Ep. 61 — Bonus: The Music of Breakfast in Beauclair
In this bonus episode of Breakfast in Beauclair, Alex Berner from Pocket Bard, the composer of Breakfast in Beauclair, joins Alyssa to discuss the music behind the podcast—from corporate holiday to trap to beachy hippy camper van.
This episode is available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher.
In this Episode
[0:00] Introduction
[1:44] Discussion
[41:14] Outro & Credits
Transcript
Cold Open
ALYSSA: Could you imagine having a Christmas campaign and its just Breakfast in Beauclair music?
ALEX: That would be pretty funny.
ALYSSA: Just all these tieflings running around at, like, Macy’s corporate.
ALEX: We probably could get some good sponsorships for that.
ALYSSA: Hey, if you wanna give me like a 40% cut, I mean, like, I’ll take it, but.
Introduction
Transcript to come.
Discussion
[Breakfast in Beauclair stinger by MojoFilter Media]
ALYSSA: Welcome to Breakfast in Beauclair. My name is Alyssa, and today I have a very special guest for the show. You'll recognize my guest today from his years of work on Breakfast in Beauclair. He's a composer from upstate New York, currently living in Jersey City. After attending Berklee College of Music, he started a video game audio company, MojoFilter Media with his friend and roommate, Chase Harris. Together they have worked on audio for a variety of interactive and noninteractive media, including podcasts just like this one. He's the co-founder and composer of Pocket Bard, a new interactive music and sound app for tabletop role-playing games. Please welcome Alex from Pocket Bard. Hey, Alex.
ALEX: Hey, how are you? Good to see you.
ALYSSA: I know, it's so nice to see you as well. We are secretly two blocks away from each other, but recording remotely. So yeah, I guess just as an intro, Alex and I have been working together for, turns out, over three years. We're recording this episode actually on the third anniversary of the Breakfast in Beauclair trailer coming out. So it feels very full circle to record with you as this episode will be coming out just after the third anniversary of the podcast's first episode too. And you've been with me since pre-day one.
ALEX: Yeah, I was still doing real estate at the time when I had a brief departure from music. And this project was like the first time I was getting back into music. So it was a very exciting experience for me to be like, we have a client. That's amazing.
ALYSSA: Oh! Actually, I don't think I knew that. How Alex and I know each other, we met through a mutual friend, Alex's business partner Chase, who's also one of my friends from my stint and like a number of philosophy groups back in 2018. So Chase kindly introduced us and did some early work on the podcast as well. Now we're here three years later.
ALEX: I think it was via your very nicely laid out emails. Chase was the one who looped us in, but I remember having a phone call and I was sitting in that real estate office like writing down scrambling notes, like okay, so it should be like this, and this, like the games here but not like this. And like you were still kind of up in the air, like what you would need. So I actually remember I ended up writing a few different ambiance tracks as well, in addition to the theme song because we weren't sure if it was going to be more scored, or basically how much music we were going to need. So I remember writing maybe like four drafts, one of them being the theme song, and then sending those to you and seeing what you thought.
ALYSSA: Yeah, I was looking back at our emails. And I think our first communication was in June 2019. And one of my very first emails to you, was just like, holy shit, Alex, this is awesome. And it's so cool to like, see, just like the breadth of work that we've collaborated on together. I say collaborate loosely as in, I just throw random adjectives at Alex. And he comes back with these, like, amazing musical compositions. Alex has created everything that has been on the show and on social media, which is super cool. I'm just going to continue to, like, complement your work.
ALEX: Hey, I'll take it, keep going. That's all good.
ALYSSA: So there's a number of things that we've worked on together, we've worked on the theme song, the new WitcherFlix track, the 2020 holiday campaign, Around the Table videos for season two, and then a couple of recordings for TikTok and for video outlets. So when it came to the theme, I think I just didn't really have anything specific in mind but wanted something that of course evoked The Witcher. So what were some of the things that you were thinking about as you built the theme song and the branding for the show?
ALEX: So I've done a few podcast theme songs. And one of the things that I care about the most in terms of writing something for a podcast intro is something that's catchy and has a bit of a hook. Because I think that’s just so important to really engage the listener and get them into the environment and feel like everything's familiar. That hook, you know, can be used for any other piece of music. So I think all of the ones you mentioned have that little three-note melody at the beginning.
