Browsing Tag

bone walker: soundtrack

Bone Walker, Music

A long overdue Kickstarter update

I’m still dealing with my obligations to Carina Press for the Rebels of Adalonia trilogy, which means I haven’t been able to put attention to finishing up editing Bone Walker and prepping it for release. To wit: AUGH.

Meanwhile, Dara and I both have had medical crap to deal with, as many of you know–my medical crap from last fall, as well as Dara’s eye surgeries, plural. She’s got another one coming as well, since she developed cataracts after the last procedure, and that’s got to be dealt with. To wit: AUGH.

AND, as Dara’s been posting about a lot lately, she’s had to throw a LOT of time into renovation of one of the tenant spaces in MurkSouth. This has taken a huge amount of her time and our money, though now she’s finally finished with that, and if I may say so she’s worked magic in that kitchen. You can see before and after pics here.

BUT, we do finally have some progress to report! Even though I’ve been stymied on dealing with the book, Dara’s made some progress on getting the soundtrack done. She’s had significant progress on the instrumental sets–and we do also have some very, VERY exciting news.

We got Alexander James Adams.

Those of you in the Pacific Northwest fandom community, and hell, any of you who are into filk and SF/F-based or pagan-based music at all–you know who I’m talking about. He who stepped in to take up the mantle of song when Heather Alexander went off to Faerie. THAT Alexander James Adams. We are beyond delighted to have him joining us on this project, lending not only fiddle, but backup vocals and some drum work to various tracks.

And now Dara’s got a preview track to share with you all. It’s right over here!

This album is going to ROCK. 😀

August 5, 2014 by
Bone Walker, Quebecois Music

It has come to my attention that LJ actually FIXED something

Namely, Bandcamp embeds! So here, have a couple! (Does this also work on Dreamwidth? LET’S FIND OUT.)

Like “Manteau d’hiver” by Le Vent du Nord!

And “La déroutée” by Yves “Most Badass Accordion Player in Quebec” Lambert and his trio! A song which rattles me around every time I hear it. I LOVE the repeated chorus.

And last but MOST ASSUREDLY not least, Dara’s got some tasty previews up for the WE SWEAR TO ODIN IS ACTUALLY FORTHCOMING Bone Walker Soundtrack!

July 10, 2014 by
Bone Walker, Short Pieces, Vengeance of the Hunter

Long overdue Kickstarter update + Vengeance of the Hunter

Just to bring folks up to speed on where I am with all the things I’m trying to pull out of my head: my long-waiting Kickstarter backers, y’all will have noticed I have not yet delivered unto you Bone Walker or any of the other remaining rewards. This is a combination of four factors: one, Vengeance of the Hunter pretty much eating my brain for the last few months; two, my abrupt return to the land of Medical Fun (spoiler alert: not really fun); and three, emergency eye surgery on the part of Dara, as I’ve previously posted; four, delay on getting the rest of my edits back from JoSelle, who’s been working on editing Bone Walker for me.

As of this writing I am in what will be hopefully the final line edits for Vengeance. My goal is to finish this edit pass and hand the manuscript back to my editor this weekend. She will let me know if I need to do any remaining tweaks to it, and the goal is to get it squared away before I go offline for surgery on November 11th.

I have also been talking with JoSelle about getting those edits on Bone Walker back, and our game plan moving forward is that she will be doing everything in her power to get them to me by end of November. Either way, I will be commencing my edit sweep on Bone Walker on December 1st. If I have enough brain for it following surgery, I’ll actually start before–but this is me allowing myself some time for recovery to happen. Ditto on finishing the shorter works due to Kickstarter backers.

Related to those shorter works as well–I’m working on getting some cover art together for “The Blood of the Land”, the short story I’d previously done in the Warder universe. Once that’s ready I will be making that available as an immediate freebie to Kickstarter folks, and slightly after that, will be deploying it onto the various places where Faerie Blood is already available for sale.

Meanwhile, Dara’s having had to do eye surgery has thrown her for a loop in getting soundtrack work done, too, but she is recovering from that nicely and we hope to resume work on that ASAP. I also need to hand Dara the data she needs to do the poster and postcard layouts for the Bone Walker cover so that I can get those out to folks as well.

Kickstarter folks, as soon as I’m done with the Vengeance edit sweep, you’ll be hearing from me further. I’m really sorry for this ongoing delay, and that I have to ask for your patience for a little longer. Hang in there. Bone Walker is coming.

November 1, 2013 by
Music

Some tunes practice tonight

Rossignolet is rapidly becoming my practice flute of choice–at least, as long as I’m not trying to play along with any recording that isn’t actually in A. If I pretend I’m playing a D flute and ignore how I’m actually a fourth up, this flute’s responsiveness is wonderful for just trying to get fingering patterns down into my muscle memory.

Plus, I just love the way Rossignolet sounds. I posted these to Facebook but for giggles and grins and posterity, here are sound samples of me playing Swallowtail Jig on my three primary flutes of the moment, including the new one!

Anna Plays Swallowtail Jig on New Flute (Rossignolet in A)

Anna Plays Swallowtail Jig on Norouet (Big Flute in D)

Anna Plays Swallowtail Jig on Shine (Piccolo in D)

Tonight, I went through all seven of the Quebec tunes I know so far and then through most of the non-Quebec ones, including Swallowtail. I didn’t hit Si Bheag Si Mhor or Da Slockit Light, but only because my embouchure started getting a bit wibbly and I wanted to work on Pigeon on the Gate, which I need for the Bone Walker soundtrack.

