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diff --git a/album/coloUrs-and-mayhem-universe-a.yaml b/album/coloUrs-and-mayhem-universe-a.yaml index 57254a39..15e4dd97 100644 --- a/album/coloUrs-and-mayhem-universe-a.yaml +++ b/album/coloUrs-and-mayhem-universe-a.yaml @@ -165,17 +165,20 @@ Cover Art File Extension: png Art Tags: - The Handmaid Commentary: |- - <i>Willow Ascenzo:</i> (via [early commentary collection](https://hsmusic.wiki/media/misc/commentary-collection.txt)) + <i>Willow Ascenzo:</i> ([Tumblr](https://mousegard.tumblr.com/post/26630373568), 7/6/2012) + <b>Let's talk about Rust Servant.</b> - If [[Violet Mariner]] was the elder child and [[Teal Hunter]] the middle child, then Rust Servant is the youngest child onto which I poured all my love and affection. This was one of my favorite pieces to work on and even today I'm still pretty pleased with how it turned out, from the striking staccato and col legno strings opening the song to the frantic violins, melancholic chromatic percussion, deep brass, and fast-paced drum grooves. I wanted the song to be big, epic, a little scary. If I may be so immodest, I think I succeeded. + If <b>[[Violet Mariner]]</b> was the elder child and <b>[[Teal Hunter]]</b> the middle child, then <b>Rust Servant</b> is the youngest child onto which I poured all my love and affection. This was one of my favorite pieces to work on and even today I'm still pretty pleased with how it turned out, from the striking staccato and col legno strings opening the song to the frantic violins, melancholic chromatic percussion, deep brass, and fast-paced drum grooves. I wanted the song to be big, epic, a little scary. If I may be so immodest, I think I succeeded. - Rust Servant was the only one of my three contest submissions to remain allocated to the character I had in mind while writing it, Aradia's tragic ancestor and Lord English's dreadful Handmaid (although the name was changed from the terribly uncreative Handmaid of Death to something more apt for the naming scheme of the album). + Rust Servant was the only one of my three contest submissions to remain allocated to the character I had in mind while writing it, Aradia's tragic ancestor and Lord English's dreadful Handmaid (although the name was changed from the terribly uncreative <b>Handmaid of Death</b> to something more apt for the naming scheme of the album). - When I wrote this song, I had just taken an Intro to Hinduism class the previous fall and had written a short research paper on Kali, the Hindu goddess of time and death (more remembered for being related to death—those of you who have seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom must be familiar with the Thuggees, a cult of Kali-worshipers infamous for conducting human sacrifices—and, apparently, ripping people's hearts out and setting them on fire as well). And, of course, because I am A SHAMELESS HOMESTUCK NERD, I immediately thought, "Time? Death? THAT REMINDS ME OF ONE OF THE TROLLS" (no I didn't write my paper on that, i'm not that terrible). It doesn't come through much in the song itself, but that's where I got the inspiration from. And the moral of this story is, take a theology class (or two, or three) on a religion you know nothing about. It'll give you all sorts of new ideas for Homestuck fanart. + When I wrote this song, I had just taken an Intro to Hinduism class the previous fall and had written a short research paper on Kali, the Hindu goddess of time and death (more remembered for being related to death—those of you who have seen <b>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</b> must be familiar with the Thuggees, a cult of Kali-worshipers infamous for conducting human sacrifices—and, apparently, ripping people's hearts out and setting them on fire as well). And, of course, because I am A SHAMELESS HOMESTUCK NERD, I immediately thought, "Time? Death? THAT REMINDS ME OF ONE OF THE TROLLS" (no I didn't write my paper on that, i'm not that terrible). It doesn't come through much in the song itself, but that's where I got the inspiration from. And the moral of this story is, take a theology class (or two, or three) on a religion you know nothing about. It'll give you all sorts of new ideas ~for Homestuck fanart~ Also when the album came out and this song was the first song on the album after Radiation's intro I was all "HOLY SHIT RADIATION LIKED THIS SONG SO MUCH HE MADE IT THE FIRST SONG" and started pelvic-thrusting across my dorm room. Then I realized that it was only first due to all the tracks being organized from lowest to highest by the blood color of the troll they represented. I continued pelvic-thrusting across my dorm room anyway. - And to wrap things up, milkmanner's art for the track is just perfect. + And to wrap things up, [[artist:leslie-hung|milkmanner]]'s art for the track is just perfect. + + Well, that's my commentary for <b>coloUrs and mayhem</b>! I hope you all enjoyed hearing my thoughts on my music! --- Track: Bronze Rebel Additional Names: @@ -360,13 +363,17 @@ Art Tags: - Redglare - 'cw: hanging (abstract)' Commentary: |- - <i>Willow Ascenzo:</i> (via [early commentary collection](https://hsmusic.wiki/media/misc/commentary-collection.txt)) + <i>Willow Ascenzo:</i> ([Tumblr](https://mousegard.tumblr.com/post/26493013679/teal-hunter-commentary), 7/4/2012) + + <b>Let's talk about Teal Hunter.