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American Guitar Institute and Resolute Games
The American Guitar Institute has teamed up with Resolute Games, an up-and-coming Memphis based video game company, to give you the best in new and innovative video games for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. The American Guitar Institute has amassed a team of the best players in the city to come up with some killer music. And when I say best players, I don't just mean on their instruments. All of the musicians that we have brought together for these games are also avid gamers, so we not only write great music for the games, we write great music that fits the atmosphere of the games, taking into consideration the experience and the environment for the gamer. For information about Resolute Games, releases, and information about downloading the games, check out Resolute Games. For information about the songs in these games, keep reading.
Don't have an iPhone? Still want to hear the music? Both songs from Thumstruck are available from iTunes, just search for Thumstruck or Ex Nihilis.
ThumStruck Free Version
Released October 23, 2008
With close to 30,000 downloads within the first week of the world wide release, ThumStruck debuted with a force. The American Guitar Institute composed and recorded the theme song for the ThumStruck series exclusively for Resolute Games. ThumStruck is an innovative new way to play the now-common music based rhythm games. Everyone has played atleast one of these, either on iPhone or one of the consoles, and it's pretty straight forward, hit this button in time for this instrument, or to the timing of the song as a whole. But with ThumStruck, you now have to hit the timing simultaneously for the three basic components to the songs: the guitars, the bass, and the drums, each with their own place on the screen. The Free Version included the American Guitar Institute Theme for the opening screen and for gameplay has a song from Arden Records by the band Skillet.
ThumStruck - The Theme Song
What you hear when you start the game. We were asked by Resolute to come up with a theme for this game, which will be one of the playable songs in the next release. The theme is the first 42 seconds of the full version of the song. The goal here was upbeat and shreddie. Jimmy wrote one of the chord progressions and some of the main sections for the guitars at work between students, making Logan play the chord progression about a million times to make sure it worked. Then he wrote down the main ideas and sent them off to Krystel, who made Logan play the progression a whole bunch more. Krystel organized the sections, wrote a few more sections, the harmonizations and the second chord progression. Then the music was sent to Joe, who wrote the bassline. After a few changes here and there we had the basic idea, with a blank section of 40 bars set aside for the solos that will be in the full version. With the sections we worked out, which are all included in the opening theme, we chose to keep with the shred feel, the open and slower melodies, the arpeggio section, the pedal point section, the upbeat chord progressions, a few sequences here and there. Very shred. The drums were improvised during the recording process by Brandon.
Written by: Guitars: Jimmy Hudson and Krystel Becker
Bass: Joe Saucier
Drums: Brandon McDuffie
Performed by:
Lead Guitar One: Jimmy Hudson
Lead Guitar Two: Krystel Becker
Rhythm Guitar: Logan Al-Chokhachi
Bass: Joe Saucier
Drums: Brandon McDuffie
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ThumStruck
Released December 15, 2008
The next release of ThumStruck, featuring a whole bunch of playable songs by a whole bunch of people. This release has the full playable version of the ThumStruck theme, plus one other song by the American Guitar Institute team.
ThumStruck - The Theme Song
Still what you hear when you start the game. With the full version, you first hear the theme that we talked about up there in the Free Version, but then instead of a fade and repeat you get the solo sections and then a repeat of the melody, pedal point section and arpeggio section. We decided to improvise the solo sections instead of composing them. The first solo was improvised by Jimmy. It took a couple of takes to get what we wanted, but it was a relatively quick process. This solo starts out kind of slow and builds in speed. The second solo was improvised by Krystel. Krystel improvised seven different one take solos, and then made Joe and Logan pick their favorite one for use in the song. To make the two solo sections flow together better Krystel started out the second solo fast, and then slowed it down toward the end. Although it is easy to tell the difference between the two, they flow together well and give the impression of a complete solo rather than two seperate ones. We didn't try to go too shred in the solo sections, we kind of just went with showcasing our individual guitar styles over the same progressions that the main theme used. They blend, but they aren't quite as "orchestrated" as most shred solos are. They have sequences, arpeggios and melodies that blend well with the main theme, but they break away from it a little. The basic mantra was "Just play kinda fast over the changes, but slow down now and again so people's thumbs don't fall off."
Written by: Guitars: Jimmy Hudson and Krystel Becker
Bass: Joe Saucier
Drums: Brandon McDuffie
Performed by:
Lead Guitar and Solo One: Jimmy Hudson
Lead Guitar and Solo Two: Krystel Becker
Rhythm Guitar: Logan Al-Chokhachi
Bass: Joe Saucier
Drums: Brandon McDuffie
Ex Nihilis
I (Krystel) think this is one of my favorite non-metal songs I've ever done. We knew we wanted another song for the next release, and I was working out a few different ideas, but after talking to Noah (former member of Resolute), I decided to finish a neoclassical song that I had been working on. This song started as an arpeggio section that I had written several years ago and had never done anything with. It was too neoclassical and that just wasn't the style I was focusing on at the time. So I started with the arpeggios and thought to myself "What would Yngwie do?" *laugh* I had a pedal point section already, so I slapped that on the arpeggio section, drafted out the entire chord progression for the song, came up with a couple little fillers, and a melody, I decided to write a slow classical guitar intro, then wrote out, as Logan calls it, "Krystel's pretty little lick section" which sounds like a solo even though that's not how I wrote it, then I moved some things around and the guitar line just kind of happened. I went more traditional with the bassline for this one. I thought a lot about writing the bassline like it was the left hand of a piano in contrast to my guitar line being the right hand, which is most evident in the intro and I think it worked really well, they blend. It almost sounds like it's just a guitar on the intro, but it's not. Part of the bassline holds the rhythm and highlights the changes, but occasionally plays some harmony, and also has some movement against the movement of the guitar, kind of like Hanon exercises. The rhythm guitar was pretty straightforward, and holds the song together well, and on occasion plays harmonies and moves against the guitar with the bassline. One of the interesting part, I think, was the pedal point section, where the guitar and bass move against me on the first pedal, with me on the second, and then against me again on the third. The guitar line by itself was very traditional pedal point, but with the motion in the bass and second guitar, and because it switches between the pedal being off beat and then on beat, and then back off again, the pedal points don't really sound like pedal points unless you really listen. Hayden improvised this drumline.
Written by:
Guitar and Bass: Krystel Becker
Drums: Hayden Fraiser
Performed by:
Lead Guitar: Krystel Becker
Rhythm Guitar and Harmonization: Logan Al-Chokhachi
Bass: Joe Saucier
Drums: Hayden Fraiser
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Segment
Released February 10, 2009
Segment is a puzzle slider game, you know eight blocks on a nine space grid, and the pieces are jumbled and you have to slide them around to put the picture back together. It's very cool, very affordable, fun for everybody, and the music is very pretty.
Background Theme
The idea for this one was ambient background. Very simple, loopable, but not mundane. It needed to be interesting, but not insultingly simple or terribly complex. Krystel used hybrid picked progressive rock chords, which are basic moveable shapes that retain the open B and high E strings. The bassline was light, emphasising the root movement. We went for a slight upright bass feel in the movement of the notes. To add a little bit of atmosphere we came up with some basic chord changes for the synth strings, which kept it light and airy while adding some depth. Short, sweet and simple for this one.
Written by:
Guitar and Backing Midi: Krystel Becker
Bass: Joe Saucier
Performed by:
Guitar: Krystel Becker
Bass: Joe Saucier
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