I am creating a piece of music, about four hours in length.

 

The piece is primarily based on a series of books written and released around 1984 called "Sorcery", set in a fantasy world called Kakhabad. They were written by the english Steve Jackson. They are "gamebooks". From Wikipedia:

 

"A gamebook is a work of fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making effective choices. The narrative branches along various paths through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages."

There are four books in the series. The plot is a relatively simple one: the crown of Kings, a magical crown used to create peace, has been stolen by the evil archmage, and is being used for evil deeds. The player must rescue the crown of Kings and restore peace.

 

Here are the four books:

1. The Shamuntanti Hills

2. Khare, Cityport of traps

3. The Seven Serpents

4. The crown of Kings.

So my setting of this to music is as follows:

 

1. The Shamutanti Hills.

Basically an introduction to the entire epic, where the player sets off and journeys through the Shamutanti Hills.

 

It's the first movement  (one hour)

This is entirely for solo fretless classical guitar, an underexploited and rare instrument. I began over a year ago, when I picked one 

up in Istanbul

 

2. Khare Cityport of traps.

The bare bones of this is done, but will be refined over the next few years. It's been produced so far mostly with just Sibelius and a 

keyboard... with various other

tools. You can hear this "prototype" on soundcloud here: 

 

https://soundcloud.com/imonhillipanly/toomanyideas

 

The trick is for me to convince a very good orchestra that its worth their while commissioning me to write for them...

 

Bear in mind there are musical quotes in there from Cynic, U2, Pantera, Caracss. I'll get rid of these

in due course. It also opens with a series of samples. I took a load of solo Hildegard Von Bingen samples, changed their pitches etc and threw them together.

I'll either get rid of this or just modify it to the point where nobody can annoy me about copyrights etc.  

 

3. The Seven Serpents

In the books, the hero must escape the seven serpents who are trying to stop him getting the crown of kings. I am composing 

several "songs" with me singing and playing guitar, each pertaining to a different serpent. 

 

4. The crown of Kings

This is where a "New Music" occurs, based on an idea I call "chromatic to harmonic Fluxing". 

 

So, the above is just the tip of the iceberg. The books are the scaffold: there are many parallel universes running at the same time.

So "Khare, Cityport of traps" also refers to all the places I have lived (Dublin, Devon, Munich, Istanbul, Paris, Berlin)

The Seven Serpents is paralleled with seven people I actually know, and also paralleled with the "seven ways" we are known to 

age, in the scientific sense. 

 In the final book, the  Crown of Kings, well, the crown is found. Happy days. I have referred this to the Robert Frost poem where "two paths diverged in a yellow wood". This poem depressed me a lot as a teenager. So I have changed its meaning. Instead of choosing a certain path, 

the person just erases the forest and builds their own path. That's the whole point of what I am doing.

Someone told me my website was too serious, so I put a picture of Odie in the CV section. Yay. Choice. 

 

Please don't hesitate to get in touch. Whether you just want to play music, talk, help me with my entire project, etc.