A spotting-to-picture cue for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, tracing the beacon-fires of Gondor as they wake one by one across the mountains — a kingdom's last, wordless cry for help answered in flame.

NOTES

Scored for French Horn, Violin, Piano, Cello, and Percussion. A Picardy-third modulation lifts the cue from D minor into D major exactly as the "epic theme" ignites, turning despair into hope in a single chord; a chain of secondary dominants (F7, C7, F#7) pushes the harmony forward the way each beacon pushes fire to the next peak. The opening dotted "call to arms" motif is left untouched in the horn through four repetitions of the main theme, while the strings underneath thicken from an eighth-note pulse into a driving sixteenth-note ostinato — tension built through density and orchestration rather than tempo. A borrowed bVI (modal interchange) chord derails the triumphant D major at the final bar, landing the cue on Aragorn's stunned, unresolved reaction instead of a clean cadence.

MOOD

Rousing · Urgent · Awestruck

VOICES

French HornViolinPianoCelloPercussion

My first game score — a cue scored to a God of War scene, where Norse myth, vengeance, and motion collide; harmonic shadows and shifting meters track a relentless momentum through a world ruled by gods and grudges.

NOTES

Built on C minor's composite minor scale (raised leading tone plus modal-interchange color), with borrowed bVI and bII (Neapolitan) chords lending a Phrygian darkness, and a single V7/V secondary dominant sharpening the cue's pivotal tension point. Shifting between 4/4, 7/8, and 6/8 mirrors the scene's unstable, combat-driven motion. Scored for viola, pad synthesizer, electric piano, and drum kit. First-ever game-scoring assignment, Berklee.

MOOD

Tense · Mythic · Relentless

VOICES

ViolaSynthElectric PianoDrums

A short cue for Häxan (1922), Benjamin Christensen's genre-bending silent film on the history of witchcraft — music that steps into a world where folklore, body horror, and dark humor blur into one uneasy dream.

NOTES

Built in C minor using the composite minor scale, blending ♭6/6 and ♭7/7 for harmonic ambiguity. A minor-major seventh tonic chord (I-maj7) and a borrowed ♭VImaj7 lend an unsettling sweetness, while ii°7 and VII°7 diminished chords and a V7 cadence inject sudden jolts of tension — mirroring the film's own slide between dry documentary tone and grotesque dramatized horror. Scored for viola, violin, piano, and bass guitar. Rounded binary form, Berklee assignment.

MOOD

Eerie · Whimsical · Unsettled

VOICES

ViolaViolinPianoBass Guitar

A 1'58" movie cue for a fictional sci-fi scene: an old man and a young survivor stumble out of an explosion into a cavernous metal ruin swarming with flying creatures, sprinting across a suspended walkway just as it gives way beneath them.

NOTES

Written for Berklee Online Music Theory & Composition 3, Assignment 7 (Polychords in a Composition). Scored for an intentionally "metallic" ensemble — Glockenspiel and clean Electric Guitar double the melody in bell-bright octaves, Electric Bass locks into the piano's syncopated comping, and a standard Drum Kit drives the chase — echoing the scene's industrial, wire-and-steel architecture. Fourteen distinct polychord voicings (upper-structure triad over lower-structure tones, split hand-to-hand on the piano) carry the harmonic language throughout; a chromatic run of diminished 7ths (♭VI°7→VI°7→♭VII°7→vii°7→i°7→♭ii°7) traces the walkway losing its footing underfoot, and the meter fractures into alternating 5/8–7/8 bars as the ground gives way. The cue never resolves: it ends on a bare open fifth (i, no 3rd), the walkway's collapse left hanging in silence. Realized as a MIDI mock-up from a hand-built MusicXML score (no live recording).

MOOD

Frantic · Industrial · Unresolved

VOICES

GlockenspielElectric GuitarPianoElectric BassDrum Kit

A cinematic miniature for an imagined scene — a young woman steps into a sudden spotlight, caught between courage and doubt before she dares to begin her audition.

NOTES

Set in G major and built from rich 9th-chord colors (V9, Imaj9, Gmaj9), the harmony stays warm but never quite settles — mirroring her hesitation under the light. A borrowed iv7 (Cm7) and ♭VII7 (F7) slip in like a flicker of self-doubt before the music eases back into the major-key glow of resolve. Scored for two pianos, trading the melody and arpeggiated accompaniment between them for contrast. Theory & Composition assignment, Berklee.

MOOD

Nervous · Vulnerable · Hopeful

VOICES

Piano 1Piano 2

A 90-second opening cue for Mắt Biếc, following a young man's quiet bicycle ride through his village to a schoolyard alive with laughter — a memory that hasn't happened yet, and already feels lost.

NOTES

Scored for Sáo Trúc, Violin, Piano, and Cello. The Sáo Trúc melody is built on the D major pentatonic scale, grounding the cue in a distinctly Vietnamese pastoral voice rather than a generic Western folk sound. A string of secondary dominants (V7/V, V7/vi) keeps the harmony gently restless beneath the calm surface, while a single borrowed iv6 chord (Gm6) — placed exactly under the close-up of the protagonist's smile — casts a fleeting minor-mode shadow across an otherwise bright D major, mirroring the "hint of worry" hidden behind his warmth. The Violin's guide-tone line (3rds and 7ths) threads continuously through the changes, giving the harmony a held-breath quality that only releases once the scene cuts to the laughter-filled schoolyard.

MOOD

Nostalgic · Tender · Quietly wistful

VOICES

Sáo TrúcViolinPianoCello