YuleTunes minichallenge - let's get carolling!

[kittyeden]

Hi there! Are you the sort of Yuletide-r that enjoys ballads, songs, ditties, tunes, and/or filks of any type? That's where this challenge comes in. This is for you. This is a Yuletide minichallenge for people who want to write and receive music-y related content of any sort.

This could be filk, pastiches of already-existing songs, lyrics set to instrumental tunes from the source canon (or otherwise), a score or visual representation of a composition, completely original songs (whether that ends up being just lyrics written on their own, or an audio recording of an original song), or any sort of original composition. The sky’s the limit, just as long as it’s music-related.

 

To get involved, just leave a comment below with the following –

 

AO3 Name:

 

Letter Link:

 

Fandoms you’re interested in receiving YuleTunes for:

 

Prompts!: (and if there’s any specific sort of YuleTunes gift that you don’t want, mention it here)

 

 

 ...And add ‘YuleTunes’ to the tags if/when you post, so we can all find it. Happy filking.

EDIT: yhlee in the comments has compiled an excellent list of composition resources for people who may be new to it!

Comments

[yhlee]

AO3 Name: etothey

Letter Link: https://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/4380721.html

Fandoms you’re interested in receiving YuleTunes for:
Adagio for Strings - Samuel Barber
Fallen London
Fighting Fantasy
For a Change (Interactive Fiction)
Galatea - Emily Short
SoftBank’s Next 30-Year Vision

Prompts!: (and if there’s any specific sort of YuleTunes gift that you don’t want, mention it here)

- Adagio for Strings - Samuel Barber
I'd love any sort of music/song or fragment inspired by this, or that reimagines it - what would "Adagio for Strings" sound like in subtractive synthesis, or arranged for xylophones and sped up to allegro con fuoco? Go wild.

- Fallen London
- Fighting Fantasy
- For a Change (Interactive Fiction)
- Galatea - Emily Short
These are all games or game-adjacent - perhaps a "game soundtrack" (anything from a five-second GAME OVER/YOU HAVE DIED sting to a piece inspired by a game event) or a filk/song lyrics.

- SoftBank’s Next 30-Year Vision
Okay, I am open to anything here but I think filk lyrics/a filk song of the SoftBank Future could be SUPER DUPER HILARIOUS. :D :D :D A chiptunes/vocaloid/speech synthesis approach could be especially funny.

DNWs: I find it hard to listen to noise/glitch and shouting/screaming types of music/songs, and I struggle with atonal/twelve-tone row music - they're completely valid musical forms/techniques, but they're not for me, sorry!

NOTE #1: I love music and composing, and I promise I will love anything besides the DNWs that you're moved to do! Please don't worry about skill level or fancy sound libraries or software or fancy instruments or whatever (although those things can be fun too). I spent a terrifying amount of time in General MIDI and will happily listen to General MIDI. I think the jaw harp and the harmonica and ukulele are great instruments. (And if you can actually sing, you're way ahead of me. :p) Aleatory or procedurally generated music, sure! Whatever you want to try, go for it!

I read Western music notation (but not shapenotes or guitar/other tablature, sorry!); I can read soprano, alto, and bass clefs, and movable C more generally if I really have to; I'm comfortable with the most common transposing orchestral instruments.

NOTE #2 for people who want to try computer music and aren't sure where to start:

- For iPad/Mac users, Garageband is a pretty good starting place. Have some fun with loops!
Record notes with the keyboard or draw them into the piano roll!

- Alternately, if you read music and want to score traditionally (cf. engraving) and have an iPad or Android device, Notion Mobile is free (paid upgrades to e.g. handwriting recognition, extra sounds/instruments). You can export the sheet music (e.g. as a PDF) or the music (e.g. as mp3).

- Here's a roundup of some free web-based DAWs (DAW = digital audio workstation).

also

[yhlee]

- You need a DAW with VST plugin support on your computer to take advantage of this , but Spitfire Audio has a bunch of free instruments - the LABS are more experimental stuff, while BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover will get you started if you have a hankering for traditional orchestra. These run in Spitfire's free proprietary host (so you don't, for instance, have to shell out for something like the paid version of Native Instruments' Kontakt as a host). This is a rundown of some free DAWs - if you're running Windows I might suggest looking into Cakewalk in particular, which I've used before; they seem to regard Waveform Free pretty highly but I have not used it. (I use Cubase Pro, so...)

In general, if you have a DAW with VST support, Googling something like "free synth VST" or "free [insert instrument here] VST" will usually find you stuff. There are some very capable free synths out there if you like to do electronica!

Okay, shutting up now. :)

ETA: MIDI computer music (what I do) has a LOT of weird terminology and technical stuff. If you're making music for someone who is not me, please feel free to ping me (deuceofgearsart at gmail dot com) and I will be happy to help troubleshoot or walk you through some of this stuff, schedule permitting. :) Unfortunately, I don't have much experience with straight-up audio (the kind of stuff you would do with an audio interface and mics and recording live sound) so I can't help there.