To get a taste of what we have created, here are some examples from the finished CD.
Zelda's Lullaby
The Windwaker Theme
Song of Storms
Musical Montage from the CD
The Celtic Link Orchestral Fantasy, With Score
When you join our Post-Kickstarter, in addition to the CD download you get:
All the bonus tracks, rough mixes, and alt versions to the songs on "The Celtic Link" CD.
Two excerpts from the VGL Level 5 Documentary
Three CDs worth of additional scores by Craig Stuart Garfinkle and Eimear Noone, including music from our other game and film scores - most unavailable anywhere else!
Be the first to see the music videos we are creating for the CD
And much, much more. We want to make sure our backers have priority access to all we do!
We were honored that so many of you supported our successful Kickstarter campaign to create unique "Traditional Irish" versions of the themes from "The Legend of Zelda," featuring members of the brilliant DIT Irish Traditional Music Ensemble.
The CD is complete and will soon be released world-wide, but in the meantime, we have been inundated by fans who want to get all the special updates, rough mixes, and more, but missed the actual Kickstarter.
Only those who joined the Kickstarter can get the physical copies of the special Kickstarter version of the CD, but we are offering a limited number of digital copies, including all the bonuses, for those who join our "Post Kickstarter."
To get a taste of what we have created, here are some examples from the finished CD.
Zelda's Lullaby
The Windwaker Theme
Song of Storms
Musical Montage from the CD
The Celtic Link Orchestral Fantasy, With Score
When you join our Post-Kickstarter, in addition to the CD download you get:
All the bonus tracks, rough mixes, and alt versions to the songs on "The Celtic Link" CD.
Two excerpts from the VGL Level 5 Documentary
Three CDs worth of additional scores by Craig Stuart Garfinkle and Eimear Noone, including music from our other game and film scores - most unavailable anywhere else!
Be the first to see the music videos we are creating for the CD
And much, much more. We want to make sure our backers have priority access to all we do!
We were honored that so many of you supported our successful Kickstarter campaign to create unique "Traditional Irish" versions of the themes from "The Legend of Zelda," featuring members of the brilliant DIT Irish Traditional Music Ensemble.
The CD is complete and will soon be released world-wide, but in the meantime, we have been inundated by fans who want to get all the special updates, rough mixes, and more, but missed the actual Kickstarter.
Only those who joined the Kickstarter can get the physical copies of the special Kickstarter version of the CD, but we are offering a limited number of digital copies, including all the bonuses, for those who join our "Post Kickstarter."
In order to set the Guinness World Record for a crowd created video game performance, and to let more musicians participate in our mad adventure, we've extended the submission deadline for our crowd created HALO THEME until March 29th, 2016.
Of course, if you can get your video in by the original deadline of March 15th, that would be great too!
As of now we have received videos from Garland Utah, Barcelona, Malaysia, Mexico, Kuala Lumpur, Sardinia, Canada, and more - with pledges from just about every cornier of the globe. This is truly an exciting time to be a musician - collaborating with such a far reaching orchestra.
Just for fun, two of our "Works in Progress"
First, iDIG repeat offenders Mark Scholl (Drums) and Joe Pignato (Guitar)
And our friend Andrew Overfield from the UK sent us this video. I'll be posting others as we get closer. Check it out!
For any of you coming late to the party, here is the instruction blog on how to participate.
Finally, if you will be in Dublin during our Dublin International Game Music Festival (April 29 - May 1st, 2016) get tickets (and more information) here:
Video Games Live Returns to Headline, The 2nd Annual Dublin International Game Music Festival April 29 - May1, 2016 get tickets for 2016
The Plan for 2016:
Days 1 and 2: Seminars and Smaller Concerts at the RDS
On April 29th and 30th, attendees will gather at the RDS Convention Center for two days of concerts and presentations relating to video game music, video games, and their creation.
Live Music: Performances on the RDS auditorium stage will feature talents such as "The Triforce Quartet," "The Spooney Bards," and "The Dublin Chamber Ensemble," among others.
The impetus to create "The Celtic Link" was born at the 2015 festival, when the audience themselves, so moved by the DIT Ensemble's performance of the great game music themes, insisted the DIT ensemble needed to be recorded and a CD released. A successful Kickstarter campaign followed.
Seminars: The musical performances will be interspersed with numerous seminars designed for aspiring game music creators, performers and fans. Included will be:
A presentation on new game music technology by Craig Stuart Garfinkle
Composer Neal Acree will show and discuss his work from many of the stunning Blizzard trailers and cinematics.
