July Wanderings (2022)

Hello fellow adventurer! 🧙‍♀️

I hope you have been having a most lovely and magical summer so far.🌼  I've been quite busy creating a bunch of new projects which I am so excited to share with you here.

First, the Spotify release of Lost Garden is officially live now, yay!!! 🥳✨ If you haven't gotten a chance to listen yet you can find it here.

It was really really fun delving into the process of creating this single in last month's newsletter (and I hope you enjoyed hearing more about how it came together 😊) so I thought I would do something similar for my newest composition . . . [drum roll ] 🥁

School of Magic!! 🔮✨

A piece depicting old hallways illuminated by floating candles, stray spells, and the occasional burst of sparks from a mischievous familiar.

We start off with a very familiar instrument . . . 👀✨

I don't know why, but harpsichords have always seemed to scream magic studies to me LOL. Maybe it's because they immediately call to mind the highly ornamental and elaborate sounding music and art of the baroque period, while also having a sparkly and whimsical tone color. The harpsichord can be used for creating both humorous and grand scenes, which works very well for depicting magical shenanigans.

When I sat down to write this piece, I actually began by writing the chorus chord progression first (0:20 in the video). The first iteration of the chorus includes the use of a tritone relationship when the F- moves to B. This type of tritone movement is used to create an air of mystery.

Now percussion wise, what would you guess the sounds starting at 0:04 are made of? Finger snapping? No (I can't 😅). Dry spaghetti? YES! I love recording and finding uses for unique sounds, and one day last autumn, I got out every pasta box in the house poured them into jars and shook or snapped them in front of a microphone. My studio looked very interesting that day! 🍝

This was the first chance I had the chance to use the spaghetti ones in a piece and it ended up being just the right sound.

While I was writing School of Magic, I also worked on a painting inspired by the same theme.

It may even turn out to be the cover art for a new single... 👀

Another exciting thing that happened this month was that I got to see Distant Worlds: music from Final Fantasy at the symphony here. The conductor was Arnie Roth, who composed and arranged the music for many of the classic Barbie films (like 12 Dancing Princesses 😱💜)!! Even though I don't know all of the Final Fantasy soundtracks super well, it was still amazing to hear them played live, and the orchestration was absolutely beautiful. Here's a photo I took while there! 😊

Anyway, I think that's everything I have for you right now, so again, thank you for all your support, and I'll talk to you soon! 💜

Stay magical,

June