Author Archives: sara-garrard

Episode JADE

Posted by sara-garrard
Infinity Crisis: Episode Jade (reveal trailer theme)

Taking a little break from work on my some-kind-of-crossover-rpg-fighting-game soundtrack to return to the sounds of last year’s Infinity Crisis OST…

This is — imagining there’s a sequel or kind of DLC adventure… I’m imagining it covers the story of main character’s love interest who spends quite a lot of time separated and doing her own thing off-screen during the first game…  So now we see her side of the story!  Or something. I have no immediate plans to actually write a whole nother soundtrack for this, but it’s in the back of my mind as a possibility.  

For now, here’s a one-off: a slow ish thematic piece with the same soundset except changing out the electric cello from Crisis with an erhu.  

The end has a little quote from ‘Stay Thy Tears’.

Night Lights: 30 piano moments (2021)

Posted by sara-garrard

Piano Solo | 30 pieces 
Difficulty: intermediate – varying. Mainly short pieces.
2021

Listen:

Loading…

The fifth book of 30 short evocative piano pieces.  These span in a variety of styles that paint a picture or a mood.  And piece 30 doubles as an index to the others!  Have a browse through and enjoy…

Difficulty: Short pieces, mainly intermediate level with a couple more challenging and a few more straightforward.

Nor poppy nor mandragora (2HAC January 2021)

Posted by sara-garrard

This last weekend was the 17th edition of the Two hour album challenge (and the third I’ve taken part in.) Every few months, a bunch of musicians separately each make a track inside two hours over the weekend, inspired by a theme randomly chosen just beforehand. This month’s theme was corruption, which is full of possibility! Definitely a lot of sonic possibilities, but I took corruption as a dramatic theme and tried to make a soundtrack-style piece around the idea of a hero (being) corrupted. Made me think, among other things, of Othello…

Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,
But with a little act upon the blood
Burn like the mines of sulfur.
…
Look, where he comes. Nor poppy nor mandragora
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.

I was also really really concerned about setting out on this, for some reason! Once I got going though I had a fine time and I was pleased with what I managed in two hours — but at the same time two hours was nowhere enough to get it remotely polished or “finished”… The idea of the challenge is to let go your inhibitions and speed up your process (and raise money for cats, go donate for the album!) — kind of similar to my PIANOWRIMO challenge, but maybe I’m just more used to that by now, that and the scale is very different.

I like the first gathering of sound, and the “regret for what was lost” theme. The orchestration is… hinted at! best I could do in the time…

If you want to see the composition Process is devastating detail, we are encouraged to record/stream the whole two hours, so you can in fact do that here.

Or, in a more edifying use of your time, you can listen to all 60 tracks here:

(And here are my pieces for the two previous challenges.)

Updates on the top secret crossover fighting game/RPG soundtrack

Posted by sara-garrard

It started out just as a way to write more upbeat fight music and then morphed into a project to rearrange old themes…

Talking through the process of revamping a 2003 battle theme:

Samples:

First set, all new ideas

  1. Voyaging (story mode mission select loop)
  2. Main menu (VERY EXCITED AND BOMBASTIC and orchestral)
  3. Battle Stage 5 (ALSO EXCITED AND BOMBASTIC but x rock band)
  4. Another battle stage feat. piano quintet (in prog)
  5. Sad/story segment 

Second set

  1. ‘A voice on the wind’ — character/world map theme originally a midi from ?2004
  2. ‘Rosalie’ — character theme string quartet version, originally a piano piece, from 2010
  3. ‘Warriors of Orpheus’ — original midi from 2002!!
  4. ‘Forest Path’ — original from 2002, even earlier
  5. ‘Arrow to the Sky’ — the original of this was day 6 of pianowrimo last month
  6. ‘Goblin Song’ — original from 2003

Also includes Long Road Ahead, which was also originally a wrimo piece from last month:

Cloud Smiles (FFVII Advent Children) – oboe and piano

Posted by sara-garrard

The last thing I filmed before Christmas, this gorgeous piece from the end of the Advent Children movie, by Nobuo Uematsu. I watched Advent Children last Christmas Eve, for the first time since it came out (and in the Complete version which I guess I hadn’t seen) and honestly loved it this time round. Also felt like I’d been missing out on the soundtrack all these years. I’ve made a ff7 soundfont version, a music box version, and now…

The first melody is on the oboe in the full orchestral version too so I wanted to see how an oboe and piano take would sound.

I had to practise that piano part quite a bit!! (And even then don’t expect me to ever manage it live.) And the oboe, phew, a lot of sustaining needed.

Long Road Ahead (pianowrimo arrange)

Posted by sara-garrard

I took November 28th’s piano piece:

…and arranged it out for a few more instruments

The original inspiration was pretty much Takeharu Ishimoto’s Crisis Core sound and we continue with that idea here… (Not exactly similar, and I’m not sure the string quartet was ever combined with the rock band there, but here ’tis.)

I historically haven’t been very into “developing” or “revising” my older pieces, tending to just think of them as done and move on to the next thing, but lately I’ve been doing a few things like like this… I think it’s because of arranging a lot of beloved vgm pieces this year, and that’s made me approach my old stuff (okay, in this instance it’s not at all old, but there’s others) not in terms of developing or revising but doing a different, new arrangement.