ALYSSA: I love that because it's funny because whenever you send me a brand new remix, I always end up singing it to myself, but I have to pause because it's the same exact melody, just usually in different tempos. It just sounds the exact same, but it's always really cool to see that throughline and all of the music because it really adds to that sonic branding. But what made you really go with the–
[Theme]
ALEX: I think it was just the first thing that stuck in my head. It's pretty simple, It's just like a D Minor Arpeggio. So I don't think I can even call that my own almost, it's just like, so simple. But when you add it to the consequent phrase, [Theme]. You start to get kind of a question and answer almost, first of all, it's short. Right, It's just three notes, and you've already got kind of where we're at. That's where the chord changes, and then it goes back down. Dun, dun, dun. I mean, it's just simple, right? It's something that can catch your ear within three seconds, and that I can take and move around in different places. So it's very based in kind of a medieval sound, that very simple harmony, just minor triads. So it goes from I think D minor, to C major, and back and forth for a few chords. And it just helps to establish, in addition to the orchestration and the other choices about how I arranged it, kind of helps to establish the environment, the vibe, the setting with where we’re in, in The Witcher Universe. I actually had never played The Witcher games, even though I was a huge gamer. Growing up, I played RPGs, that was my entire childhood. But all my friends were telling me I needed to play The Witcher and I never had. So I listened to the whole soundtrack for the second two games, for 2 and 3, before I got started. Listen to what they did, and then kind of figured out what I could do to put my own twist on it.
ALYSSA: Again, maybe I'm biased, but I think it was so successful because it does evoke the spirit of the universe without obviously plagiarizing what has come before it. It feels like it fits very nicely into the canon of what's already out there, that's been inspired by The Witcher. And then I guess the future remixes was the part that really blew my mind when it comes to adapting that original melody for all of the other outputs that I've requested over the years. It's again, funny to look back at the emails and every like six to eight months. It's just like, “Hey, Alex. Um, so I was thinking about, like, doing this campaign that's just like people being friendly, can you just come up with a theme song for that? Hey, Alex. I just wanted to, like, make a holiday campaign and advent calendar, do you think you can, like, come up with some things for that? Hey, Alex, I wanted to invest in TikTok. So, um…” It's just been that over the last three years. So of course, thank you so much for your collaboration and all of your, just, openness to the vagueness of my requests.
ALEX: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work on basically my arrangement skills to take the same melody and rearrange it into all these different contexts. Like I don't know if I ever would have done a corporate Christmas version of a Witcher theme song you know.
ALYSSA: I think the first one I requested was the Around The Table remix for the YouTube series for season one of The Witcher. Listeners if you remember or if you haven't seen them, I created a YouTube series in which a number of Witcher content creators, Lars from Witcherflix, Anita and Karolina from Witcher Kitchen, Cyprian from Berlin, Charlotte from Vengerberg Glamarye and Brett from Whispers of Oxenfurt and now On The Path, all contributed little tidbits about their analysis or cultural context from The Witcher season one. The concept of Around the Table, of course, linked back to Breakfast in Beauclair, and the scene from Lady the Lake, and I told Alex I was just like, I just want, like, the vibe of people being together, maybe like a tavern setting. What can we do to evoke people hanging out? And this is essentially what we came up with.
[Around the Table Theme]
ALYSSA: I think there were a couple of requests like I asked for it to be looped because I didn't know, like, how long the videos would be, or what my ultimate needs would be when I pitched it to you. But I loved how it turned out.
ALEX: Me too. That was a really fun one to work on. So the theme song has this big orchestral epic sound, right? So this one was very much scaled down. So we took it and instead of having the violins sections play the melody, it was just some solo woodwinds.
[Around the Table Theme]
ALEX: I recorded a few live instruments in that one I think. I'm always ashamed when I use MIDI guitar stuff because I'm a guitarist. But sometimes it's just easier to do that than set up my mic and pull out my acoustic guitar in my apartment.
ALYSSA: And like when you say MIDI guitar, that means, like, doing it on software, right?
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. Basically, somebody's gone through and recorded each individual note, and then I go and play it on the piano. I'm a terrible pianist and an okay guitarist. And live instruments always sound better too, so it's a really bad thing. But I guess when you're stressed for time, that's the way to go.
ALYSSA: Well, you're an excellent composer, so it's fine.
