Conversations with Lords of the Boreal Realm

Conversations with Lords of the Boreal Realm

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“So when he had gone a good way, he came to a high hill, and there he met one who was lord over all the beasts of the wood, for they all came home to him when he blew his horn; so the King asked if he knew where Whiteland was. “No, I don’t,” said he, “but I’ll ask my beasts.” Then he blew his horn and called them, and asked if any of them knew where Whiteland lay. But there was no beast that knew.”

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This is my sophomore attempt at creating 100% improvised music.  It's three jam sessions.  Each song is a combination of only two live takes: me playing the electric piano, and me playing the electric guitar, with some light post-mixing.  This challenge was compounded by the fact that I’m not very great at playing guitar, and I’m even worse at playing the piano.  Regardless, this is the most fun I’ve had making music and the feeling of satisfaction from stepping away from the piano roll/timeline was immense.

The electric piano was configured within Reaper to control and trigger a variety of synthesized sounds I designed. I don’t have a MIDI controller with knobs at the moment, so everything had to be playable using just piano keys.  

The music itself was inspired by the second act of the folk tale “The Three Princesses of Whiteland”, with an emphasis on the land, air and water landscapes.

No samples or recordings were used. All synth sounds were custom designed starting from an “INIT” patch.  Video was thrown together in After Effect CS6 using copyright-free stock videos from pexels.com.

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Track 01: Lord over all the Beasts of the Wood (Tiaga Biome Theme, 03:30)

Track 02: Lord over all the Birds of the Air (Tundra Biome Theme, 03:30)

Track 03: Lord over all the Fish of the Sea (Frozen Coastline Biome Theme, 03:00)

Total Playtime: 10:00

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Yamaha P45 Electric Piano

Gibson ES-137 Electric Guitar + Pedalboard

Native Instruments FM8

Native Instruments Prism for Reaktor Player

Daichi Synth1

Vital

Various VST FX

Reaper (DAW)