Inside Design: The Music of League of Legends

There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding the login music for Diana, Scorn of the Moon. With so much interest in this particular piece of music, we decided it was time to have a word with our resident Composer, Christian “Praeco” Linke to find out what inspired Diana’s theme, along with what he has in store for Syndra and future compositions.

ByronicHero: Tell us a little bit about your musical background. What you were you doing before you came to work for Riot?

Praeco: I moved to the US from Germany round about two and a half years ago. Before that, I was already a full time musician working on all kinds of different musical projects as a composer and producer, mainly in the rock and alternative genres.

ByronicHero: With your background in popular music what caused you to become interested in classical composition? Were your first classical compositions done for Riot Games?

Praeco: One of my former bandmates was a classical pianist, which led to quite a few projects working on fusions between classic and modern music. I think that’s sort of what I do for the music for League of Legends, which really is using classical, or let’s say orchestral, music as a foundation and then adding all kinds of elements from all sorts of styles, cultures and genres.

ByronicHero: What are some of the different elements that you’ve pulled from to capture the character of different League of Legends champions?

Praeco: Music is one of the most powerful tools of all to capture a character or a mood. For every champion I always try to have at least one or two defining elements or instruments in the piece. I think that going into extremes is really important. If you take pieces like Draven or Diana, in these cases I tried to find a very unique element that people haven’t heard before and that they’re going to remember when they listen to it.

(read more on LoL forum)