The Falcon Banner

Four pieces of new orchestral music are on the update today. I’m pretty proud of them. This isn’t stuff I normally do.

• Transition One
  
• Transition Two
  
• Weight of Responsibility
  
• Reflecting on Ideals

There were all written for an audio drama called The Falcon Banner (Episode 2).

This single episode has 14 cues slated for it – but the majority are too specific to be released for general use (and a few use a theme that I don’t own) so I’m only going to post four of them on my site.
These are the notes I got for the cues from the show’s director… followed by my notes.
Transition One: Relaxed, sleep, then waking up in the morning
Since this is an audio drama – meant to be listened to in stereo exactly, I used the L-R field literally.
Also, the pitches are used literally to reinforce the effect. High flutes come in at left, join more gounding winds, and settle near the middle… where they mix with strings that take off to the right along with a glass harmonica to bring a slight feeling of alertness. probably too much thought for an 18 second long bit of music. :-)
Transition Two Relaxing, bright, and the sense of time passing a bit.
Time passing! Right. That would be the piano / clock. Er… the piano used as a pendulum clock. Clarinet adds the bright, relaxing, and human elements. Simple, simple, simple! The best kind of music.
Weight of Responsibility: This is meant to be calm, noble, warm and kind. I really don’t know how else to describe this
Despite the complexity of this piece – there isn’t much to be said about it. Once you pick your melody line – everything else writes iteself. The only major problem with this specific recording is that the tempo is highly variable – and that is a pain. A real big pain. It isn’t so bad if you do that with legato strings where the exact start point of the note is obscured – but with brass… you can tell exactly where each note starts. Playing in 8 identically timed parts with no metronome… well it is tough.
Reflecting on Ideals: Soft contemplative for most of this…
Ahhh… this is the one where I have one poor oboe playing forte so (s)he can cut through the 24 low strings playing opposite. I chose the oboe because it has a distinctive sound that CAN cut through all of those strings. For example – if you’re listening to a full orchestra playing – you may not be able to tell if a clarinet is playing, but you can almost always tell if an oboe is playing… even though the clarinet is louder. I don’t know what it is – there is just something about the timbre of the oboe that your brain can pick out a kilometer off.
Anyway…
This piece happens where the captain of the ship in the story starts thinking about how things in the world were… things that he never experienced. Then he reads a first person account of those times… so the “theme” that he imagines is realized in full when the first person account hits. The “old times” soar even higher as he reads. Eventually the book closes and he’s back to the present.
I tend to think about this kind of thing a lot. I expect it will be lost to almost everyone… except those who are “film score fanatics”.