A preview of "Conductrix, A View from the Podium," Eimear Noone's upcoming 3D and VR conducting tutorials.
A handful of select Irish game developers will show off their latest projects.
One of the highlights from the seminars of 2015 was the composer "Demo Derby." For the derby, 15 composers had their music played for the audience and our panel of visiting composers. Our composers then gave advice and critiqued the composer's work.
In 2015 only an hour was scheduled for this event, but due to the number of composers that wanted to participate but couldn't, this year the Demo Derby will be extended to at least 2 hours.
Scheduled for the evening of April 30th, we will bring back our "Cosball" (cosplay ball) to a local Dublin nightclub where we will give away prizes for the best costumes and play dance remixes of our favorite game music.
Once again, on May 1st, 8:00 PM, at the Convention Center Dublin, Video Games Live will take the auditorium stage for a very special presentation.
Half orchestral concert, half rock and roll blow out, Video Games Live will perform the great game themes such as Skyrim, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft Montage, Kingdom Hearts, and more, accompanied by synchronized gameplay images and lights.
For this performance, all of our visiting composers will conduct their own works - a rare treat to experience for the game music fan.
World Premier Performances
In year one of the iDIG festival, during the Video Games Live show, there were a number of World Premier performances. One of these was the first of its kind, "Crowd Created" version of a game music theme.
Featuring legendary game music performer, "Malukah" (over 60 Million YouTube views), a world wide crowd created orchestra joined forces with Eimear Noone and 134 musicians and singers on stage to perform Eimear Noone's "Malach" from "World of Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor." The resulting video has since had 76K+ views on YouTube and over 1.5 million views around the world.
For 2016, the iDIG Music Festival has an even greater video challenge planned for their Video Games Live show. The team is currently attempting to set a Guinness Book of World Record for the most number of individuals to ever contribute to a single music video.
With this goal in mind, for 2016 the festival has chosen to re-create the "Theme from HALO" as their star composition.
On February 3rd, 2016, the approvals came through and now the mad dash has begun to distribute parts and collect videos from musicians around the world. You can read more about this endeavor, or sign up to participate, at this link:
A festival ticket gains access to the two day festival on April 29th and 30th, and the Video Games Live show on May 1st. Festival tickets start at €85.
A limited number of Video Games Live Only tickets are also available. Video Games Live Tickets start at €40.
In April of 2015, the inaugural Dublin International Game Music Festival (iDIG Music Fest) brought some of the most well respected talent in the video game music industry to Dublin for a three day celebration of the art-form.
In attendance were Grammy winner Christopher Tin (Civilization), Russell Brower (Audio and Music Director for Blizzard Games; World of Warcraft, et all), Neal Acree (Blizzard Cinematic Composer), Eimear Noone (Blizzard Composer and Conductor) Craig Stuart Garfinkle (Blizzard and Baldur's Gate DA II composer) video game performers Jillian and Andrew Aversa, piano virtuoso J.J. McNamara and many more.
All of the 2015 attendees have pledged to attend in 2016 (subject to availability), along with some soon to be announced additional guests!
Help Eimear Noone, The Dublin International Video Game Music Festival and Video Games Live
Break a Guinness World Record.
As many of you know, on April 4th, 2015, at the 1st Dublin International Game Music Festival, Eimear Noone combined 134 musicians and singers on stage at the Convention Center Dublin, with 128 videos submitted from musicians around the world - all coming together to "Crowd Create" Eimear's"Malach," theme from the original score to "World of Warcraft; Warlords of Draenor." It was one of the great highlights to the festival and the headlining Video Games Live Show. You can see the result below. A big thanks to Malukah for her absolutely brilliant performance as the "high priestess" of the piece.
After much consideration, we've decided it wouldn't be enough to just create another crowd created video, but this time, we need to set a Guinness World Record for the most videos of individual players combined to recreate a single piece of music.
With this goal in mind, we decided that the "Video Games Live" version of the original theme from "HALO," (by Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori, orchestrated by Emmanuel Fratianni, Laurie Robinson, & Benoît Grey) would be the perfect piece to accomplish this task.
So we reached out to both our friend Tommy Tallarico (of Video Games Live) and our friends at Microsoft to see if they would be on board. They instantly agreed to the idea - but it's taken a bit to work through the details. We've been waiting for the approvals...
Which just came through - so we are off and running. We are thrilled!
Click on this link. The link will take you to a sign-up page where you will find the download link to all of the parts and the audio guide track for the "Halo Theme." You must sign up to download the files.
