Just look at my eyes (bms edit)

A song imitating TV drama-style music.

This song is a submission (opens new window) to the Battle in the Mist 2ndMIX (opens new window) event.

# Post-event comments

Now that the event has finished, here is some commentary about this song.

# Idea

I wanted to try creating a song that resembles the music style of Thai TV dramas,
and also incorporate the feeling of playing a traditional Thai instrument.

# Instrumentation

The [HYPER] chart is the main chart in this song.
It is designed so that the player feels like playing the “Ranat” instrument.
Example of playing Ranat in Thai film: https://youtu.be/emqal9mfzh4?t=10s
However, I cannot find a good sound source for a real Ranat,
so I used the Marimba sound instead, which sounds a bit similar.

# Scale

The ‘Do’ note in many Thai instruments sounds like Bb in western music.
Therefore, I used Bb major as the song’s key.

# Harmony

I tried to follow the popular harmony structure in Thai pop songs,
while adding several chord substitutions to make it sound quite unique.

# Illustration

Big thanks to Kikansha (opens new window) for creating an illustration image.
After I sent the demo, the conversation went something like this:
“Got any illustration concept or rough art direction for this song?”
“Nope, it’s all up to you.”
“Well I’m thinking about Thai TV Dramas.”
“That’s great!”
I was happy that I was able to communicate the idea through music, and I was even more happy when I saw the finished art! It looks really great. Thanks again.

# Name

I just completely made up the song’s name.
After the song is finalized, I realized that another popular TV drama also has a song (that I’ve never heard before) with a very similar name (“Just by looking at your eyes”), has the same key signature (Bb major), and uses the Fmin7 chord (the first chord with out of scale note) at the exact same place to set the listener up for the rest of the song.

Thank you everyone for impression and for playing!
flicknote