I'm having my party head into a pretty bad mansion place where the nobles have become corrupted. I was thinking of using some music to help set the mood. One song that of course comes to mind is the very classic Toccata en Fugue, but I was wondering about some other good ones that I could have playing in the background.
I have heard that Bram Stoker's Dracula also makes some good music for what I'm hoping to do. Hopefully a lot of folks that may use music in their games more frequently, or just pay attention to this kind of thing more than me might have some good suggestions.
I'm hoping also for things that do not have a huge modern sound to them. Hoping to keep it somewhat in the fantasy genre.
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Hey Barator I like the idea and decided to see what I could find try this outSome music I liked 5, and 10 particularly. They are just samples, but I believe you can download them or if all else fails you should be able to find them somewhere.Top creepy songs from NPRHereand lastly try here a ton of stuff that is free you can fish for what you like good luck on setting that mood!Here
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Quite a bit of the soundtracks for The 7th Guest and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night fit the bill. If I have time I'll hunt up some examples on the YouTube if time permits.
Resident Evil has plenty of options as well. Silent Hill is HEAVEN for creepy music, but most of it travels through a modern lens. Still, Lost Carol from Silent Hill 3 might be useful.
Silent Hill. Silent Hill. Silent Hill.
...Alternately.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZowmVEYAi8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRlrCPtUH2s&feature=related
The Void has some good music, though not all would be applicable.
I believe that Midnight Syndicate's album "The 13th Hour" is your exact ticket:
http://www.midnightsyndicate.com/buymusic.htm#cd7
It's instrumental mood music for a haunted house and there's even a couple sample tracks on their website so you can see how you like it.
For more classical spooky pieces, "Danse Macabre" by Camille Saint-Saëns works well.
Also, "The Hut on Fowl's Legs" from Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" is appropriately creepy and the only theme music I know of specifically written for Baba Yaga's dancing hut.
His "Night on Bald Mountain" is also creepy.
If you want another appropriate full soundtrack, try Jill Tracy's "Into the Land of Phantoms."
http://www.jilltracy.com/music_04.html
It's a full musical score she and her band did for Murnau's silent classic "Nosferatu" and certainly helps to set the mood. There are also samples there for you to listen to, if not download.
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I like the soundtrack to The Fog (the remake). Graeme Revell is one of my favorite composers, a lot of his music shows up in my D&D playlists. Check out this link for other suggestions, it's my carefully hand-crafted playlists for city, combat, and exploring.
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Nox Arcana - any album except the Christmas one should do you nice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lvC8b1_2bI&feature=related
(Danzig)Black Aria I&II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYQIulszfDE&feature=related
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol 2. and some of Drukqs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44uq4VsIEP8&feature=related
Eyvind Kang - Athlantis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqfj2WVFf9g
If you want to try something that is a little different,but not traditionally scary you could try John Zorn. I used Six Litanies to Heliogabalus for Background music for a WOD session that had the players exploring an old haunted hospital and it worked out VERY well.
Your Welcome.
Love,
malkav
I'm going to have to second the Nox Arcana suggestion, some of their stuff is creepy as hell and there is enough of it to find one song for each situation.
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Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns is one of the best. There is almost some good ones in the Van Helsing movie. The others have covered most of the good ones. Yes Kevin mentioned Danse Macabre as well but it deserves to be mentioned twice. :)
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Eternal Darkness: The Penitent
The Eternal Darkness and Castlevania ones have links to more of the same as well.
+1 for John Zorn. I use Zorn all the time when I'm gming. :)
+1 for Dracula, Nox Arcana and Silent Hill :)
In addition, might I suggest:
Deathnote OST 1
Nightmare on Elm Street (particularly 1, 2 and New Nightmare)
Wolf
The Wolfman (The newer remake)
Disturbing Behavior
Halloween (The one from John Ottman's "Portrait of Terror" is the best beyond the original)
I also have a CD called Fright Night that you order at Amazon that could be really useful :)
Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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I find Tomandandy's soundtrack for "The Mothman Prophecies" is just downright eerie. Gives me goosebumps every time.
Give the samples a listen...
Van Der Graaf Generator played at the wrong (slow) speed was a favorite of mine when actual records made of plastic were around...
Try some Robert Rich. I find Inner Landscapes to be particularly sinister - probably some others too.