ALEX: Well, thank you. I should mention that basic piano too, is the one class I’ve ever failed in my life. I couldn't do it. I was in college and doing great and all my you know, advanced reharmonization techniques, courses, and then I'm here trying to play Alicia Keys on piano and I just can't do it. I sit there for hours and hours.
ALYSSA: Oh no.
ALEX: It's a weakness. But it's okay. I find ways around it.
ALYSSA: Maybe we'll conquer it. I'll get you to do an Alicia Keys medieval remix for Tiktok. We'll revisit that previous trauma soon.
ALEX: A true challenge. Yeah.
ALYSSA: That one was so unexpected, I think because like how grand the original theme is. And when I first heard the Around The Table theme, it feels like the kind of thing that you like, want to bop into, not in, like, a cool way. And just like dun, ta dun, ta, dun, ta tan.
ALEX: Yup.
[Around the Table Theme]
ALYSSA: I'm making aggressive like churning butter motions, like what would you call this? Behind the camera?
ALEX: I’m not sure, maybe like bouncing on the table? I don't know.
ALYSSA: Yeah, it's not kind of like squat and stand and squat and stand.
ALEX: Yeah.
ALYSSA: That's the kind of vibe that I get from the Around The Table theme. But it's super catchy and fits the overall concept really well. The cool thing about it was that you brought in a lot of different introductions and transitions. If I remember correctly, I think there were four different movements that I can, like, stack and order and layer in as many ways as I wanted.
ALEX: Yeah, different variations or different intensity levels basically. That was one of the differences also in this mini project, was that I gave you a bunch of different versions of the same track that had different instrumentation. So some of them were smaller, I think some just had the percussion, and one just had the percussion plus the soloists. What I was doing there is very much from an interactive music technique that we use in video games, which is called layering. I wanted to give you that so you could more fine-tune the exact version of it that you wanted for the context. So it's not a lot of work for me, in that instance, at least to mute a bunch of the instruments and re-export it. So let's say you had a context that was more subdued, or you wanted it to loop but didn't want the melody super prominent every time, because that makes a loop more noticeable. You could just have a version where the melody comes out. And then people don't notice as much that it's the same music. It's really to give you kind of more shelf life and give you more flexibility with how you want to use it.
ALYSSA: Yeah, and I think it fits very nicely beneath, like, everybody's contributions to that specific series. And it felt very fresh.
ALEX: It can be tough to write something in advance, right? Because you never know how it's going to clash or fight the vocals, depending on who's speaking different instruments and different ranges can get in the way of the person's voice. There are certain things that are kind of hard to look out for. And I think I was able to preemptively give you options with those different variations to account for that. And it sounds like that helped, so.
ALYSSA: Yeah, absolutely. On the note of creating music without context, it brings me back to the beast of a project that was the holiday 2020 advent calendar. That was super ambitious on my part, and I'm never going to do it again. But I think I did it pretty darn well the first time. If you were on either the Breakfast in Beauclair Instagram, or on Twitter, you can actually still find that holiday calendar. But the concept of the advent calendar was 25 days of posts about how Breakfast in Beauclair was concepted and created everything from the initial pitch that I did in 2018, through how I named the show all of that stuff, as well as video messages from a bunch of creators. All the usual suspects, Anita and Karolina from Witcher Kitchen, Charlotte, Lars, and Brett, as well as Doug Cockle from The Witcher 3 video games and Peter Kenny, the Narrator of The Witcher audiobooks. We had zero context going into that, of what I would do and how. And then you came back and were just, I have a bunch of ideas. And I said great.
ALEX: I was just listening to those before I came on. I clearly was excited that I had gotten a bass and was recording with it, the bass part and that. I think it sounds cool, but it's way too pronounced as like really needs to be brought down in the mix. Somebody was clearly excited, about the bass slides.
ALYSSA: The idea of a seasonal campaign is so interesting, just because I think especially with something like Christmas and the holidays, it falls into, I think, like the tropes of what you'd expect from a Hallmark season. How did you concept, like, the different variations that you wanted to do? And how did you, I guess, make the season your own with Breakfast in Beauclair?
ALEX: So first off, I love that whole month of posts, that was great. I remember sending the one with the voice actor from The Witcher to my friend who was a big fan of the games. I was like, look, it's my music with the actor from the game! So when I went into that, I tried to make three very different pieces so that you could use them depending on the context. The first one the big band that I'd call it, Corporate Christmas was a lot of fun.
