Yes! Not cutting it quite as close this time. Double click that green flag, why don’t ya? Welcome to my SGT Judge Cuts project: An original song, this time in the style of a Broadway ballad, with a main character, distinct want, and even a halftime section and key change near the end! Meet Autumn, my take on the “inept mage” archetype. Basically, the party keeps leaving her behind whenever they go questing, since she’s just not strong enough. They tell her to just study more, in hopes that she’ll gain mastery over her wizardry. But really, Autumn needs some field experience before she can get past level one. This is a song about her hope to prove herself to her friends and one day join them as they travel the world. Originally, this project was going to be WAY more ambitious, with a full-color animatic, but there’s only so much you can do in a month. At least I was able to sneak in some limited animation. Musically, though, I’m very proud of how this turned out. It’s in 6/8, which is probably my favorite time signature, though if you listen closely to the piano and drums during the verse and bridge, you’ll notice that the beats in some sections are grouped in more of a mixed 6/8 and 3/4 alternating style (ONE and TWO and ONE two three) But in other news, I was able incorporate some real instruments - I’m playing the piano and solo violin! (And I tried some guitar, but realized I wasn’t very good at guitar and just used the synth. Hey, Bm is a hard chord! Especially going right into C) You might notice that my voice is a little more nasal than normal in this song. That’s just because I had a cold during my only good opportunity to record, which absolutely shot my upper register (Resulting in that EPIC voice crack right on the key change - ew!) Want to cover this song, or just listen to the accompaniment? Check out the “NoVocals” track in the backdrop’s music files! Wow, I wrote a lot. Congrats on reading all that.
Song, lyrics, character, story, accompaniment, vocals, piano, violin, art, animation: Me Other instruments: Simulated with flat Recorded with bandlab Fun music stuff for music nerds: You may notice that the chorus sounds a little… unconventional, harmony-wise. Well, that’s because, instead of sticking to the most common four chords of any given key signature, (I, V, IV, vi) this chorus is made up of consecutive chords, each going up a scale degree (I, ii, iii, IV, V) to give a feeling of constantly rising, until it launches into the flat VII, a heroic sounding chord. All of this eventually falls through, though, when the harmony lands on the vi, which sounds like defeat. That is, until the bridge, where the chords just keep on rising and never fall. Sorry if that sounds like complete gibberish to you, but I always try to make my songs cohesive, lyrically, and musically. The musical structure should mean something, y’know?