You may find the site www.grooveshark.com to be useful in assembling a play list from the music listed in this thread, and unlike amazon or pandora, you can play the entire song in whatever order you choose.
Just a few names of composers I like to use during session:
Alan Silvestri, Basil Poledouris, Ennio Morricone, Elliot Goldenthal, Howard Shore, James Horner, Jerry Goldsmith, john Murphy, Knut Avenstroup Haugen, Tyler Bates, Vangelis...
Also, E.S. Posthumus is one of my favorite artists and gets a lot of play as well during games.
Dark_Mistress -> Castlevania - Symphony of the Night is both one of my favorite games and soundtracks. :D
Also, on grooveshark look up themes of horror I & II by the London Symphony Orchastra and if you could get more of the music from King's Field (a playstation game) that'd be great too. I saw this mentioned as a way to get it, but I'm not sure how legal it is as it is always too busy for me to access it.
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Some good suggestions, most I already own and use.
Lustmord has some pretty good stuff, some of it can be a bit loud at times, but still fits the bill.
They have slightly toned down stuff, but this is a good little ditty (don't mind the howls)
Blackstar
...and another, more mellow.
Heresy Pt III
The score to The Shining is excellent , if you can find it. The original movie, not the remake.
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Here we go!
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Enchanted Banquet - Hey, some noblewoman metamorphoses into something horrible, here ya go!
7th Guest
The Game (This breaks the rules of your request, but depending on the number of players....)
Silent Hill
Never Forgive Me, Never Forget Me
Running out of time, but seriously, Silent Hill is a goldmine for creepy music. It just takes some looking to find those that don't have a distictly modern feel to them.
Eternal Darkness is a great place to look as well, as suggested above in the thread.
you could loop the first half of daemon irrepit callidus...kinda evil lacrymosa of course
and try raiding the sound files of games, they have great mood stuff
From Resident Evil, a real classic:
(I know, I know, it's originally from Ludwig V. Beethoven...)
Nox Arcana (I personally love the Necronomicon album, go figure...) and Midnight Syndicate (Just about anything, one random sample are great ones. You should also check out Trans-Siberian Orchestra's newest album, Night Castle.
The classical recommendations already given are great as well.
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I was thinking about this thread this weekend as I was selecting my background music for a murder investigation session. I used:
Zombie Zombie - A land for renegades
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT7AH4JyuNs
My copy is 33 RPM vinyl. But I do believe that they released this album as a CD as well and I am sure you could get it in MP3 format. The video for this band is pretty cool it is a still animation done with G.I. Joe's that is a fairly decent homage to the 1982 John Carpenter "The Thing"
I also used last weekend another record that is an old one but a good one.
The soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which actually has a really creepy vibe to a lot of it mixed in with some decent classical. My record of this album is very barely an EX so it has a lot of grain in it, which really adds to the creep factor.
love,
malkav
Try this: Jorane 16Mm.
One of the best album out there for creepy moods (some of the titles anyway). Sorry if the page is in french, but I'm sure you can find the play button ;-)
Oh, and you can't go wrong with the sountrack from Interview with the vampire... just be sure to skip the last track.
Both of these songs may be more modern than what the OP is asking for, but they do not involve electric instruments. The first is jazz / ragtime and the second is bluegrass.
U-tube The Mooch by Duke Ellington "The Mooch" is a kind of odd song by Duke Ellington and his orchestra that has some creepy elements in it.
U-tube Oh Death performed on a clawhammer banjo "Oh Death" is a blue grass song, it was featured in the movie "O brother, where art thou", I like this version I found on U-tube better than the movie version.
Found one more U-tube The Devil by P.J. Harvey Ever since I heard Polly Jean sing 'Rid of Me', I have been certain that she would be an absolute freak in the sack. This song I linked to is fairly creepy.
U-tube / Vevo link to Shadow of a Doubt by Sonic Youth Many of Sonic Youth's early songs are creepy (early means 1980's, Sonic Youth are practically senior citizens now).
Most of their music can be termed "noise rock", which involves playing electric guitars with a lot of distortion. This particular song, has much less of a noise rock feel to it, in fact it doesn't seem like a rock and roll song at all to me (I don't know how to categorize it). It is also creepier than any of the songs in my last post.