Author Archives: sara-garrard

Lullabies and Songs of Old

Posted by sara-garrard

  1. sleep little pigeon Sara Garrard 3:08
  2. long ago Sara Garrard 2:46
  3. nightfall in dordrecht Sara Garrard 3:23
  4. norse lullaby Sara Garrard 2:20
  5. armenian lullabye Sara Garrard 2:25
  6. nellie Sara Garrard 3:05
  7. little croodlin doo Sara Garrard 1:02
  8. balow my bonnie Sara Garrard 2:53
  9. by the sea Sara Garrard 3:31
  10. sometime Sara Garrard 2:17

Lullabies and Songs of Old

( 10 . 10 . 2020 )

  1. sleep, little pigeon
  2. long ago
  3. nightfall in dordrecht
  4. norse lullaby
  5. armenian lullaby
  6. nellie
  7. little croodlin doo
  8. balow my bonnie
  9. by the sea
  10. sometime

from poems by Eugene Field (1850-1895)

© Sara Garrard 2020

I wrote these on October 10, 2020.  so far they’re just available here on my website, but I might do something else.  let me know if you’d like downloads.  

lyrics:

Continue reading →

Piano pieces filled out

Posted by sara-garrard

I don’t seem to have posted these:

arranged/orchestrated versions of the piano pieces ‘Tends the flowers’ and ‘lone and silent hour’

Petals on the Wind

This reminds me… of like… “Celtic” arrangements of game music? very very inexactly I mean.

It gets nice and bombastic as compared to the piano piece haha!

known and island hour

This is a rather ambient/sound design-y version.

Both of these were made using the sound set I put together with the Cute dog grooming musics.

Cello and sound libraries

Posted by sara-garrard

Four pieces, or a piece in four movements, for cello duet — or more accurately, to test out some of my virtual instruments…!

I have a whole heap of virtual instruments by now… I haven’t bought many new ones in many years, but honestly (while obviously a whole lot is always going on in terms of things getting nicer and more fancy and more useable all the time!), I think the level of quality producers had reached in say 2008 for orchestral banks and such… still holds up really well in general. And a lot of the difference is going to be in how you write for them and what you fiddle with anyway.

But yeah the other thing is that I feel like solo, acoustic, classical instruments are gonna be a lot harder to get away with — a solo cello vs a big string section/sound… Also, even as a wind player, I feel like strings are harder to do than wind instruments. I have a couple solo cello patches — one I bought, on massive sale yay, from LSS Solo Strings, which is the first you hear here; the other is the FREE pocketBlakus cello. My aim here was to try and make a demo of them sounding… kinda realistic? As realistic as I could do in one sitting anyway.

I also added in some background noises I had recorded from a real concert … does that aid in the illusion?

testing

Posted by sara-garrard
  1. 1 Sara Garrard 0:32
  2. 2 Sara Garrard 0:43
  3. 3 Sara Garrard 0:53
  4. 4 Sara Garrard 0:46
  5. 5 Sara Garrard 1:02
  6. 6 Sara Garrard 1:05
  7. 7 Sara Garrard 0:40

Avalanche’s Theme (FFVIIR): Piano

Posted by sara-garrard

This is a piano version of the new theme Masashi Hamauzu wrote for Avalanche in Final Fantasy VII Remake. This is intended to be a basic piano version, rather than a pianistic arrangement, like the OST piano album that was made for the original……. in honour of which, I’ve done up the sheet music to look as much like that as possible, because that’s fun.

You can download the pdf sheet music here.

Multiple mes!

Posted by sara-garrard

This is mostly working on videoing, but a bit of music also for sure… Trying to work out how to film videos with myself playing more than one part on screen at the same time.

Experiment, playing a FFVII tune fairly casually:

Here’s a piece I arranged based on three tracks from FFVII, FFVI and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

And finally here is me x3 playing it “live” altogether! I couldn’t get the lighting 100% perfect and smooth between the shots, but I think it looks quite good nonetheless.

Cry to you

Posted by sara-garrard

Last Catherine Winkworth song from this week. Again with harmonies! (… This is really not such a big deal, but I’ve been recording so many things live with just one instrument and voice lately that it is quite the change for me.)

I’ve realised both this and “Lost in darkness” are from the “penitence” section of her hymn book … slightly different musical moods at least though!

Some of these especially recently I have been adapting the lyrics a little more – usually just to modernise the language, or to give shape like add a chorus or as here a repeated line at the end of verse.

Lord Jesus Christ, in you alone,
My only hope on earth I place,
For other help I have none,
No comfort I but in your grace.
There is no man nor creature here,
No angel in the heav’nly sphere,
Who at my need can rescue me.
I cry to you,
I cry to you.

My sin is sore and very great,
I weep and mourn its load beneath;
O free me from its heavy weight,
My Saviour, through your precious death;
And with the Father for me plead,
You that have suffered in my stead,
And from my burden set me free.
I cry to you,
I cry to you.

Glory to God in highest heaven,
The Father of eternal love;
To His dear Son for sinners given,
Whose watchful grace we daily prove;
To God, the Holy Ghost on high;
Oh, ever be His comfort nigh,
And ever, free from sin and fear,
We cry to you,
We cry to you.

Original words by Johannes Schneesing, English translation by Catherine Winkworth, adapted by Sara Garrard