Harp - Blog Posts

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Shai hulyre

hey babe u see the sandworm from dune in a bow tie playing the harp too right?

Hello everyone!

I apologize for the super long delay. My laptop broke and I had to get it replaced plus the video file was too large to post here, but after long last its finally time to post it!

On April 3, 2025, Suite for Poplar received its world premiere at Project 21's April Concert. I am so excited for this piece to finally be heard live. As always I want to thank @bonelyheartsclub for being the driving inspiration behind this project

I also wish to thank @scrambledmeggys for inspiration as well. I learned not to long ago that she had officially departed from the project. While it breaks my heart to see her go, I figured this would be the perfect way to provide a final goodbye.

Thank you all for your continued support <3

Harpist: Emily Duncan

I. Berceuse for a Distant Memory

II. Pastorale for Ash’s Garden

III. Gavotte for a Weak Set of Legs

IV. Lied Ohne Worte

V. Burlesque for a Funny Bone

One more for today! This is the fourth movement of my harp suite. I have just one movement left before the suite is complete! It's super exciting to be able to document and share my compositional journey on here and to have people respond to my work.

As always, thank you to @bonelyheartsclub and @scrambledmeggys for the inspiration

(And once again credits go to Meg for the artwork)

There isn't too much I have to say about this movement, but it does have a unique story, as this movement was originally in a completely different piece entirely! "Lied Ohne Worte" is a German phrase that translates to "Song without words". This phrase has been used as a title in a few works before, but one of the most well known example is the series of short lyrical piano works under the same name by Felix Mendelssohn.

Poplar is very good at singing, and would often only do it with people he trusts dearly, so I imagined a tender and almost bittersweet song that he would hum to the listener whilst playing his harp.

Now where did this movement come from? As I mentioned before, this movement came from a completely different work that was going to be a piano suite inspired by the analog horror series "Boisvert". However, it stalled and wasn't going anywhere, so it got shelved. I remembered writing this movement (It was the second movement in the piano suite and funnily enough, came after a gavotte) and thought: "Well I don't want this to go to waste, maybe it'll fit here". It ended up translating very well on harp and thus it has found a permanent home in this suite.

I had used a melody from the end of one episode in the series, and just developed it further into its own original idea and then added an accompaniment to it. If you wish to listen to the reference source, I have linked it below. The timestamp is 0:25

Here it is! The third movement of my harp suite dedicated to the character Poplar from Bonely Hearts Club! I wanted to create a movement a bit more technical as opposed to the two lyrical movements before, but nothing too difficult to where it falls out of place with the rest of the suite.

As always, if you wish to learn more about the movement, be sure to read below, and thank you to @bonelyheartsclub and @scrambledmeggys for the inspiration for the piece

(Also credit for the artwork belongs to Meg as well)

A Gavotte is a medium paced French dance that was poplularized in the 18th century. Its distinct characteristic is that it starts on the third beat of a 4/4 bar, creating a "hopping quality", and typically follows a simple binary form (Two contrasting sections. A and B with a return to A). Most gavottes you find in music literature are for piano, so I thought it would be a fun idea to write one for harp.

Poplar is said to have a love for dancing, though his preference is stated to be “boogie style from the 80s and 90s”. In order to combine these two components that are essentially opposites, I decided to create a story that helped bridge the gap. Poplar doesn’t have the best legs and often uses a cane to help support him. When he was undergoing physical therapy, he would use dancing as an exercise though he couldn’t jump straight into the fast upbeat songs. As a result, he went for songs that were more Moderato/Allegretto in tempo to help ease him in, and gavottes were one of those things that helped him move. 

Hello! Sorry I've been a bit inactive, however I had made tremendous. amounts of progress on my harp suite, and now I am excited to present the second movement! Personally I absolutely fell in love with how it sounds and is probably my personal favorite movement. Remember that this is only a MIDI audio so the playback has limitations, however a live performance of the piece will be done around early April!!!

If you wish to learn more about the movement, feel free to read below. As always, thank you so much to @bonelyheartsclub and @scrambledmeggys for being the main inspirations behind this piece.

Also... @davetasticdave?! Hello?! We're mutuals now?! Im literally a huge fan of your voice work for the series! It mean a lot that you're supporting what I do ❤️

The second movement took heavy inspirations from pastorales, which are musical works that are intended to evoke peaceful feelings and imagery of nature and rural life. This was a perfect concept to dive into Poplar's close relationship with his brother Ash and his love for gardening. In this movement, I imagine a soft and intimate soundscape more static than the fluid first movement.

The inspiration comes from the first movement of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in G Major (D.894), which in fact, the opening chord is replicated in this piece to start the soundscape. The rest of the inspiration behind the compositional techniques I used came from the era of Impressionism in the early 1900's (Think composers like Debussy, Ravel, and Satie).

One major compositional technique used is the use of parallelism. Parallelism is the movement of chords in the same direction while maintaining the same intervallic relationship between each note. This can be heard a few times such as in 0:57. Parallelism can also be used in single intervals such as in 0:29 with the upper notes.

Another common compositional technique used in impressionism is the use of quartal and quintal harmonies. This piece only uses quartal harmonies, which is the concept of building chords/harmonic structures from intervals of fourths (perfect, augmented, or diminished) as opposed to the traditional chord based on intervals of thirds. This creates an ambiguous tone that can be used to add a different texture into the piece. 0:57 also demonstrates those quartal harmonies.

I submitted this to Megs, but I thought it deserves a post of its own. Im currently working on a harp suite inspired by the character Poplar from the game Bonely Heart's Club. My goal is to write five movements and as I compose this piece, I document everything into a document from my sources, to drabbles about what im doing. Below is me nerding out on what the first movement is about and my compositional ideas behind it. If you were curious feel free to read it.

Thank you to @scrambledmeggys and everyone involved in @bonelyheartsclub for inspiring me to write this piece.

A Berceuse is a style of music characterized by simplistic textures, static left hand patterns, and a 6/8 time signature. It is often similar to a lullaby or a cradle song. Berceuses are intended to be soothing and reflective and it's the latter that I focused on when it comes to the story. I wanted it to be a bittersweet reflection on Poplar's past home (The Underground in the Horrortale canon), and a thought into their future home on the surface. While they do miss Snowdin due to spending most of their life there, they are also happy to move forward and no longer be stuck in a bad place.

How did I achieve this composition-wise?

At the time of writing this movement I was reading Vincent Persichetti's book "Twentieth Century Harmony" and one chapter of the book specifically went into modes and key signatures. To simplify it, the more flats there are in a mode and/or key signature, the "darker" the tone is, and the more sharps means the "brighter". the tone is. To try and combine both elements, I decided to pick a "dark" key signature and mesh it with a "bright" mode. The resulting combination was Bb Lydian. In major key signatures, Bb is on the darker end while not the darkest. Out of the seven diatonic modes, Lydian is the brightest (If you aren't familiar with modes, Bb Lydian is essentially a Bb major scale but the Eb is pushed up to E Natural). Towards the end of the piece I shifted it to F Ionian (it's just a fancy term for F Major). It goes one step brighter in terms of key signatures and one step darker in the terms of modes (F Major is one less flat and Ionian is the second brightest mode behind Lydian). I like to think of this portion as the phase where it focuses on a "bright future" on the surface.