Fun observation of the evening #1: on Rossignolet, trying the embouchure exercise described in Grey Larsen’s Irish Flute and Whistle book, I was able to get three octaves of A as well as the intermediate E between the second and third A’s. That’s hard, people. And leaves me a bit swimmy-headed in a way I rather clearly remember from when I was first learning how to play piccolo!

Fun observation of the evening #2: TunePal can play tunes for you if you bring up the sheet music for one in it. You tap the play button and it’ll start playing through the tune on the screen in MIDI piano, and you can adjust the tempo too. So I fired up Pigeon on the Gate and went through it slowly several times, trying to follow the sheet music. Then I did it a few times more with my eyes closed, to see if I had it in muscle memory yet and if I could play along by ear. Then, I shut up TunePal entirely and tried to play it through slowly by myself.

This actually appeared to work. I cannot play this tune at speed yet but it may actually be getting into my fingers. Even though it’ll take me a bit to polish it up, just because those jumps in the first couple of measures from B down to E then up to D and down to E again are a bit of a bitch on the flute.

June 10, 2013 by
Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

Kickstarter and Bone Walker update goodness

For those of you who haven’t already seen this update go out to my Kickstarter backers list, I’m delighted to report that there’s some movement on the Kickstarter front!

Backer and friend and fellow session player Ellen, who is made entirely of awesomeness, threw me a boatload of tunes recommendations that will plug very nicely into the instrumental set tracks for the soundtrack, as well as into the bridge of our take of “Lukey”. Moreover, since Ellen is a fine dulcimer player, she’ll be joining us on the soundtrack work! Dara and I feel that she’ll very well represent the presence of Kendis’ house brownies, musically speaking.

I’m feeling particularly happy about the selection of tunes for what’s going to be the battle track for the climax of Bone Walker–Pigeon on the Gate, Tam Linn (a.k.a., appropriately, ‘Howling Wind’), and Farewell to Erin. Those of you who are Irish/trad tunes people, you may be able to get an idea of what that set’s going to sound like just by that alone. I encourage you to seek those tunes out if you’d like to get an idea of what we’re shooting for!

(And this of course means now I actually have to LEARN these tunes. Eep! *^_^*;;)

I’m on tap for a copyedit run through Lament of the Dove–my first formal copyedit run, woo! But that’s due on the 24th. After that, my plan will be to charge through the rest of Bone Walker, which means finishing up Chapter 21 and then a couple more chapters of denouement after that. I’m talking with my editor for that about scheduling–whether this means she’ll be able to do the editing round in December, or whether that’s going to slide to January.

And, happily, the postcards and posters of the Faerie Blood art are now on their way to me! Kickstarter backers have claim on just about all of the initial run of postcards, though it’s highly likely I’ll do a second run if the first run comes out okay. The first run of posters will leave me with several extras, though. So I’ll have enough to offer to people if they want them, once my Kickstarter backers are taken care of!

Fun times at the Murkworks! 😀

October 17, 2012 by
Bone Walker, Faerie Blood

Seeking tunes help for the Bone Walker soundtrack

Things have been pretty wacky around the Murkworks these last few months what with this whole book deal thing going on with Carina–but I do still have the Free Court of Seattle books and related things going on for all you fine folks who supported my Kickstarter. And it’s time for Dara and me to get back to working on the soundtrack for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker!

Which means I need to make some musical decisions. Part of the plan for this soundtrack, as y’all may remember, is that it will include a few instrumental sets of traditional tunes. I am on tap to make final selections for the tracks that need them–but here’s the thing. I am hampered by lack of personal repertoire, and by the sheer staggering tsunami of tunes from the Irish, Scottish, Quebecois, and many other traditions to choose from!

Internets, this means I’m going to turn to you. I know a couple people who’re reading me on Dreamwidth are Irish music people, and I have quite a few musicians Friended on Facebook who may click over to read this. So for any of you who may be reading, I seek tunes to fit the following scenarios:

1) A jaunty hornpipe in G or D (though I am capable of transposition so will consider other keys if the hornpipe is suitably awesome). We intend to plug this in as a bridge for a take of the Newfoundland trad song “Lukey”. Since we would like to distinguish ours a bit from the versions recorded by Great Big Sea, the hornpipe should NOT be “Staten Island” since that’s the one they use in their original studio recording. I’d like something similarly jaunty, though, which does not need to be played super-fast in order to sound good.

2) Tunes to fill out the set which will represent the big fight scene in the climax of Bone Walker. I want these to be reels or reel-like tunes in minor keys, and I want them fast and furious and badassed. Tunes with more than two parts to them are acceptable, e.g., Farewell to Erin. (Which is a candidate for going into this set, but I want other options to consider.) Bonus points if the tunes have names that evoke storms, lightning, thunder, or wind, as severe weather will be a major factor in the scene in question.

So talk to me, session/tunes/music people! What tunes do you know and love that fit these bills? If you fling me a good one, I’ll get your name into the liner notes!

October 14, 2012 by