‘Novus Deus’ was a piece I wrote to submit for the WAAPA Anime concert night. This piece is an epic, over-the-top, grand finale to an ultimate final battle fought against a GOD.

 

The phrase ‘Novus Deus’ translates into the words ‘New God’ in English. When writing this piece, I took the word ‘new’ and associated it with contemporary themes, then I took the word ‘God’ and associated it with religious connotations. After finding associations in the title, I then combined the two to create a piece that attempts to utilize ideas found in religious music and pair them with contemporary sounds like a drum kit and a distorted electric guitar. When I combined the two ideas, I felt that I had successfully created a piece that encapsulates the intense, dramatic feeling of anime scores. When writing the piece, the style was originally suited more to being a film score but as my intention slowly shifted to having this played for the anime concert, changes were made in the score to make the piece appear more engaging to the audience. This piece uses a variety of ideas that suit a live performance very well, like having a choir with lead singers, having a guitar/violin solo, and engaging organ synth lines.

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When writing this piece, there were a variety of issues that had to be overcome in order for the performance of this piece to be effective. Having a church organ sound for a live performance of this piece was one key issue. Because a real church organ can't be used for this piece, I discovered that the best workaround was to use a synthesizer with organ sound on it. Using a synth organ was an issue due to it sounding unrealistic and because the sound found for the synth organ could only play at a set dynamic. The unrealistic sound could not be changed, as the sound used was the best one on the keyboard. Over time as rehearsals, I got used to the electronic organ sound and how it sounded interesting with the rest of the orchestra. Because the organ could not change in dynamics it had to be used sparingly, it was set to a loud volume and only used when the organ was in the foreground.

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A full explanation into compositional choices and techniques used can be found on the annotated score