Step 2:
Download the parts as well as the audio guide track from the second link. The guide track is a click track layered upon a mono mix of the arrangement we are recreating. The zip has parts for the entire orchestra - find your part.
Step 3: While listening to the guide track on an earbud or headphone, using a cell phone or video camera, video yourself playing your part/parts.
If you have a way to record with a proper microphone and synchronize your audio to the video, then do so. If you don't have that capability the audio recorded on the phone will work just fine.
Step 4:
Make sure you identify the video file(s) with your name in the title so we know who to put in the credits!
Step 5:
Using "Wetransfer.com," send your video(s) to zeldaconductor@gmail.com. Do not send the video as an attachment to an email as that will crash our email server.
Format:
TUNING IS A440!
Ideally, your video file should be a 16 X 9, H.2.6.4 QuickTime file with stereo audio.
Audio should be at 48K.
But if what you just read seems like gobbledygook to you, don't worry; just send us the video. We can import just about anything.
Synchronization:
Below is a snapshot from the score. You will notice the first bar is in 4/4 and the notation states "4 clicks to bar 1."
On the audio recording, in bar zero(the very top), you will hear a synth pad. Then in bar 1 you will hear a gong and gran casa roll into bar 2, where the iconic theme is stated in male voices. That's how you know where you are.
While listening to the click, if you could clap your hands exactly on the downbeat of bar one, that would be ideal. This is the equivalent of the old "slate" you would see executed in a movie. We use that clap to line-up your video with all the others.
If your part does not start until much later in the piece: Clap your hands exactly on the downbeat 2 bars (or so) before you come in. We'll know where you are and as long as you are accurate with your clap, we can line you up.
Try to do your part in one continuous performance.This way, once we have the clap exactly lined up on the downbeat, as long as you play in sync with the click and guide track, your entire performance will be in sync when your part is lined up with our master session.
If one continuous take is not possible, that's OK too. Likewise, if you don't include a clap. These tools just make lining things up easier. Click Instructions: 1. The parts we are using come straight from the Video Games Live library and certain elements are originally designed to be specifically conducted and directed. We've created a new click for this purpose. Therefore at the top we have constructed a rubato click for the vocal part that follows the subtlety of the performance. Likewise, for the tag in measure 139, the click goes momentarily into an 8th note click in order to be able to direct you through the ritard. A listen or two to the click against the track and you will get it. We've added these notations in your part (ignore the "Click Out" from the original part in measure 139). 2. There are two guide tracks uploaded. The first has the click hard right and the music hard left. The second version is in mono with the click married to the guide track. Depending on your method of recording, you might want one or there other, for example, if you record with just one headphone, use the mono version.
ATTIRE OR BACKGROUNDS IN THE VIDEO:
Please avoid clothes with logo's, game images, or anything that might cause us to infringe on a trademark. Don't worry if you have already sent a video, we'll simply have to blur out logos.
If you have an iDIG or VIDEO GAMES LIVE T-Shirt, those are OK! Likewise, if you want to show off your band's T-shirt, that is OK too - as long as it's your brand.
A million people may see this video - use it to show off your band.
Last Performance Notes:
As much as you might hate the sound of your voice or instrument without reverb, we ask that you send your tracks dry! If your track is dry, then it's easier to make it blend with the rest of our tracks by giving all of them a matching reverb!
Two examples follow, excerpts from Malach - just to give you an idea of what is expected of your video:
Mark Scholl, Percussion - we created the montage,
you send all the video individually.
Joe Pignato, Guitar
UPDATE
We just posted this montage from videos from Joe and Mark, created for this year!
It rocks!
Deadline: THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED. We would like to have all the videos by March 29, 2016 as we know it will take 6 weeks to compile, synchronize and mix everything. If you can get your tracks in early, that's even better as every moment counts when undertaking such a complicated adventure. The video will debut at the Video Games Live Show, May 1st at the Convention Center Dublin, Ireland, during the closing act of the Dublin International Game Music Festival. We'd love to see you there is you can make it!
Today
is May 16th, 2015 and I have just finished uploading the final video for our
crowd created version of "Malach, Angel Messenger," from "World
of Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor." It's been quite a journey.
Back
in October of 2014, EÃmear and I embarked on a journey which became the first
Dublin International Game Music Festival (iDIG Music Fest). As part of
that project, we decided to include in our headlining Video Games Live show, a
specially performed composition, one in which musicians from all over the world
could participate.
