soundtrack

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:

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.

‘A Broken World’ piano and orchestra arrangements

Posted by sara-garrard

Hiii so I seem to have posted a bunch of stuff on youtube that I haven’t updated here! For the sake of completeness and because these are quite nice….

‘Return to the Planet’ and ‘A Broken World’ are tracks from the Final Fantasy VII Remake soundtrack by Masashi Hamauzu that are original to that score – and, as you might be able to guess from the titles, really emotionally charged.

I did a fairly faithful piano arrangement:

And a really reimagined/new genre’d orchestral/soundtrack one:

Battle Music retrospective :)

Posted by sara-garrard

Lately I’ve been getting very inspired by the Final Fantasy VII hype — as I may have mentioned a few times, it’s one of my favourite games. It’s had a remake (or at least, the very very beginning of it has, but that’s another story) which of course I can’t play on anything I own, but it’s just got me going back to the original and having a big game music mood in general.

I’ve been working on something in particular that I hope to be able to share soon, but in the meantime here’s a sneak peak and also a look back at some older (very very old in some cases!) tunes……

So, “battle music”! When I say that I’m thinking of something pretty specific, the music that comes on and interrupts when you’re running around in an RPG and then boom battle! or perhaps, oh no, BOSS battle! Final boss music I think belongs in an entirely different category really (a category including the Rite of Spring in this case), but an example of that is also relevant for what follows…

I write a lot of random game music — but left to my own devices I tend to default to tuneful character themes, or pretty town themes, maybe the occasional piece of Uneasy Atmosphere. The thing is I love writing, or at least having written, exciting pacy rhythmically snappy pieces, like BATTLE MUSIC…. but it’s a lot more daunting to start something like that, so I don’t anything like as often. Of these, only a few are “actually” battle music, but a lot are I feel very much in the same zone, so without further ado….

  1. Dies Irae, with big bad’s entrance (2002-2003)
    from [my made up RPG] ‘Shadows of Fortune’
    Goodness, talk about shooting for the stars…! I straight up tried to write One Winged Angel. This is big big final battle time. The rest of pieces I wrote for this (imaginary) game were midis but this one had to be audio — I actually ended up taking it down for refurb that I never did because, yeah, it’s ambitious but not as maybe cohesive or quality. But looking back, very very nice try, self?? I particularly like how much energy/pace I’ve done without drums.
  1. Moon Mouse theme tune (2003)
    This is one that wasn’t written as “battle music” but rather a 90s-style TV theme tune (think Power Rangers). Which is…. basically the same thing. I remember I had no idea what that awesome and very characteristic chord I found to use at the end there was but thought it was pretty neat.
  1. The One Is Not Enough (2003)
    Kind of a similar/evolution of the above. These were both done on notation software by the way, Melody Assistant. The two snares on the “Power” drum kit…. nice.
  1. Random Battle (2003)
    Finally some actual specifically battle music battle music. I wrote this for someone’s RPGmaker game which, like most of them I fear, sadly was never completed. Also this was an actual midi, but recorded here for convenience since (SADLY) browsers and basically computers have dropped support for midi playback. This whole game was supposed to be somewhat trope-y and commenting on them, so this even then was unashamedly classic and over the top battle theme (but is there any other kind?) I enjoyed doing the bend effects on the strings, and the syncopations at the end. The marimba(?) base is kind of interesting choice!
  1. Battle (2003)
    Yup that’s the whole title. This was more a test than a real piece — but it points out an interest crossover, this was inspired by PotC/Gladiator themes specifically. Still on Melody or Harmony assistant!
  1. Boss Battle from Origin (2011)
    It was a number of years before I tried this seriously again it seems! (… I did not realise all of those were from 2003, wow (the last two from December of that year.)) We’re on Logic by this time. Guitar heavy piece again for an actual game, that was again never finished. Nice bit of 5/4 there — irregular time sigs are definitely a battle music thing.
  1. Boss Battle (2020)
    And finally here’s the one from this week. Featuring modal ostinati, heavy guitar, a thematic brass bit, drum kit and those timps, cuts and odd meter moments, bass riff section… I didn’t even quite intend it, but it feels like it summarises a lot of the pieces leading up to this point. I had fun 🙂

Honourable mentions

More things that aren’t really battle music but have some kind of overlap — and that fill in the gap and show I did write some upbeat music between 2003 and 2011 !

Incursion Excursion
OneChance
(Metal Gear Solid music is another genre closely linked!)
Furioso from Piece for Orchestra
(a more classical piece, part of my final submission for undergrad)
Fireproof Princess
(I wrote this after Furioso, this was intended as a film music piece and it has some overlap as a slightly more tonal etc version of the above I think?)
Forever Forever
(Not battley at all, but with the rock band/drums angle, and a bit pacey at least!)

THROWBACK THURSDAY: What News The Eagle Brought

Posted by sara-garrard

How about a Throwback Thursday? I should probably make sure I post some new music in between throwbacks, so maybe this will be a not every week event (specially as I’m mired in writeups at the moment), but this sounds like fun.

This is a piece of film-style music from … March 2008!

“Sire,” said the Eagle, “when you have heard my news you will be sorrier of my coming than of the greatest woe that ever befell you.”  The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis.

Sad, bleak, empty… I wrote this and I think one other piece for this “score” – there’s a snippet of the bad guy theme from that at the end of this. Featuring live oboe (I think that bit at the start with the rising phrases and the silences and the squishy strings and sadness is my favourite part?), and alongside the Nice Orchestral Sound Library, some particular free soundfont percussion I remember with great fondness.

You know what, yes, this does absolutely make me miss writing big Hollywood type film scores. I’m going to do that again sometime.

Periwinkle Wreath

Posted by sara-garrard

Orchestral piece based on a Polish folk song, Mój Wionecku z Barwinecku

I was inspired by Weinberg’s pieces on Polish folk themes 🙂

Periwinkle wreath, I had thee hung
on a wooden peg in the cottage wall
When people came and took thee down

Leap up, vine, climb higher
Climb aloft, poor thing

Wreath of seven herbs, I had thee hidden
for wedding time in a casket new
When people came and took thee away