[Corporate Christmas Theme]
ALEX: It just has that really sparkly, high-end flashy, like overly happy, buy this buy this buy this energy.
ALYSSA: Yeah, it's definitely like a track that makes you wiggle, and like I love that about it.
ALEX: So there was the Corporate Christmas one, which I'm pretty proud of because I think it sounds like it would be in the store in Macy's in December. Then there was the smooth jazz one.
[Jazz Christmas Theme]
ALEX: I don't know, there's something about Jazz that I feel like a lot of people only hear Jazzy-style music around Christmas. So they associate just Jazz in general with Christmas. I've noticed.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
ALEX: So I just tried to get that and then add a few bells. Like I said some shimmery high-end things. And then the other one was atmospheric, more or less kind of what you would hear in a snowy realm in a game.
[Atmospheric Christmas Theme]
ALEX: So that was a little bit more traditional. And they all use the melody but in very different contexts. I think I also altered the melody like I raised one of the notes to make it major in the melody or I re-harmonized the chords underneath it I think, to make the minor key melody actually major, just different notes and a different chord.
ALYSSA: Yeah. And the thing that I think I talked to you about, did I tell you about this? I got super into, like, timed Pomodoro-like work videos. They vary depending on the kind of video that you use or how much time you want to use. But the ones that I liked working with were 25 minutes of work, 5 minutes of break. And I actually made a little tiny remix for myself using the Christmas tracks because they're so nice and ambient, it worked so well for me, and maybe I'll release that, you know, for Christmas this year. And then I think the next thing that we worked on together was revamping The WitcherFlix theme. We had the original theme for I think the first one or two seasons of Breakfast in Beauclair. I think it was more synthy and then I wanted to create something that was a little more in line with the overall branding of where Breakfast in Beauclair has ended up.
ALEX: No, that was a fun one to work on. That was the one that I had forgotten I had done because it was probably like a one-day project for me. It's always weird to forget you wrote something when it's a small project because I think that's only like 30 seconds maybe.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
ALEX: It was pretty tied to just that NBC Nightly News sound.
ALYSSA: And I think that's what I asked you for, too.
ALEX: Yeah, it's just that overly hyped news sound.
[WitcherFlix Theme]
ALEX: I always wondered, network TV. I was like, is this really appropriate for what we're about to hear? It just seems so energetic and, like, epic.
ALYSSA: Performative, yeah.
ALEX: I basically just tried to create a little stinger that ramps up energy and brings you into a different place and when you started it. If you listened to it, there's the flute that trails off into this open sound. So the way I designed it was mainly for that transitional effect to help your mind detach from what it was just listening to and get it to a new place, whether that's at the beginning or at the end of the segment.
ALYSSA: I've always liked that drumroll at the beginning and then it kind of gets into something much larger. I feel like I could see the graphic, like listening to it just like you're going around the globe, and then there's Lars. And that's what it really feels like when we're transitioning between the discussion which usually ends on me being like “haha, we made a joke!” and then we go into The Witcher flix stuff and then coming back out of that as well. It has like a really nice underlay to Lars’ these last few sentences, and then transitions again with another little drum roll back into the main content.
ALEX: Yeah, no, stingers are a very underappreciated kind of medium, I think because they can be really tough to nail, you have to include enough content to make it interesting. But it can't stay too long, right?
ALYSSA: Yeah.
ALEX: It has a purpose. There's a lot of people that need stingers nowadays, because of just the types of media that's out there that has different sections, things that are very collaborative, right, like this section in Breakfast in Beauclair. It's a collaborative thing, and you're trying to help connect it with these stingers. And music is just a really good tool to do that.
ALYSSA: Yeah. And I feel like you and I have even spoken about redoing the Breakfast in Beauclair one, because we haven't touched that since the summer of 2019.
ALEX: Yeah, I think it could use an update.
ALYSSA: The most recent thing that we've worked on, I don't think we've like when I say we, I mean, I have like unleashed all of these into the worlds yet. But if you guys are listening to the Dear Friend segment, you get the bass and the melody of one of the tracks that Alex worked on, which I think is the trap track. So the fact that I have like Corporate Christmas jingle and then also a trap track remix of the podcast theme, is like really hilarious to me personally. But I think the ask there was my like semiannual message to Alex being like, hey, so I want to create more video content, and I've been using like free stuff on like, Tiktok and YouTube. But maybe it's time to create something branded, and you came back with three wildly different tracks. But yeah, I don't know if you have names for those three.
ALEX: I think I named the first one, Tiktok_001, and I think the second one was Tiktok_002, and so on.
ALYSSA: Yeah, there's one that reminds me of just like a bright blue hippy beach camper van.
ALEX: Yeah, I know that one.
ALYSSA: As social algorithms are, like, pushing more toward creating video content, what were some of the things that you're thinking about when I basically told you like, hey, I might be creating short-form narrative video content?
ALEX: That was kind of a newer thing for me as well, because I don't do as much modern instrumentation. But I wanted to do something that was, again, very loopable, and also had the melody but was more modern, and was something that you could take and piecemeal together for whatever you needed to give you flexibility. So that one, I think, was another level of track deliveries, where I gave you here's the bass part, here's the kick drum, here's this, here's that. And then you did a really great job editing it all together to kind of create your own track. Part of that, let's go with the trap one.
[Trap Theme]
ALEX: It was so hard for me to know, like, is this cheesy? I don't know. Like, this isn't the kind of music I usually make, but it sounds cool.
ALYSSA: I don’t know I’m old, but I can’t give you proper feedback.
ALEX: Yeah. I felt the same way. So I was basically just pulled up like an 808 bass and just blasted the bass on it and made it sound very clubby. And I mean, I like listening to it, it's kind of like a–
ALYSSA: Oh, I love it. Great.
ALEX: But one of the good things about that one, was it makes it I think effective as background for your video, for example, is there's not much in the mid-range. It's like bass, and then that trap kind of Hi Hat sound. So there's a lot of empty space that allows room for people to focus on your voice. And there's not like melodies going over it and kind of getting in the way of the content. So it really is background music, right? There is no element that's foreground. I think.
ALYSSA: We've yet to make elevator, but…
ALEX: Oh, that'd be a really good one.
ALEX: The hippy one you mentioned.
[Hippy Theme]
ALEX: Probably sounds hippy because I just listened to that one too. And the guitar is not very good rhythm. So it probably sounds a little beachy, because it sounds a little off.
ALYSSA: It's just, like, very vibey. I think it's also the hippy claps at the end like the;
[Theme]
ALEX: Oh, yeah.
ALYSSA: I think there's something about it that's like, oh, we're grooving together and like we're on the beach, and this is fun. It was such a different mood than I think a lot of the other things that we've explored together over the last few years, and I remember you sent me that and it was so unexpected. And I think it was another track like the Around The Table track that I was like, Oh, I'm wiggling. This is fun.
ALEX: That's my signature, is the wiggles. This is what I do, they come to me for.
ALYSSA: And then there was the third one. You know what, I don't think I've used this one yet.
ALEX: I don't even have it in my music library.
ALYSSA: Oh, really?
ALEX: Yeah, I just have two and three.
ALYSSA: I'm like, can I share this?
[Theme]
ALYSSA: Alex and I just listened to the track again. I have not yet used it.
ALEX: I think I did the trap one first actually. And even though it's named number one, I don't think I did this one first. Because I remember having trouble thinking, what can I do that's different than the other two I did? So this was kind of just built off of not being other things. But it has a lot of different variations you could use, like looking at the tracks I delivered, there are different basses, and there are different drums. I gave you a bunch of pieces of music that can fit together and I was like, you can finish it, you could do the rest.
ALYSSA: Baptism of Fire. Figure it out.
ALEX: Yeah, this is what we do in the industry you know, it sounds like, oh, I gave you all this variety. But really, it's like, I just quit before I was finished and you can do the rest. It's all about framing.
ALYSSA: I think that's part of the fun. Figuring out how it's going to work and where. It's almost like a Lego playset. It's like, oh, I have all these little building blocks, and I can make them any way that I want.
ALEX: Yeah. No, exactly, it's fun, like Legos. But I mean, for real, it is more difficult to deliver this than just a finish track, because I have to account for different ways that you could put them together that won't just ruin it, right?
ALYSSA: User error.
ALEX: Exactly.
ALYSSA: Yeah, I’m familiar in my job as well.
ALEX: Yeah.
ALYSSA: So those are all the things that we've done so far. And like I said, it does feel very full circle to talk about this on the anniversary of the podcast. I wonder what I'm going to ask you for another, like, six months? Because I don't know yet.