We
chose Eimear's "Malach, Angel Messenger." I'll let EÃmear tell
her own story of how and why she originally composed the composition. For
me, it's simply one of my favorite pieces of music - regardless of the special
place it holds in my heart.
For
the next six months I sent out countless copies of guide tracks and individual
parts to musician's all over the world, cajoling them into videotaping
themselves performing their individual part while listening to the guide track.
I eventually received 128 different files from over 40 musicians (many
sending multiple videos).
To
those friends who did not get around to performing this time, I forgive you! The
piece is an absolute tour de force and I know how hard creating a video is. Just
make it up to me next year!
On
March 4th, with our April 4th concert looming, I started the process of
cataloging, synchronizing, remixing and editing all the parts I received.
Working around the clock for three weeks, I finally got through the first
minute and a half when I realized at this pace, and with all my other
responsibilities I had for the iDIG Music Fest, I was not going to make the
concert without help. I was lucky that my friend Russell Cooley joined in
the process and the first incarnation of the video was ready by the concert.
Post concert, after
giving myself a week to recover, I eventually opened up the edit file with my
goal of creating the final version for release. Creating the final mix
and edit was truly an emotional and exhausting journey. I was also frustrated that I didn't have more video from the audience perspective during the live performance that showed the size and scope of the orchestra. Still, I am so proud to finally present the result to the
world.
“Malach, Angel Messenger”
EÃmear Noone, composer and conductor
from:
World of Warcraft; Warlords of Draenor
featuring:
Malukah
The National Youth Orchestra Ireland
Members of: The Maynooth University &
Enchiriadis Chamber Choirs
Michael Dawson, choir master
as performed at:
The Dublin International Game Music Festival (iDIG
Music Fest)
with Video Games Live
And a World-Wide Crowd Orchestra
video directed, and produced by
Craig Stuart Garfinkle
edited by
Craig Stuart Garfinkle
Russell Cooley
music produced and mixed by
Craig Stuart Garfinkle
orchestrated by
Eimear Noone and Bill Liston written for and dedicated to: Aaron Padraic Noone Garfinkle
April 12th, 2012
crowd orchestra:
violins:
Yejin Han,
Chris Ferrara
Jacob Roege
Andrew Steffen
Emer Kinsella
Margaret Strong
Karen O'Doherty
viola:
Stanley Beckwith
Andrew Steffen
cello:
Chad Schwartz
bass:
Andrew Steffen
Nate Kalnitz (electric)
woodwinds:
Christopher Bleth, duduk
Ilias Siafakas, clarinet
brass:
Rick Todd, horn
John MacKay, horn
Matt Watters Trombone 1st, 2nd and bass trombone
Matthew Langford, tuba
percussion:
Mark Scholl, timpani, war toms, djembe,
cymbals, gran casa, and taikos
Heleen Langweng, bass drum
Eamonn Noone, drum programming
Craig Stuart Garfinkle, drum programming
harp:
Stephanie Bennett
voices:
Malukah, Sopranos and altos
Alexandra Borden, altos
Andrew Edwards, tenor and basses
Eimear Noone, chants
guitars:
Joe Pignato
keyboards:
Olivier Amadei, harp, english horn, strings and
organ
Len J J Cheung, harp, and strings
Sara VanLaningham, Piano
special thanks!
Russell Brower, Jay Maguire and our
brilliant colleagues at Blizzard Entertainment
Tommy Tallarico and the Video Games Live crew Roma
Downey - for your inspiration Carol-Ann McKenna, Gearoid Grant, and the staff
and musicians of The National Youth Orchestra of Ireland Paddy
Duffy, Chris Rooke and the staff of the iDIG Music Fest Emer Relihan, Edel
Malone, Conor O’Connor and the brilliant team at Convention Centre Dublin
Malukah, you're simply a legend
Chris Bleth, duduk master Frank McNamara, Theresa
Lowe and JJ McNamara for your constant support and encouragement Malukah,
you're simply a legend Chris Bleth, duduk master Brighid McCaul and our friends at "The Herald" The team at Spin 103.8 FM, Kathryn Ryan, Clara McGinley, and Jamie Crawford
Eamonn Noone - for your rockin' percussion parts
Russell Cooley for saving the day with your last
minute iDIG Music Fest help
To our global YouTube orchestra members - you gave
your time and talent with such good hearts Rabbi Judith HaLevy for your wisdom and guidance
Mary None, for being there when we really needed
you...
written for and dedicated to: Aaron Padraic Noone Garfinkle April 12th, 2012
