Siddall: Virtues of a Hero

For young composers trying to break into the film, television and videogames industry, one of the hardest things is finding material to score in order to show off their abilities. It’s very rare that they are able to use new footage that has not already had a soundtrack recorded on it, so you will often find composers re-scoring film trailers and key scenes.

Something that I have now done on a number of occasions is to write a soundtrack for a hypothetical film. After all, it’s now quite commonplace for novels, videogames, and other media to be adapted into films, and the chapter headings from books can lend themselves quite nicely to a track name, with the events of each chapter leading the composition of the score.

In the case of “Virtues of a Hero”, I have taken this idea to another level by creating an entirely fictitious movie; a sort of “movie concept”, and composed a soundtrack for it, which tries to show the “virtuous” qualities that form the character of superheroes from the big screen; from Batman to Superman and beyond. In effect, creating a “generic superhero” movie score.

The Overture to Virtues of a Hero contains many of the themes that are developed later on in the soundtrack, depicting a hero’s Strength and Honour, their capacity for Compassion and Selflessness, their sense of Justice and their ability to be Merciful.