ALEX: Yeah, we’ll check back in like three more years. And we'll have a whole new you know, Thanksgiving.
ALYSSA: Polka jazz fusion.
ALEX: At least a few hardcore.
ALYSSA: Yeah.
ALEX: I grew up loving the fantasy genre, right? This is kind of my wheelhouse, I guess you could say in terms of what I'm the most familiar with. So it's been a great opportunity to be able to write something that is thematic, and I can use the theme and do it in different contexts. So it's something that's an ideal type of project for a composer. So I'm glad you invited me on to this project. More than the project now, its own living entity now.
ALYSSA: Yeah, I think it's kind of untameable at this point, and we're just gonna see how far it runs. So for the second half of our discussion, I'd love to talk to you about the current project that you're working on Pocket Bard. Listeners, I know a lot of you are into tabletop role-playing games, you're into D&D. Pocket Bard is such a cool tool resource app, that even I've had the opportunity to work on it a little bit, which has been awesome, in a different capacity than a podcaster. So could you tell us a little bit about Pocket Bard, the genesis of it, and what makes it really unique as an app?
ALEX: Yeah, of course. So Pocket Bard is a new interactive music and sound app for tabletop games like you said, and it started out when a dungeon master friend of Chase’s, my business partner, was talking to him about difficulties he had running audio for his sessions. And what he was describing, kind of a product he wishes he had, was exactly what we do in game audio, we figured well, we can just make this for him right, for people in his position, any dungeon masters, game masters. After tha,t it was almost exactly three years ago, as well, I started working on that a week or two after I was working on your podcast. I basically just got to work, writing stuff for it because I was so ready to get back into music. For three years, I've been writing music for this app. And now there's over, probably, four hours of music in it. The real core design features are its simplicity, we want it to be super easy to use. And to be something that a DM can have pulled up and alter on the fly. We're not going for the presets in terms of users getting everything set up ahead of time, we really want it to be play and go and switch. Probably the most unique feature of it is the intensity slider, which lets you control the orchestration and the arrangement of your music in real-time. So basically, I've orchestrated all the music in multiple ways. So you can use this slider to change the arrangement. So you can bring it down, and it might be more just chill drums and percussion if you're in a battle, and you pull it up and some string riffs come in, and then you pull it up all the way, and then the brass kicks in and the choir. So you can really shape the course of your music in real-time without having to switch between tracks. The other functions of it, you can switch between explore music and combat music. And it'll do that all seamlessly, so you don't have to juggle like Spotify playlists, and it's really just meant to be like a tool, to really try to enhance your games and make the whole audio experience simpler. At this point, a lot of people running games are expected to manage audio too. It's awesome with the internet now, you have the ability to stream audio but it's kind of expectation of players very often now. So it's like one more added thing they have to manage while keeping track of the story and the characters’ hit points and everything that you have to keep in your mental ram. This hopefully will free it up for a lot of people.
ALYSSA: Yeah, absolutely. And it was so cool because I got to play around with Pocket Bard early as, like, a UX designer. And I was, like, making recommendations for them on the features and on the information architecture of the platform, which is what I do for my day job, when I'm not podcasting on Breakfast in Beauclair. The intensity slider and the way that the compositions layer is so cool. There's an open beta out for it right now, right, Alex?
ALEX: Yes.
ALYSSA: And you guys can go on and, like, play with it yourselves. Literally, with just one little push, the music gets so much more intense in a way that's I think, unexpected and very delightful. One of the things that Alex didn't mention about the features that are on Pocket Bard, is the ability to also have sound effects. So one of my favorite sound effects is “wet body falling”.
ALEX: Oh that's a great one.
ALYSSA: And it's just like a thump but wet, crucially. But you can also have like swords clashing and just people talking, so if you're in a tavern; the goal, at least from my understanding of it really is creating player immersion. So I think if you're a DM or GM, or if you're even a player, it's just like a really nice thing to have, like, I could use it as a Pomodoro thing. If I wanted to study or work on it, to be honest, the interactivity is really awesome. And it's so unique. You guys did an awesome job with that as well.
ALEX: Thank you. Yeah, no, it was helpful having you hop on to help out with the design, because that's such a necessary thing to have streamlined to be able to communicate everything to the user that they can do, we have a lot coming, including a big new UI update. So I'm excited about that. There's a lot more music on the way, downloadable content, more sound effects.
