July Wanderings

Greetings Adventurers!! 🧙‍♀️

I have a new fairytale composition for you today! Starlight is inspired by stargazing under the summer sky, woodland walks, and dancing fireflies (seriously, there have been SO many this year, it's incredible!)

I wrote Starlight as a second part to my older piece, Moonflower Garden. Besides their thematic relationship, they are also connected by their instrumentation. I went back to older iterations for a few of my instrument sounds as well as using my previous style of reverb so that Starlight would have a similar character to Moonflower. But on a higher level, these pieces have a connection through harmony..

Both Starlight and Moonflower Garden use modal interchange as a main motif. They begin rooted in C major, but borrow chords from the natural minor for the subdominant function of some musical phrases. To me, this type of substitution creates an air of mystique and wonder before returning to the stability of the tonic chord. For example, Starlight opens with C to F- (I to IV-), and Moonflower begins with C to A♭ (I to ♭VI).

I also occasionally borrowed the♭VII from the Mixolydian scale as a modal cadence chord. (hear it at 1:13 in Moonflower and 0:39 in Starlight!) ✨

I always think it's interesting to find out why something sounds the way it does and how it works, so I hope you've enjoyed this little peek at what goes into creating the mood of these pieces :)

Next month is the renaissance faire!! I'm still busy as a bee creating jewelry for my stand (plus outfit modifications!), and so, have made an updated playlist for these long summer afternoons. May it serve you well as background music for your own crafting days! 🐝

Until next time, stay magical!

June 💜