Inscryption "The Temple of Magicks" Brass Quintet

“The Temple of Magicks” from Inscryption, composed by Jonah Senzel and arranged for brass quintet by Daniel Romberger.

🖼️ This is track 8 from "The Brass Indie Expo!"

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Featuring...
The Game Brass:
🎵 John Robert Matz: Trumpet
[http://www.johnrobertmatz.com]
🎵 Robby Duguay: Trumpet
[http://www.robbyduguay.com]
🎵 JohnStacy: French Horn
[   / @thejohnstacy  ]
🎵 Daniel Romberger (DannyMusic): Trombone, Arrangement, Video
[   / @dannymusic  ]
🎵 Alex Hill (WarTubaFox): Tuba
[   / @wartubafox  ]
🎵 Thomas Kresge: Mix
[https://www.kresgemusic.com/]

🎵 Henry Faber: Logo Design
[  / henryfaber  ]

Notes from Daniel about this arrangement:

Inscryption -- I can't say enough good things about this game, and I can't say most of them here for fear of revealing too many spoilers! But I will talk a bit about this specific part of the game and how it relates to my arrangement. If that sounds cool to you, read on; otherwise, thanks for watching, like, comment, subscribe, and please stop reading after this paragraph.

The Temple of Magicks is the home of Magnificus, an enigmatic character who wields a paintbrush to immortalize his disciples into cards. However, for a student to prove their worthiness, Magnificus forces his pupils to undergo an arduous and prolonged torture session that Magnificus describes to as "training." He is, nevertheless, revered by his disciples, and even acknowledged by his peers (loathe as they are to give compliments) as someone who's clever and always has a plan.

I liken Jonah Senzel's original composition for the Temple of Magicks as a sort of passacaglia that establishes a strong melody with dissonances that seem to hint at this magic school's twisted nature. To me, the unceasing repetition of the theme plays at Magnificus's fastidious nature, which in turn was a strong source of inspiration for me when "inscrybing" this arrangement.

Even though the theme is melodic, arranging The Temple of Magicks came with several challenges. To start with, compared to the original soundtrack, our brass quintet is actually surprisingly limited. Sometimes an original track that The Game Brass arranges is scored for fewer channels than we have musicians (like NES/Game Boy tunes). However, in this case, despite the original soundtrack playing towards a retro aesthetic, it exists as its own identity and doesn't actually follow the same types of limitations. As such, there are numerous clusters of close harmonies and a wide range of timbre changes in the melodic and accompaniment instruments. Neither of these effects seemed translatable to brass quintet in a direct way, so I had to think carefully about what to do.

For the close harmonies, I did my best to pay attention to which instrument was carrying which pitch so that one instrument didn't dominate the texture and so that any dissonances would be understood. As for tone and timbre variation, I took advantage of the resources at our disposal, using techniques like mutes and stopped horn, and passing the melody around among all five of our instruments (sometimes harmonized, sometimes with variation in articulation, and often making use of multiple parts of each brass instrument's range).

I also leaned heavily into dynamics, which helped inform the piece's overall dramatic arc. Woven into the accompaniment textures are several original countermelodies (not from the OST), which try to add both energy and tension. During quiet sections, the countermelodies are fewer and consist primarily of long notes in close proximity with each other. However, as tension rises, countermelodies move more quickly and make large leaps more erratically, leading towards a climax carrying as much pain and intensity as the tortures Magnificus himself brings upon those in his purview.

Thanks for watching, and huge thanks to Jonah Senzel for allowing us to distribute this arrangement for free as well as generally for being very kind and supportive when we reached out to him. Please check out the Inscryption OST, which is on Bandcamp as is the rest of our indie-game focused album The Brass Indie Expo.