Forest of Jnana and Vidya/Background

==Travelers' Reverie==
"Travelers' Reverie" — Behind the Scenes of the Music of Sumeru
Yu-Peng Chen, Music Producer for Genshin Impact and HOYO-MiX: "Sequencing" is a technique commonly used in musical composition to develop melodies. Changing pitch and repeating the cycle creates an increasingly rich, emotional display just like our journey through the world of Genshin Impact. Your footprints from Mondstadt to Liyue, across the sea to Inazuma, then across The Chasm to Sumeru. In the course of these many journeys record many unforgettable stories, Genshin Impacts music accompanies our deep exploration and also drives the plot forward, constantly conveying emotions that ebb and flow.
Jinhai "Zoe" Cai, , HOYO-MiX Manager: I enjoy likening all members of HOYO-MiX to cultivators of music. We have enough patience and perseverance to keep making music as we reconcile our own musical language with the demands of the market, and we take pleasure in our growth and development during the creative process of Genshin Impacts music for Sumeru. The HOYO-MiX team also takes inspiration from different cultures and regions and seeks innovation in exploring traditional cultures.
Yu-Peng Chen: The presentation of two very different landscapes in one region is also an innovative expression of exploring geocultural aspects. After the theme of "drizzling rain and flying sand" was confirmed, the rainforests of South Asia first came to mind, as well as the vast deserts of the Middle East. For the rainforest scenery corresponding to South Asia, we used instruments such as the Bansuri, Sitar, Tabla, among others and tried to introduce elements of yoga music into our composition, giving our music a feeling of contemporary wisdom and spirituality. The occasional use of the lively asymmetrical compound rhythms adds a touch of "life" to the music. For the scenery of the desert and the Mausoleum of King Deshret corresponding to the Middle East, we used instruments such as the Ney, Duduk, Saz, among others. This music hopes to convey an epic, ancient "wisdom."
Sumeru's landscape is extremely complex. Within the desert and the rainforest, there are treacherous areas affected by "The Withering," waiting for players to explore and cleanse. We've also refined our approach to interactive music design and have unified suspense of the exploration with the tension of battle. The Withering Zones are different from other scenarios and are kind of surreal and oppressive.
Di-Meng Yuan, HOYO-MiX Music Producer: In the design of the music, by combining orchestral and electronic timbres that tend to be atonal with traditional folk instruments, we have created a dreadful, heavy, and even creepy atmosphere.
Yu-Peng Chen: Actually, in the beginning we could only see videos of folk musicians from different cultures playing on the internet. Luckily, on the first trip to London to record the music for Mondstadt, we paid a visit to the British Museum and saw historical relics from Ancient Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations. We also visited the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels, Belgium and took lots of pictures! To create the best possible music for the Sumeru region, we've been painstakingly working on this for three years, in hopes to make sure it's properly ready.
Martin Robertson, Duduk Player: Duduk is probably the most ancient woodwind instrument. I have seen one that was pulled out of a pyramid. They've been around a long time, and it's a very simple design. They're made out of apricot wood with some kind of very cleverly-crossed bamboo, and it basically vibrates so you get the beautiful noise.
Yu-Peng Chen: For the folk musicians, using these traditional folk instruments to play unconventional music is not something they're used to. Thus, this collaboration required a lot of communication and teamwork.
Kuljit Bharma MBE, Folk Music Producer and Tabla Player: If you Google sitar, it would say sitar has 28 strings. One thing maybe is not on Google is that Sitar has 28 strings but the player only plays one string. The other 27 strings, they vibrate naturally underneath the main string. So this research is not fully known worldwide. It's very difficult to play in many passages.
Dursun Can Çakin, Saz Player: It is always nice to be around people that can look at the world from the same point of view as you as we have similar interests, especially where music is involved. The rest of the project becomes just a detail when it involves emotions and getting those emotions across. Music is always nice no matter what form it takes. If we can express those emotions properly, That would make me very happy.
Eliza Marshall, Basuri Player: All these things keep my brain alive. And I love the fact that we can kind of cross-pollinate between exactly what we've been doing today — wonderful music from Chinese composers, Indian styles. I'm British, but I've been brought up with lots and lots of world influences. So to be able to kind of connect all of those, I think it's a really wonderful thing.
Di-Meng Yuan: When you combine these traditional instruments from different cultures together with creative vision, a new composition representing the civilization of Sumeru is born. Perhaps when the player first stepped foot in Sumeru, the first thing that caught their eye was probably the spectacle of the landscape. However, as the player gets deeper into the adventure, characters with very different personalities and backstories gradually emerge. The music of the scenery focuses on visualization and immersion and reflects the unique culture and feel of the game. The music used in the plot emphasizes the tension that accompanies the unfolding of the story.
