old design | Alex H Smith

Alex H Smith
Composer | Performer | Collaborator

(Demo Reel) title on thumbnail

Portfolio

Welcome to my video game & multimedia composition portfolio. I've selected a range of pieces and extracts showing a variety of styles and techniques from my current body of work. I've also included some clips from and references to some of my own favourite games along the way!

There's quite a lot to listen to, so I've tried to collect it all together into helpful sections.

If you're looking for examples of something very specific, look out for the 3 descriptive words that I've attributed to every track, E.g:

Manic, Contemporary, Orchestral

Don't miss my biography at the bottom of the page, and of course feel free to contact me if you have specific queries.

For more information or to enquire about a potential collaboration, please contact me at:

email: alexhsmith96@gmail.com

GSM/Whatsapp: +32 (0)486 53 88 51

Dynamic and Looping compositions

This is an experimental concept score I made for Super Smash Bros.

Here I experiment with creating a dynamic score that reacts to several elements:

The players' character choice. This dictates half of the instrumentation for the arrangements (the other half dictated by the other players choice)
The balance of power in the gameplay. The music represents the player who is dominating (according to the current damage % ration). Their representative instruments dominate the arrangement. When both players are significantly weakened the music reflects this too with a combination of buffoonish comedy and looming suspense.

For a more technical breakdown of the concept and potential implementation, click here.

This playlist contains various examples of other looping (or loop-able) pieces from my repertoire, showing a range of styles and characters.

Character pieces

The following three pieces are examples of through-composed/narrative based compositions written to augment certain characteristics of the video they accompany.

The footage itself is some of the earliest in film, created by two of it's pioneers; Edison and Lumière.

Synthesis & Electronics

This is the teaser trailer for a solo project in which I perform as a cyberpunk singer-songwriter character.

He is a rather introspective character, and you hear that in his music and lyrics.

This project demonstrates my capabilities with sound synthesis and electronic music.

In the following playlist you can hear some full songs from the same project. The characters and subject matter differ somewhat, and they all show a slightly different angle of my past work with synthesisers.

Include link to Cusk trailer as an example of my audio manipulation.

Performance

This song was a collaboration between myself and singer/actor Junior Akwety. Lyrics and melody by Junior, and marimba trio composition by myself. Performed by (left to right) Jorge Rodriguez, Javier Poveda and myself.

Ameline??

Video version of Detoxing

Biography

Hey, I'm Alex. 👋

I'm a composer and multi-instrumentalist performer currently based in Flanders, Belgium. I'm originally from the UK, which is where I started my musical career.

I have two degrees from world class musical institutions:

- Royal Northern College of Music (UK) - Bachelor of Music (Orchestral percussion)

- Koninklijke Constervatorium van Antwerpen (BE) - Master of Arts (Solo marimba)

I also have performance/composition experience in a wide variety of genres. I've performed with many professional opera, symphony and chamber orchestras, as well as in musical theatre, brass bands, jazz & big bands, Latin bands, pop groups, and performance art ensembles. Although I studied in classical institutions, I could never keep myself away from exploring all the genres of music I possibly could. These varied experiences have undoubtedly shaped my compositional voice.

My current work (and the kind of work I love the most) revolves mostly around interdisciplinary collaboration. At present this includes;

- Creative projects mixing ecological and environmental research with contemporary performance art (with my research ensemble "the Cusk Collective"),

- Working as musical director on the upcoming tour of a wonderful emerging poet; Sesa,

- Working as a music teacher in a theatre outreach scheme aiming to grow community cohesion in the Antwerp suburbs.

As you can probably tell from that list, I love working as part of creatively charged, enthusiastic teams.

So, if you need a composer for yours, feel free to get in touch to chat about your project!

You can contact me via:

Email : alexhsmith96@gmail.com

GSM / Whatsapp : +32 486 53 88 51

Bonus...?

If you made it this far down my portfolio I presume you're a cool person and worthy of learning about the more extreme side of my geeky self...

One of my all-time favourite games is Animal Crossing : Wild World. If you know anything about Animal Crossing you'll undoubtedly be familiar with KK-Slider; the universes resident singing-songwriting dog.

Of coruse as a musical child I was a bit obsessed with that particular character. So much so infact, that for a particular phase I would every week learn to play one of his songs on the piano, and every week I'd take it to my piano teacher (who every week very patiently sat through it)... Maybe if I had spent more time on Mozart than KK-Slider I could have become a concert pianist!

But here I am, a grown man who recently discovered a fan-made virtual instrument that allows you to exactly replicate KK-Sliders guitar and even his voice (down to the specific syllable he sings 🤓)...

...Aaaand there went all of my free time making My very own fantasy KK songs, complete with music videos and all,.. and here is the highlight playlist to prove it!

(And honestly, I can't imagine concert pianists have more fun than this anyway.... 😜)