ALYSSA: Two wet bodies falling.
ALEX: Yeah, we should just fill the whole sound effects panel, just with a whole bunch of variety of wet body falls. There are a lot of updates we have coming. We're fixing all the bugs leading up to our full release, which we're hoping to do in early fall. The changes that you'll see that Alyssa has helped us with are going to be coming up soon.
ALYSSA: Ooh that's exciting. And if people want to check out the open beta on Android, or iOS, where can they do so?
ALEX: You can go to any of our social media, just type in Pocket Bard, in our Tiktok or Instagram. Yeah, that's it. I've been so focused on TikTok lately, I forget about the millennial stuff.
ALYSSA: Runnin’ with the youths.
ALEX: Yeah. Any social media platform, and there's a link to our Linktree. Linktree/Pocket Bard. And then it will take you to Android and iOS, you can find it just on Google Play. If you're on Android, you can just search for it and find it. But since it's in Beta, iOS requires you to go through their Beta testing software test flight. So that's why you need the link for it.
ALYSSA: Yeah. And if people do try it, where can they like, give you feedback, if they would like to do so?
ALEX: The best place to keep updated and communicate with us would probably be on our Discord, which is also linked through the link I mentioned. That's where we give development updates, let people know when bugs are fixed. There's a good amount of discussion we have going on there. That's kind of the hub right now.
ALYSSA: And I know that you guys are also going to conventions and trade shows and stuff like that. Do you have any coming up?
ALEX: We do. We're going to be at PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia this December, from December 2nd to December 4th, and maybe New York Comic Con, if I hear back.
ALYSSA: That’s sick.
ALEX: So hopefully that.
ALYSSA: Fingers crossed for you, knock on wood.
ALEX: It would be nice to just take the train, you know, and take the PATH over to Javits Center. But definitely come meet us at a convention. We keep everybody updated on where we're going to be, we have a booth set up where you can come to try the app on an iPod, not an iPod, what's an iPod? An iPad, so you can come to try it out, and talk to us, the team will be there. We're a three-person team, that means there's a lot of work for us each to do. So we do our best to keep up with responding to everybody.
ALYSSA: Yeah, I mean, if you love Breakfast in Beauclair, if you love music that's on here, you're of course gonna love Pocket Bard, and you should go check out their open beta and keep in touch for when everything goes live.
ALEX: I think also working on the show, and then comparing it with a lot of the music I've written over the years, I've really noticed like, I definitely have a style. And this is something I've thought a lot about in terms of what chord changes I like, what sounds satisfying to me. And it's always interesting to see what music resonates with which people, based on, kind of, all of our own built-up musical intuitions over the years, all the music we've ever heard. Our brain combines into intuitions about how music should sound, whether or not other people's music complies with our brain's version of that is interesting to see. And it's interesting to see how differently people can react to the same piece of music and whether it jives with their musical vocabulary.
ALYSSA: How would you describe your style then, and like what it's evolved into?
ALEX: I've been looking for a word for that. Maybe you can help me find the right word. It's a little bit energetic or lively maybe. I have a hard time getting away from music that doesn't change around pretty quickly. Maybe densely packed, that might be a phrase to use. I, I’ll have to think about it some more. Because I still haven't been able to really put it into words other than I'm always looking for a kind of change in the song and like an arc in it. If I'm asked to write something that stays the same for like two minutes, it's almost impossible for me. Like, I just get so jittery, it has to change here. Why would; why am I on the same chord for four measures? What's going on?
ALYSSA: As you're talking about, like, building arcs, and building movements into your music in general, but also thinking about the music that you've done for me for Breakfast in Beauclair, and even with Pocket Bard, it sounds like storytelling through music, is like such a huge part of like, what you're trying to achieve. Like, there are still those moments of highs and lows. There are so many unexpected elements. You're still storytelling, which is I think, a beautiful way to talk about music and something that, like, everybody experiences.
ALEX: Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. Because I'm super obsessed with the concept of time in general, and our relationship to it and tempo. And the fact that music necessitates a certain amount of time to experience it, unlike visual art, is something that I've thought about a lot. So I kind of want to fill it as much as I can.
ALYSSA: Right.
ALEX: I don't know, maybe I haven't accepted my own mortality yet.
ALYSSA: Blessing and a curse.
ALEX: Yeah.
