Created by SonsOfSerendip: "In the year of the Great Pandemic, a cinematic pop quartet called the Sons of Serendip, consisting of cello, harp, piano, and a vocalist, found themselves in quite the predicament. Due to the social distancing decree, enacted by the kings and lords across the land, they found it difficult to procure performances. In need of means to maintain their livelihood, they turned to recording, licensing, and scoring. In their research of said means, and software instruments to realize their new venture, they serendipitously stumbled upon the great Sir Christian Henson of Spitfire Audio and his bold project, The Piano Book. You see, Sir Henson was of the school of thought that the common good could best be attained not only by providing the hungry with fish, but teaching them how to fish. More concretely put, providing software instruments only gets your pupils so far; but teaching how to create them enriches the entire community. And so, under his remote tutelage, the Sons of Serendip sat out to create their own software instruments for their projects, the first of which is the one now in your possession: Micah’s Choir.

I, Cordaro, the arranger for Sons of Serendip, called upon Micah, a theologian by training, musical empath by blood, and a phenomenal cantor to boot, and asked him to channel his being into 4 dynamic layers of bleeding heartache; to reflect the pain latent in recent global affairs. Due care was taken to not numb or sterilize the pain, but to allow each note and layer to have its own idiosyncrasies. Simply move the modwheel and you will feel the ache in each layer. And to honor the current zeitgeist, a time where many find it hard to breath, the sighs and gasps for air that followed each note were assigned to release triggers. Play the note at high velocities for a quick jolt of ache. Play the note at low velocity for more of a growing throb.

And to pay homage to the isolation in which we find ourselves, move the lever called “Reverence.” In the words of the great Blaise Pascal, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Let the reverberation of an empty impulse reflection bring you to reverence and solemnity as you do your part to solve the ache in the world.

Download it for free here: https://www.pianobook.co.uk/library/micahs-choir/

Micah's Choir

A selection of 10 tracks submitted in October 2021.

Pianobook sample packs used:

01 Epic Fireworks
02 9000ft Piano
03 Frozen Glock
04 Autumn Piano
05 Yamaha Glockenspiel
06 NFO Alternative Chamber Strings
07 Micah's Choir
08 The Gaffer
09 Pleyel Felt
10 Apartment Sounds

Download all these sample packs and many more absolutely free at www.pianobook.co.uk

Monthly Highlights - October 2021

Made using only https://www.pianobook.co.uk/library/nfo-alternative-chamber-strings/

Encounter

Mastered by Audio Culture: https://makeitloud.co.za/mastering

https://www.pond5.com/royalty-free-music/item/203158783-snug-acoustic-romantic-nostalgic-guitar-and-bells
https://www.pond5.com/royalty-free-music/item/203158840-snug-acoustic-romantic-nostalgic-piano
https://www.pond5.com/royalty-free-music/item/203158727-snug-acoustic-romantic-nostalgic-piano-and-guitar

Knus

featuring 
pianobook - epic fireworks
dan keen - melodyne samples

streetlights in autumn

This is a demo for Autumn Piano from Pianobook
https://www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/autumn-piano/
I ran it through delay effect and layered it with a little bit of stratus matrix piano.
DK Cello spurs also featured, alongside some olafur arnalds composer toolkit

cold warm

Treated Like a Captain from my EP Soul Sampler, Vol. III
This instrumental composition was inspired by the late Chris Coulon, who, following a life dream, went on a sailing adventure.
His identical twin brother Robin described to me:
Chris bought a 43′ trimaran in the Florida Keys, then took it to and through the Panama canal. He sailed and motored to Acapulco where he tried to get the boat repaired unsuccessfully. He tried 3 times, but then tried to sail north to California since he couldn’t get satisfaction in Mexico with repairs. He made it about 500 miles west of Baja California when a storm tore his sails and he lost the function of his motor. He was picked up by a huge Norwegian freighter with Norwegian officers and a mostly Filipino crew traveling from South America to Taiwan and taken to Taiwan in an officer’s cabin and had all his meals with the Captain and officers. Chris said he was ‘treated like a captain’ and given lots of help when he arrived in Taiwan.  

Listening and downloading options for the song can be found at this link: https://www.smarturl.it/SoulSampler3

A bit about the sounds: Many of the sounds I played in this composition/recording were from https://pianobook.co.uk including but not limited to: Tunnel Bodhran and Christian’s Piano recorded by Christian Henson, and Micah’s Choir recorded by Micah Christian and Cordaro Rodriguez (Sons of Serendip members, Season 9 of America’s Got Talent) I loved playing on keyboard Micah Christian’s voice samples in this composition because his voice, especially when layered, reminds me of, and aligns with the expansive and magical qualities of the ocean!

Soul Sampler, Vol III

Treated Like a Captain

This track was created as part of the pianobook project using "Micah's Choir," a sample instrument I created using the voice of Micah, from our quartet, the Sons of Serendip. I also used sounds from Spitfire's Labs, which are all free sample instruments.

The following LABS instruments were used:
- Soft Piano
- Strings 2: Bartok Pizz Ensemble
- Amplified Cello Quartet: Slide up
- Frozen Strings: Super Sul Tasto Violin
- Frozen Strings: Harmonic Bird Song
- Opia: Sub Bass


To find out more about the Piano Book project, how you can get involved and to download many more free sample instruments visit

www.pianobook.co.uk

For further information and updates visit

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh…jA7uvVnIDayerm1zl

Submerged

Fathers Day, and Make Music Day 2020. So I used two new instruments from the Pianobook roster to re-work a scene I wrote for a small film that never got made. About returning soldiers from the 1st WW.
Using from Pianobook - Micah's Choir and Hunter's Ampex Ecosystem / BBCSO Discover / Cello Textures by Ben Osterhouse.

A Long Walk Home

Rose Campion is another one of my favorite flowers. Every June we have thousands of them glowing around our front yard. Here's what they sound like. OK, not really, this was just another case of fooling around with new, mostly free virtual instruments to make a miniature piece of music. The beautiful group vocals are Micah's Choir from Pianobook. The soprano is Clare Solo (free from Ivy Audio). The background pad is RIOT Audio's Bowed Glass Clouds (free today). And the wooden Jubal Flute is from Embertone (not free). I also used Bunker Strings Vol. 1 (also not free). https://www.pianobook.co.uk/library/micahs-choir/

We Are The Campions

An ambient hymn featuring the wonderful "Micah's Choir" as well as "Requiem" and some other libraries available from Pianobook. (https://www.pianobook.co.uk/) Also includes live ambient electric guitars. Original photo by Joshua Earle at Unsplash

Ache

Steven Cravis is a pianist and composer of ambient soundtracks. His music has appeared on CBS, NBC, CNN, Animal Planet networks as well as on the award winning puzzle app Quell.