A Bard at Sea

Submission to the "Jam This Album! Vol. 3" game jam! https://itch.io/jam/jam-this-album-vol-3.

At the start of this Jam I had an idea for a TTRPG game inspired by the soundtrack of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for the GameCube.  I began working on that game, and simultaneously began working on music in turn inspired by my own WIP TTRPG... but I ended up making much more progress on the music than the game, and life got in the way and I ran out of time to make the  game... So the initial concept/rough draft/concept notes of a TTRPG game that doesn't (yet) exist and that nobody can play (yet) was the inspiration for this music submission.

Album Art: Commissioned from @robintahaha, find them on Fiverr: https://www.fiverr.com/robintahaha.

To approach the theme of Folk/Lore for this jam, I wanted to make something more acoustic, as suggested. I searched online for some public domain or creative commons folk acapella I could use for vocals, and ended up discovering something really really cool:

There exists is an "Elven" language that some folks have come up with based on Esperanto, and they have created and released songs based on that language; learn more here: https://elvenvoice.com/. The songs have instrumentation, but some are released in packages that contain the acapella only, and under a creative commons license (CC BY 4.0) (details at the website, attributions below).

My flabber was ghasted. What a great find for this particular jam, blending TTRPG and music...

And thus, this music was created. Loads of fun to make, hope you enjoy.

Credits:

• Album Art: 
  • Commissioned from @robintahaha, find them on Fiverr: https://www.fiverr.com/robintahaha.
• Audio Credits: 
  • "Sehveen_rezzymix" is Based on 'Seh-heh Dahnsehvlehn' by Aale Fen (elvenvoice.com) (acapella only) 
    • Seh-heh Dahnsehvlehn" by Aale Fen (Elven Voice) ft. Lesperado. Stems: elvenvoice.com
  • "Ehvehli_rezzymix" is Based on 'Ehvehlieya Fehteh-eefehth' by Aale Fen (elvenvoice.com) (acapella only) 
    • Ehvehlieya Fehteh-eefehth" by Aale Fen (Elven Voice) ft. Anna Dolkova. Stems: elvenvoice.com
  • "The Siren and the Bard" is based on the "FREE Ethnic Vocals" track by Soulpacifica -( tihana.net/soulpacifica) (acapella only)
  • Recorded myself playing the Irish Bouzouki, Mandolin, tin whistle, and smallpipe drones.
  • All percussion loops from Ableton Live Lite default samples.
• Webpage BG comes from a public domain image snipped from an illuminated text, edited to tile.