ALYSSA: I think it's really interesting. Like, it's inherently storytelling based. It's inherently interactive, regardless of whether there's like literal interactivity for a user, there's a certain amount of, I think, surprise and delight that still comes from the compositions that you create, which I think is awesome. I think as we're talking about it, it feels like there's that stamp across, like the theme, the transitional music of like the Tidings from Toussaint WitcherFlix theme, the Around The Table stuff and the Christmas stuff and the heavy beach theme.
ALEX: Yeah, I think that's a good point, two quick things on that. I think that is something I have trouble taking stuff too seriously. So there's always a little bit of kind of whimsy in everything I write, even in the music in Pocket Bard in like the dungeon battles, there are still moments where, like, a random major chord comes up. And it's like this heroic moment, or kind of silly like bassoon line randomly. I don't think it's enough to take away from the intent of the music, which is to create, you know, intensity and like an intense battle. But I don't know, we all have those kinds of cringy moments when we're teenagers that we look back on.
ALYSSA: Sob.
ALEX: And I think mine were when I like really took music too seriously, and just the lyrics that I would listen to were so over the top. And at this point, I'm just; I can't take it too seriously. It's like, I'm just writing music, dude. Like, it's not that serious. I think storytelling is also the biggest thing, even with the music and Pocket Bard. Obviously, I'm not writing for a specific scene. So I'll pull up an image of, let's say, a forest or a scary creature online and just have it there. And then I'll just imagine a scene in my music session, I'll put markers of what's happening in the scene.
ALYSSA: Oh, interesting.
ALEX: Like monster shows up, monster chasing you, hiding, big battle, comrade dies.
ALYSSA: RIP.
ALEX: Yeah. I think I literally have a RIP in one of my sessions, then I'll just score to that. So it gives me a form where things happen that I can follow like I would if I was scoring a film or TV or something.
ALYSSA: It’s so interesting. Oh, I feel like we'll have to try to push that in future stuff with Breakfast in Beauclair and Peculiar Radio.
ALEX: Sure.
ALYSSA: So, that is it for our show today. Alex, thank you so much for joining us for this episode, and for all of your contributions to the show, for making it what it is today. And thank you to our Hanza for listening. So where can people find you? And is there anything that our community can help you with or anything that you would like to share with them?
ALEX: Oh, thank you. Well, first of all, it's been a pleasure working on all these projects with you. So I hope you keep asking me to join and/or hiring me. So as far as my stuff and Pocket Bard, we're pretty intertwined at this point, this is pretty much my life, so you can follow me or it or both of us on Instagram or follow us on our Discord server. That's a really good place where we give user feedback, we don't give user feedback. Users give us feedback, and we give development updates. Find me on Instagram, that's where I actually post things. Alex_mx_v1. It's a play on naming conventions because I'll deliver files that basically are 500 characters long like Pocket Bard_explore_track one_strings_level one _20 BPM_448. I don't know when I deliver these files to Chase, he's able to read them in any way that's, like, simple but it works. It's specific, but yeah find me on social media on Instagram or Instagram and TikTok.
ALYSSA: Crucially, Tiktok now yeah.
ALEX: Well yeah, Tiktok spends liking our Pocket Bard content. So find us there too at Pocket Bard App on TikTok. 40% of D&D players are under 25. So that's probably another reason why.
ALYSSA: That's a good point. And eventually, when we get to putting all the Breakfast in Beauclair music on Pocket Bard, 40% of that income will come to me, so.
ALEX: Oh yeah. At least.
ALYSSA: At least. Oh, my God. Did I, did I. have you just like, absorbed that joke from all of our sessions in Peculiar Radio meetings?
ALEX: Which one?
ALYSSA: The “at least”?
ALEX: Maybe? I didn't even think about. I just said it.
ALYSSA: The Hanza on Discord is so sick of me making that joke. Oh, there are like 100,000 things over here. Oh my God, that's got to be at least four things. I've been saying that for months and they're so sick of it.
ALEX: Oh, well, yeah. I must have subconsciously picked that up.
ALYSSA: Oh that was so unexpected and makes me so happy. Okay. So that's it for today. Again, thank you so much for joining me, and next episode join us as we discuss The Witcher season two episode six, Dear Friend.
Outro & Credits
[Breakfast in Beauclair theme music by MojoFilter Media]
Transcript to come
Transcriptionist: JM Sarong