The music for the Version trailers is more like a mix of content that integrates the best parts of the new Version together. And I think the most important thing about character music is that the melodies and compositions are tailored to each character's personality. We try our best to use music to amplify the intrinsic and extrinsic traits of our characters and present them to players. Within the team, we are responsible for each of these different music sections. Within the team, we are responsible for each of these different music sections. It's only when these sections come together that the musical world of Genshin Impact comes to life.
The characters' themes are closer to pop music and convey a more intense listening experience. In the arrangements, we usually incorporate some elements of EDM, rock, and trap to make the characters' traits more distinctive and impactful. Sometimes, we go outside the box and do something interesting. Such as the case with Kaedehara Kazuha's Character Demo, where we incorporated elements of hip hop music in an attempt to convey the image of a Ronin, together with the visuals of the video. When composing, we also use different instruments to express the characters' personalities. For example, in the first "Stellar Moments" album, the main instrument for Zhongli is the erhu. And in "The Stellar Moments Vol. 2," Eula's main instrument is the acoustic guitar. The theme of the character is consistent with the theme of the music in the game. There must also be an intrinsic connection between the character music and backstory as well as the story's scenery. For example, Dori, who was introduced in the Version 3.0 Trailer, is a merchant who does business in Port Ormos, a place that is far from the reach of the Akademiya, and is therefore more free-spirited. For her character theme, our team used Sumeru's combat theme and made a hardstyle remix of it.
Yu-Peng Chen: Both the rainforest and the desert share the same battle music to ensure uniformity. Hence, during the arrangement, I used both South Asian and Middle Eastern folk instruments and blended them together with western, classical symphony music. The solo instruments are subtly differentiated according to the area. For example, for the same combat piece when it's played in the rainforest, the wind instrument used is the Bansuri flute which originated from India which gives a soft and delicate tone. When played in the desert, while maintaining the same melody, the wind instruments used are the Ney and the Duduk which originated from the Middle East, which give a raspy and wild tone. Also, the themes used in Sumeru's battle music build upon how Mondstadt's battle themes had variations. In one of the pieces, I experimented with the Fibonacci sequence to create rich and varied rhythmic changes, which make it sound very modern.
Robert Ziegler, Conductor and Music Producer: There are several really memorable pieces. One in particular I only know it as x063 ("Gilded Runner"). It's got a lot of changing rhythms, so you have 12 12 123 12345 12 and on and on like that. For this rhythm, it's really thrilling, so everybody sort of comes to grips with that very quickly. And quite often when we have a large piece. What we'll do is record it in very short sections and then we'll assemble it together.
Yu-Peng Chen: The combat piece most closely related to the Dendro element is the custom track created for the new monster, Jadeplume Terrorshroom. I used a very minimalist leitmotif. Every time it repeats, the musical motif would undergo fission when the ornaments are played in different ways. The rhythm is then disrupted, deconstructed and assembled together again. This is particularly difficult when playing the instrument as it's hard to find where the accent is on the beat. However, it is the simplicity of this melody as well as the complexity of the execution and the details that make this combat theme unique.
Di-Meng Yuan: "Sumeru continues to be influenced by the legacy of ancient civilizations, but the prelude to new wisdom is also being composed." As a nation where knowledge is managed as a resource. "Wisdom" is at the core of Sumeru's story.
Yu-Peng Chen: Therefore, in the greater context of "wisdom," we had to cover two very different musical styles for the rainforest and desert, which was by far the most difficult challenge for our music team. Sumeru's music, on the whole, has a characteristic that the development of melody always revolves around the traditional compositional technique of "Sequencing," which remains close to the fundamental core of "wisdom." So what is "Sequencing"? Perhaps you remember in the Version 3.0 Special Program, in the Sumeru Symphony Performance, the opening melody underwent continuous musical fission in the form of sequencing, which causes relationships between the intervals and tones to change. At the same time, I took reference from the symphonic suites of the classical composer Rimsky-Korsakov and some orchestration elements from "Scheherazade." To compose the piece with colorful harmonies and flowing texture of the inner part, the melodic theme of this overture corresponds to a scene in the Interlude Teaser "A Winter Night's Lazzo" where Collei dreamed of an unsettling vision. The use of "Sequencing" as a composition technique is a natural way to set the tone for the development of Sumeru's music.
Jinhan "Zoe" Cai: With the further development of landscapes, gameplay, and stories, HOYO-MiX will face more challenges in the future. To allow the music of HOYO-MiX to resonate with the world, and to create music without boundaries Is an important goal for HOYO-MiX in making a "breakthrough." We want to keep up with the dynamic changes in global aesthetics and integrate the appreciation of Chinese language and aesthetics into the norms of different cultural regions to create world music with the characteristics of Genshin Impact. Just like the Traveler, we too, are constantly on a journey of discovery and growth. As we embark on future musical journeys, we will continue to accompany you and bring more surprises to all of our players.
Category:Developer Insight