Day 1:
A cute one, like for those dog videos with cute piano music:)
Follow along on youtube, bandcamp and sheet music will follow after the end of the month.
Author Archives: sara-garrard
Getting ready for Pianowrimo 2023
November is nearly upon us which means it’s time for PIANOWRIMO, for, incredibly, the seventh year.
Check out the project page for links to all the previous years, and here’s a video I made showing the development of one of last year’s piano pieces into a track from the FORTUNATA album:
2HAC: Thirteen
A piano and viola piece I wrote for the 2 Hour Album Challenge. The theme was “Thirteen”, which I took very unoriginally as 13/8, and ended up approaching it quite like a pianowrimo piece, and then (after the 2 hours!) wrote it up.
Whole album: here.
FORTUNATA Release
aka project “top secret RPG with rhythm game elements”
This was the “quick” “little” fun project I started working on in February … well, did a bunch in February/March, then moved house and got very busy and picked up again at the end of May. An imaginary game soundtrack using mostly Virtuoso and Proteus 2000 (virtual) instruments. I like old 1990s sounds, as may have been mentioned; and I think they lend themselves to writing tune-y thematic game music, and the non-realism goes well with simpler graphic styles, not to mention retro itself is a thing. This is also available as an asset pack on itch.
36 tracks! phew! Happy late birthday to me again, this is somewhat the successor to last year’s Let’s Adventure.
Protected: top secret new rpg-with-rhythm-game-elements in progress
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Easter Hymns etc
catching up with arrears here; recorded these for Easter!
Him upon the cross I love – A year some back, I think, I returned to the Catherine Winkworth oeuvre … and had a go setting this one in a kind of, um, musical theatre style? I find it rather challenging to sing, but here’s a kind of demo anyway.
From Thy Heavenly Throne, a new recording of one that first appeared here, words again by Winkworth.
God of mercy, God of grace – I recorded this before too, but maybe never shared it. Words by Henry Francis Lyte. unlike the previous two, this is less soloistic, could be definitely sung by a group, more of a … I was going to say “modern” and “hymn”, but what I think I mean is 80s-90s chorus 😄
Wesley: Easter Hymn. I kind of didn’t realise these lyrics were THIS song, without the Allelulias I associate it with. So, here’s another different tune! This one is also envisaged more as a singable group song – one of those joyful marching songs for Easter.
Easter Week by Charles Kingsley. I am enjoying the jubilant melismas and big alto notes here ^_^
More Elizabethan angst
o those Elizabethans and their aesthetic bitterness! Here’s a song setting sketch from a couple months ago that I never posted, but had a decent rough recording of.
words by Robert Jones, found in Lyrics from the song-books of the Elizabethan age
Once did my thoughts both ebbe and flow,
As passion did them move,
Once did I hope, straight fear again,
And then I was in love.
Once did I waking spend the night,
And told how many minutes move,
Once did I wishing waste the day,
And then I was in love.
Once by my carving true love’s knot,
The weeping trees did prove,
That wounds and tears were both our lot,
And then I was in love.
Once did I breathe another’s breath,
And in my mistress move,
Once was I not mine own at all,
And then I was in love.
Once did I Sonnet to my Saint,
My soul in numbers move,
Once did I tell a thousand lies,
And then I was in love.
Once wore I bracelets made of hair,
And collars did approve,
Once wore my clothes made out of wax,
And then I was in love.
Once in my ear did dangling hang,
A little turtle dove,
Once, in a word, I was a fool,
And then I was in love.
Schola Cantorum concert with Hildegard songs
This weekend we had the first, I think, UK performance of the Four Hildegard texts, and the definitely first performance of O virga ac diadema (another setting of words by Hildegard), by my ogs, Bristol University Schola Cantorum. A big thank you to Emma Hornby, Gillian Hurst, and all the staff of St. Nicholas’ Brockley for a lovely afternoon. I wondered at first why this venue, out in the middle of nowhere it seemed to me (— a non-driving urbanite, bear in mind though)… once I got there all became clear. I walked down a track through a field in the low afternoon sun towards and old stone tower in the distance, then through some kind of magical tree-shaded lane…
To here. I definitely recommend visiting if you are ever nearby!
Schola sang my Hildegard settings between two sets of plainchant, the first while processing into the church and up to the front.
Excerpt O virga diadema:
ABYSS international release (game music and SFX)
Delighted to finally be able to share the game I was working on over the winter. ‘Abyss’ is the second project I worked for Titans Entertainment on, after Mythicland, this time contributing seven soundtrack pieces and also 100+ sound effects, including everything you hear in the intro video. Here’s that and some gameplay!
Find out more and download the game from the homepage here.
And hey, if you play and get to any other boss fights, why not take a video? There are three different boss battle themes in there somewhere…