Note: TURN UP VOLUME

This project has been I think one month in the making. I even made a news post about it a while ago to hype it up, and here it is. A full complete (mostly electronic) symphony with 3 movements based on the Karelia suite, a suite by one of my favorite composers (Sibelius, which also happens to be the name of a certain well known music software). Here is the link to his masterpiece: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=adKwG9ZuzFw

I basically started off with me shortening the first movement and publishing it on SoundCloud, followed by deciding to make it a big release rather than 3 separate songs for the sake of not being repetitive. I will now go through each of the three movements to give you more insight into what I had in mind making each.

0:00-1:56: this is the first movement, Intermezzo. It serves as an introduction, and so to streamline the original’s 19 minute length and being forced to shorten the second movement considerably, I also made the other two shorter to match. The Intermezzo was the first movement I made way back when and it didn’t really do much experimental, I just shortened it mainly and added some original harmony at the end post production. Nothing much else to say so let’s move on.

2:00-4:53 this second movement, the Ballade, was nearly 12 minutes long in the original I believe, so I kept that spirit by making sure this felt like the longest in the whole suite but without extending it out too much. It’s also the one I did the most experimentation with, going out of my way to choose actual instruments rather than synthesizers in an effort to separate it from the other movements. I also at 2:18 and at other points in the movement added a slight pitch effect because I thought it sounded nice and broke up the very strict note style (does that make any sense?) when it comes to tuning. Other than that, I did add some original stuff in that one as well, mainly dealing with the structuring and harmony. However, up comes the main appeal of this song, the big attraction, the third movement.

4:47 until the end, comes the Alla Marcia. Clearly, this was a march in the original, and I tried to keep that spirit. By removing some of the beginning and ending, I kept the focus on the main melody in f major. I also extended this section from the original as I vastly prefer that part to the rest of the movement. The third movement was the one I did the most original things with, creating new melodies, structuring, harmony, etc. As a result, I think it might be the best of the three, as much as I enjoy the Ballade.

Making this was a task in and of itself. I essentially made 3 songs and combined them into one song using the import file feature. Because they were all mixed differently, I had to adjust the volume and other settings, especially at the end. FL studio doesn’t let you slow the tempo midway through the song, so I had to make a new song just for the ending. As a result there’s a weird cut near the end that I can’t do anything about. I HAD to slow the tempo because if I didn’t, it wouldn’t have sounded like a grand finale. Also the reverb acted weird there and I can’t fix that either, despite many tribulations. There were many other technical difficulties that I had to work around to get this to work properly. This all applies to Washington in particular by being about the forests of Karelia which I paralleled to the forests and cold landscape of that state. But anyways, what else can I say, this project is finally done! Not sure if I’m going to do this again though as it did take WAY longer than expected. Enjoy!