add a compressor or limiter to the speaking parts, then remix and redub the video. Hope this aint too much of a pain in the ass to consider.
I won’t be doing this any time soon unfortunately, since I’m working on other projects and a new video, and not only that, but I’d have to reupload this one, which wouldn’t be so bad if I was a bigger channel (or at least a more prolific one) but as it stands, I can’t really afford to erase this particular upload.
You are completely right, though - the audio on my first few videos is completely atrocious for various reasons (inadequate gear, inexperience, etc - nowadays I use compression and noise reduction to clean up the voiceover, so that has improved somewhat since I did this). I’d especially like to completely redo my first two videos for precisely this reason (even more so than this one!) - maybe sometime in the future, but for now I’ll be pressing on with new topics to pick up momentum again (after a long period of inactivity).
Thanks for watching, and for your advice!
This video is what all wannabe-fan composers using his sound fonts are missing. I can tell they don't have the same mentality as him when arranging them.
Why do you call it "fake counterpoint"?
Because they are independent lines, but don't really follow the traditional rules of counterpoint - although it's a tongue-in-cheek statement, because that's quite an archaic view!
@@SamuelRHoward gotcha. I was hoping it wasn't meant in earnest if it was down to Fux' rules.
This was great and real interesting! The track at the end was awesome too! I made a spyro track not long ago and I kinda done some of these thing, but now watching I can see the techniques I used and didn’t! So cool! soundcloud.com/rhythmatist-1/sunset-meadow if ya wanna listen!
Good to hear that you enjoyed it, and interesting to see other people's efforts, thanks for sharing!
I can hear alot of a Yorkshire twang in your accent.
100%, and wouldn't have it any other way!
@@SamuelRHoward Are you a Scandinavian Yorkshire man?
@@jaggass Just plain Yorkshire, although my speech's a bit of an odd hybrid between both my parents' accents (both Yorkshire, but from different parts with slightly different dialects and variations on the accent). Interestingly, I've had a fair bit of speculation about my accent's origin on other videos too - somebody from Finland even assumed I was also from there
@@SamuelRHoward I honestly thought you were Scandinavian.
@@SamuelRHoward The Yorkshire twang really hits home because 90% of my family are from there but talking of Spyro im currently on the Spyro Ripto's Rage and some of the levels are hard and take ages to do. Stewart Copeland is a musical genius. His music really fits nicely on the Spyro trilogy.
Lmao "orchestration choices" Pretty sure Stewart just had music in his head that randomly hits him. One of the talents of a true composer, they dont know where the music comes from/ how they get it.
I think you're giving composers too little credit. They tend to know what they're doing, and even when acting intuitively (as I'm sure Copeland did when working on Spyro given how much he had to write in a short period) there are still decisions to be made - like 'shall I double this line on more than one instrument' or 'should I use the organ or the piano patch here?'
That song you wrote sounds like a Spyro song played backwards. Also the instrument choice sounds as if it was pulled from the second game. Strange considering you spent the entire analysis focusing on the first game.
You're right about the instrument choices, but I was planning on recording just with my instruments until I found the soundfont pack, so I just picked the samples I liked instead of trying to be accurate to Spyro 1 specifically. I don't think this compromises the video's focus on Spyro 1, because the analysis is more focused on Copeland's compositional techniques, i.e. the nuts and bolts rather than the sheen