surf school 38

New Music Monday - Suite for AudioSurf.

Some musicians write music that is intended to be experienced on 2 or 6 speakers. I wrote this suite to be experienced in AudioSurf.

AudioSurf is a videogame that generates race tracks based on music. You point the game to one of your music files, and it creates a playable race track that corresponds to the song. For busier sections, the track tends to slope downwards with more traffic. For calmer sections, the track tends upwards with less traffic.

I wrote the five pieces in this suite to generate specific experiences in AudioSurf. It starts off relatively tame, but by track 4, you will be racing downhill at blistering speeds.

Sunrise is based on Bach's first Prelude. I fill it out with some ambient samples, and the final product is the bumpiest track in the bunch. It switches quickly between uphill and downhill sections.
I call the suite HPF Tide and I wrote it in the 10 days after I first got my hands on AudioSurf. It may be the first time that music has been explicitly written to generate the gameplay in a videogame. Even if it isn't the first, it was a fun, challenging experience that really stretched me as a composer.

It also gives me a rather odd title. I could simply call myself a composer, but I kind of prefer the more unique title 'AudioSurf Level Designer'!