</b> - Teal Hunter was sort of the middle child of my three Homestuck music contest submissions. Even now it's still my least favorite of the three songs I submitted. Why [[artist:toby-fox|Radiation]] picked it along with my other two, I'll never know. I certainly wasn't expecting it to be chosen. With over a thousand submissions I'm sure there was no shortage of Redglare songs for him to choose from. Maybe the $20 I slipped him when I submitted my songs had something to do with it But his ways are not our ways. + <b>Teal Hunter</b> was sort of the middle child of my three Homestuck music contest submissions. Even now it's still my least favorite of the three songs I submitted. Why [[artist:toby-fox|Radiation]] picked it along with my other two, I'll never know. I certainly wasn't expecting it to be chosen. With over a thousand submissions I'm sure there was no shortage of Redglare songs for him to choose from. ~Maybe the $20 I slipped him when I submitted my songs had something to do with it~ But his ways are not our ways. - When [[album:homestuck-vol-9|Volume 9]] came out, a lot of people looked at Radiation's arrangement of [[Five-Four Stress|Stress]] by Buzinkai and started noting similarities between it and Teal Hunter. Radiation wrote about why the two songs sound similar in his commentary for [[Stress]]. If we're going to talk about "what sounds like what", then I'll lay my cards on the table and state that Teal Hunter was begun as pretty much a direct reference to [00 Gundam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt_0Lg4-RkE) from the Gundam 00 soundtrack (if you can't tell by now, I really like Gundams). When I started the piece, the first draft was more or less a low-rent version of that song, in the same way a cartoon that wants to parody Indiana Jones would get a song that sounds close to John Williams' Raiders March without being close enough to qualify as plagiarism. So I just kept fiddling with it until the two melodies sounded different. By the time I got to the final product and had added the buildup in the beginning, the two had nothing but their rhythm and syncopation in common. + When [[album:homestuck-vol-9|Volume 9]] came out, a lot of people looked at Radiation's arrangement of [[Five-Four Stress|Stress]] by Buzinaki and started noting similarities between it and Teal Hunter. Radiation wrote about why the two songs sound similar in [[Stress|his commentary for Stress]]. If we're going to talk about "what sounds like what", then I'll lay my cards on the table and state that Teal Hunter was begun as pretty much a direct reference to [00 Gundam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt_0Lg4-RkE) from the <b>Gundam 00</b> soundtrack (if you can't tell by now, I really like Gundams). When I started the piece, the first draft was more or less a low-rent version of that song, in the same way a cartoon that wants to parody <b>Indiana Jones</b> would get a song that sounds close to John Williams' <b>Raiders March</b> without being close enough to qualify as plagiarism. So I just kept fiddling with it until the two melodies sounded different. By the time I got to the final product and had added the buildup in the beginning, the two had nothing but their rhythm and syncopation in common. - Teal Hunter's original title was Bête Blanche, a play on bête noire, a French phrase literally meaning "black beast" that the fan name "Bec Noir" is most likely a reference to. As evident, the song was originally allocated to PM, the one Exile powerful enough to battle Jack Noir to a stalemate. + <b>Teal Hunter</b>'s original title was <b>Bête Blanche</b>, a play on [bête noire](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/b%C3%AAte_noire), a French phrase literally meaning "black beast" that the fan name "Bec Noir" is most likely a reference to. As evident, the song was originally allocated to <b>PM</b>, the one Exile powerful enough to battle Jack Noir to a stalemate. + + Stay tuned for [[Rust Servant]] commentary on Friday! --- Track: Cobalt Corsair Additional Names: @@ -551,13 +558,15 @@ Art Tags: Referenced Tracks: - Showtime (Piano Refrain) Commentary: |- - <i>Willow Ascenzo:</i> (via [early commentary collection](https://hsmusic.wiki/media/misc/commentary-collection.txt)) + <i>Willow Ascenzo:</i> ([Tumblr](https://mousegard.tumblr.com/post/26347660918/violet-mariner-commentary), 7/2/2012) + + <b>Let's talk about Violet Mariner.