Been sketching a few “faux folk” songs lately – just writing new but kinda in-genre tunes for lyrics from this 1890 collection, without reference to the tunes given. Here are three that are recorded all through.
2021
Further Cats
- another soundfont emulation of another old sound module
- something simply based around a Chord Sequence that 14-year-old me would have appreciated. oh and “Cool bassline” on my bingo card.
- cats! (cats by naobim on pixabay, ‘animated’ by me.)
Cute Loops 2
While on my holiday I sketched some mostly strictly 16 bar loops (5, 7, and 10 are longer), with 1-3 instruments. These are available as game music on itch:
or for listening pleasure here on youtube:
Tifa’s Theme music box
I have a new music box … with 30 notes! Which means slightly bigger range than the 15 note but really more importantly, some chromatics. Tifa’s Theme from FFVII is the one I always wanted to do and really couldn’t with only diatonic notes, so I’m very happy to finally have made this. It also has a really nice tone, I think ❤️
4 texts by Hildegard of Bingen
Update to this post — I’ve now written two more of these pieces using texts by Hildegard. Also rejigged one of those to another key so now all four of them are more comfortably singable by a standard SSAA configuration, rather than me really straining to get a low D! (Means the top line goes up higher than I am comfortable on now, but that’s kind of the point: I’m not really a soprano!)
Anyway, proposed final order to the set is now:
- O mirum admirandum
- Vos flores rosarum
- O virga mediatrix
- O choruscans lux stellaris
O virga mediatrix, sancta viscera tua mortem superaverunt et venter tuus omnes creaturas illuminavit in pulchro flore de suavissima integritate clausi pudoris tui orto. O branch and mediatrix, your sacred flesh has conquered death, your womb all creatures illumined in beauty’s bloom from that exquisite purity of your enclosed modesty sprung forth.
translation by Nathaniel Campbell.
O choruscans lux stellarum, o fulgens gemma: tu es ornata in alta persona Tu es socia angelorum et civis sanctorum. Fuge, fuge speluncam antiqui perditoris, et veniens veni in palatium regis. O glittering starlight O shining gem: you are adorned like a noble you are a companion of angels and a citizen among the saints. Flee, O flee the cave of the old betrayer and come, O come into the king’s palace.
Translation (adapted from) Peter Dronke
And uh:
Virtual choir performance!
I should post the sheet music of this soon.
Big project from last week — a mashup of Ignition Flame from FFVII Remake and Vivaldi: the Presto from Summer. Because they really fit together! The other thing I was working on here was the production and and sound, trying to make it sound like it would fit with the Remake tracks (in terms of sound anyway, some of it remains unrepentantly classical, or rather baroque, and that’s fine.)
I’m realising that mashups / combinations / syntheses(?) of things are clearly something I’m very interested in! …I ahah can actually tie this back in to my thesis, heh, and all the collage of song texts I started doing, which was also an Old Hispanic liturgical composition technique………….
INFINITY CRISIS: First listen
I was just looking up when I did the Infinity Crystal soundtrack last year — it was a little later in Spring. Which is just as well because this new sequel/prequel/spinoff project I have in mind might take a little longer than that did… but it’s hopefully coming sometime… soon… this Spring?
Another RPG soundtrack (that I plan to put on itch.io as well as bandcamp and streaming etc, so people can use it in their games), this time with a slightly different sound and style. Something a little more “action” and also with more fancy/realistic sounds …. but mainly …. I had the idea to do a score that included:
- taiko drums
- electric cello
And I’m really pleased how well that’s actually working! Taiko (..and though I’m also looking into the genre and music for real on the side, I’m not writing accurate or drum-only music here; if it’s slightly more in the realms of reality than most of what’s written with like EPIC TRAILER TAIKOS!!!11 that’s good though) broadened into including a few more traditional Japanese instruments (making up something like the ensemble Japan Marvelous Drummers uses for softer numbers). And electric cello brought a general rock band with it, so I also want to feature massive fun electric guitars for this kind of mood.
Now is the cherry I actually wrote first as a song! and have recorded and played a couple ways. it’s gonna be a recurring theme in this game and go with some of the relationships/characters 🙂
EP: forever and forever and forever
Six poem-songs with voice and piano.
Angel Bird: Space Combat
So, remember “aerial combat” one of the midi tracks I did last week? I’ve made this a whole thing, a whole mini soundtrack thing.
It’s inspired in a general way (and name-wise!) by Keiki Kobayashi’s Ace Combat soundtracks which I hear are really really good, but I’ve so far only listened to one track of them, and the track he did for FFVII:R, The Valkyrie. Then I wrote “The Absolute”, from this soundtrack, decided this was a fighter pilot/space shooter thing and wrote the rest. So I’m not sure how similar Space Combat is to Ace Combat, but…
Mainly, it’s all about the 1990s midi sounds 😀