The road: a walking overworld theme for orchestra
The brief the composers got, section 1 ("The piece"), as written on 19 Oct 2026.

Removed for this page: the section numbers of the reference devices page that the brief points to (the study files themselves are not published) and the text formatting; the words are otherwise as written. The brief's other sections (the technical contract for score and render, the ten numeric checks, and the rules that kept the composers blind to each other) are summarised on the page "How the composed pieces were made" (method.html).

1. THE PIECE

Use. Game music for a fantasy world, leaning Final Fantasy in the owner's words: the overworld, the piece that plays while the player walks the map. It must bear being heard many times: a clear tune, a pulse that keeps walking, a middle that brightens, one loud moment, and a return that is not a repeat. It needs a real ending for the shelf; a loop point is noted in the README for the game later.

Setting (my proposal, the owner may change it). Morning on a long road across open country. The town is behind, the mountains are a day ahead, the weather is fair. Nobody is in a hurry and nobody is afraid; the stride is steady, the head is up. The brightening in the middle is the moment the road tops a rise and the whole valley is in view.

What it must be, in the owner's words and the shelf's.

- Moderate and walking. Quarter 100 to 116, 4/4 (or 2/2 felt in two). The plucked pulse is the piece's floor: it starts within the first bars and never stops for more than one bar until the ending. The probed layout is the model: plucked celli on the beats, plucked basses on the strong beats, a rising harp group on each beat. Move the pulse around the bar; do not keep one pattern for the whole piece (Terra moves it every bar, the Main Theme changes it at the climb).
- A tune in long tied notes with pickups, two-bar members with held ends, the pickups climbing into the next bar. Slow tune, busy bottom. First statement on the solo clarinet (the oboe has no legato in this library; the oboe may take a later member or the brightened section in shorter values). Middle register, a range of about a ninth.
- The phrase answered a step higher with one brightened chord in the answer: the "same song, lifted" device.
- An inner slower line under the tune in the violas (Terra's inner voice), and horns on the tune's held notes, never a second tune.
- The brightening by moving the home note up with the same notes for a whole section: minor to its relative major, or your own choice of a brighter home on the same scale. The violins take the tune here, in thirds, the clarinet drops to the inner line or rests.
- One chord from outside the key as a flash, once or twice in the piece, held by the horns for its one bar, followed by the bass walking home by step.
- A block-chord section: held chords in horns and strings over short detached accented low-string notes, the bass dropping an octave for the last bars of it. This is the weight of the piece, built by notes and register, not by writing ff on a library with one or two volume layers.
- The peak is the jump from one voice to everyone: one bar before it, the tune is alone with the pulse; then all sections on the same shape, strings and horns in unison on the tune, timpani under it. Keep the loud short, two to four bars. Place it between 55 % and 75 % of the length.
- The return is lifted, not repeated: the tune back in the home key over a different pulse pattern or in a new colour (clarinet and flute in octaves, or the strings plain over plucked celli alone), one layer varied at least.
- A bookend: the intro figure over one long low note opens the piece and returns at the end, softer, then a real last chord or a plucked last note. Not a fade, not a loop.

Length 3:00 to 4:00. Ensemble from the Berlin Free Orchestra only: violins a8, violas a5, celli a5, basses a4 (sustains and pizzicato), harp, solo clarinet (legato), solo flute (legato) and solo oboe as you need them, French horns a4, timpani; trumpets a3 only if the peak wants them, and no bells. Roles to fill: foreground (clarinet, later violins), bass and pulse (plucked celli and basses, harp groups), harmony cushion (violas, celli sustains, horns), inner line (violas), weight (horn chords, timpani).

Fresh material. No melody, bass, chord sequence, pulse pattern or figure from any earlier song of this project (the Breton album included) or from the reference sheets. A tune that could be mistaken for Terra's or the Main Theme is a failure, not a success; the devices are the inheritance, the notes are yours. Mode, key, metre and the shape of the tune are your choice. Say them in the README together with your reading of the setting.

What the owner liked so far, for taste. Quiet, modal, breathing music on the piano (Cendre tiède); the lively scherzo with a tale (Dilun, Dimeurzh); the Barber opening on strings. He has no music-theory background: write the README in plain words about sound, time and who plays, and name pitches only where the shape of a line needs them.