</b> - Let's talk about Violet Mariner. + I tend to listen to the kind of music I like to compose and compose the kind of music I like to listen to. Before I started composing this song I listened to a shit-ton of battle music from Koh Otani's <b>Shadow of the Colossus</b> soundtrack, and it shows. [Oh](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjokwJ-Xmh8), [boy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=147rTHgKmXY), [does it show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvCYvH30AYY), especially from 0:49 onward with the rhythm and percussion of the piece. - I tend to listen to the kind of music I like to compose and compose the kind of music I like to listen to. Before I started composing this song I listened to a shit-ton of battle music from Koh Otani's Shadow of the Colossus soundtrack, and it shows. Oh, boy, does it show, especially from 0:49 onward with the rhythm and percussion of the piece. + <b>Violet Mariner</b> was the first song I started working on for the Homestuck music contest that eventually became the <b>coloUrs and mayhem</b> dual album. It's a song about Dualscar—but it wasn't always a song about Dualscar. No, it started out as a song about John. This explains the harp/piano section, which plays with the opening melody to <b>[[Showtime (Original Mix|Showtime]]</b>, vaguely darting near it without ever actually producing the exact notes from Malcolm Brown's original song. I intended it to be more of a hint of John's original strife theme than a direct reference. In hindsight, keeping the references to existing Homestuck leitmotifs subtle was a smart idea. If I'd been more overt in my references and just made it a straight-up [[Doctor]] remix or an explicit arrangement of Showtime, it would have been really hard to reallocate it to a different character. And I'm happy that <b>Violet Mariner</b> is a Dualscar song. Dualscar needs more songs. And also it gave Radiation an excuse to almost name it "Violet Seaman". And besides, it means I still technically haven't used the original title, <b>Heirstrike</b>, yet. - Violet Mariner was the first song I started working on for the Homestuck music contest that eventually became the coloUrs and mayhem dual album. It's a song about Dualscar—but it wasn't always a song about Dualscar. No, it started out as a song about John. This explains the harp/piano section, which plays with the opening melody to Showtime, vaguely darting near it without ever actually producing the exact notes from Malcolm Brown's original song. I intended it to be more of a hint of John's original strife theme than a direct reference. In hindsight, keeping the references to existing Homestuck leitmotifs subtle was a smart idea. If I'd been more overt in my references and just made it a straight-up Doctor remix or an explicit arrangement of Showtime, it would have been really hard to reallocate it to a different character. And I'm happy that Violet Mariner is a Dualscar song. Dualscar needs more songs. And also it gave Radiation an excuse to almost name it "Violet Seaman". And besides, it means I still technically haven't used the original title, Heirstrike, yet. + Stay tuned for [[Teal Hunter]] commentary on Wednesday! --- Track: Fuchsia Ruler Additional Names: @@ -628,7 +637,7 @@ Commentary: |- The idea was to have it be a bit of a grim little insidious melody for a title character, but somehow it ended up being slightly more Grant Kirkhope-ish during the N64 era in retrospect, which is something I have to say I'm kind of proud of since he's a massive inspiration. I eventually got the call back from Radiation during late February and was told that it won a spot. I was in shock and awe at that point, as it meant that I finally got somewhere substantial with my work. Immediately I re-rendered Rust Maid; then titled Apocalypse Maid, and Orange Hat, and sent it along What Pumpkin's way. - Here's a fun fact though. When Radiation contacted me, he told me that the song was to be retitled "Rust Servant", and was to be the Handmaid's theme. This was something I was okay with, but he immediately contacted me a while afterwards and reassigned the character to it's original intended character. Between a few e-mails exchanged by me and him, we still referred to the actual track as "Rust Servant", until I got my contract which had it titled "Rust Maid". I thought this was a contract mistake of some sort, but imagine my surprise when I saw the first track on the album thinking it was mine and not realizing it was adhering to a color scheme. Rust Servant was fucking awesome though. + Here's a fun fact though. When Radiation contacted me, he told me that the song was to be retitled [[Rust Servant|"Rust Servant"]], and was to be the Handmaid's theme. This was something I was okay with, but he immediately contacted me a while afterwards and reassigned the character to it's original intended character. Between a few e-mails exchanged by me and him, we still referred to the actual track as "Rust Servant", until I got my contract which had it titled "Rust Maid". I thought this was a contract mistake of some sort, but imagine my surprise when I saw the first track on the album thinking it was mine and not realizing it was adhering to a color scheme. Rust Servant was fucking awesome though. Another fun fact - there's a cowbell right at the start that wasn't supposed to be there. I don't even know how it got there. The original sound file was a reverse cymbal. It happened sometime after I recovered the file and I didn't notice it until after I listened to the remastered version again. --- |