2022

Some kind of rpg crossover fighting game soundtrack UPDATE

Posted by sara-garrard

Earlier post here.

I was putting all the tracks so far onto a playlist and iTunes, and it’s just tipped over the 1 hour mark, which is a nice mark, but aside from which… I think we’re just about if not completely done with this “OST”! …with the composing of it anyway, still in any case will have to go over everything and then do a little mastering and getting everything leveled and lined up and decide how looped I want to present things.

Here are some more clips of the tracks I’ve done since then! They’re a mix of battle themes and walking/story themes, often but not always based on Main Themes or World Map types.

set #3
  1. River Walk
  2. The Absolute — remastered version of the penultimate track on the ANGEL BIRD soundtrack
  3. Infinity Crystal Main Theme WINTER — twinkly wintery version of Infinity Crystal‘s main theme. The original of this was a more standard FFVII style slow orchestral piece — rather similar to:
  4. Shadows of Fortune II Main Theme — early 2000s, originally a midi, this piece has one of the more faithful to the original remakes

What is this? As I explained/vaguely alluded to:

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Catherine Winkworth (et al) musical hymns 2022

Posted by sara-garrard

Flicking through the Lyra Eucharistica to sketch out things for the Catherine Winkworth songbook… actually most of the texts there aren’t Winkworth translations, but by a happy coincidence I ended up with one by her and two by another poet who I’ve actually set before as part of Between in God’s eternity.

Sketches below:

  1. Daily Bread (Adelaide Anne Procter)
  2. Oh how could I forget him (translation by Catherine Winkworth)
  3. I do not ask O Lord (Adelaide Anne Procter)

We had La La Bar – open mic musical theatre – the other night, where I played piano, and I think you might be able to hear a bit of influence of that style here. Not that “musical theatre” is a style exactly, but … styles, and the third one is very specifically wanting a full-on Sondheim accompaniment if I could sing and play it at the same time. So they’re actually pretty much not super-congregational-friendly in this case.

1.

Daily Bread

Give us our daily Bread,
O God, the Bread of Strength
For we have learnt to know
How weak we are at length :
As children we are weak,
As children must be fed ;
Give us Thy Grace, O Lord,
To be our daily Bread.

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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’.

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: