Derethil and the Wandersail (from Stormlight Archive)
Reading through Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn and Stormlight Archive books, there's a few things that caught my eye (well, ear) - the sound of the allomantic pulses, the listeners’ rhythms, the roar of a chasmfiend, and the stories Hoid sings. Out of these, the one that I wanted to explore the most is the scene where Hoid tells the story of Derethil and the Wandersail to Kaladin using just a flute and the reverb of the chasms. And a small fire. And probably magic. So, challenge accepted: create the background to a narrated story using one flute and a load of delay.
For those of you who haven't read the book or read it far too long ago to remember it in any detail, here's what I'm working with: (I’ve skipped some parts)
At the very tip of the peninsula - surrounded on three sides by chasm - Kaladin found a man sitting on a boulder, wearing a lighteyes’ black uniform. A small fire of rockbud shell burned in front of him.
... 'This is a Trailman's flute,' Hoid said, inspecting the length of dark wood. 'It is meant to be used by a storyteller, for him to play while he is telling a story.'
... He played it differently from flutes Kaladin had seen - instead of holding it down in front of him, Hoid held it out to the side and blew across its top.
... Hoid stopped abruptly, but the notes continued to echo in the chasm, coming back as he spoke.
... Just as the echoes faded below, Hoid began to play again, picking up the rhythm. He actually seemed to continue just where the echoing notes grew too soft, as if there had never been a break in the music.
(Story obviously by @brandonsanderson and part of this book which you should totally get)
So, one flute with only echos to support it. Now, I'll admit this straight away - I've cheated a little bit on a few things. More on that later.
FINDING THE FLUTE
So, we have a wooden flute, played like a concert flute. The sound I imagine for the this is something like a chinese dizi flute (which sounds like this) and an indian bansuri flute (which sounds like this)
Here’s cheat number 1. For what I've written, the trailman's flute would have to have a range of four octaves. However, the range of a bansuri is usually 3 octaves, and a dizi's range is around 2.5 octaves. BUT these flutes come in a variety of different sizes. So let's imagine Wit's flute is some sort of hybrid of an alto and piccolo range of these. (I've no idea how that would work but let's pretend I do.)
Amongst the story itself, the description calls for the music to imitate or call to mind a king walking through courts, mallets pounding, saws cutting, lapping waves, and a lament for someone who had passed, amongst other things. So I used the various timbres and articulations of the flute to work that into the mix as well.
A lot of articulations. That’s them all on the left.
CREATING THE CHASM ECHOES
Next story element to figure out: the chasm echos.
I needed the melody to echo in time and to last long enough for someone to tell a section of story over it. So I needed both short echoes and long echoes, all working together to produce the sound.
I had a look at a few echo videos. Here's one with a canyon echo, and it's surprisingly clear.
Here's one which shows how a reverberating space can hold the harmony of a phrase with shorter notes.
And a final one in the middle of a canyon.
So I've built the echoes in the track to follow a few paths, as it were - the chasm ‘Wall Echo’ that bounces around in the chasm every few seconds, the ‘Canyon Echo’ which is more like a pad that traps the softer notes to imply the harmony, and the chasm ‘Floor Echo’ which has a massive delay allowing it to happen again during the narration.
For the short Wall echo, I added a couple of delays to happen every few measures. This meant that I had to write each melody to function like a round (canon), harmonising and interacting with itself, and if you go back and change one note it affects everything after it. Tricky.
With the soft Canyon echo, I used Cheat number 2 - I picked out the notes that defined the harmony the most and put them in a loop through a ton of reverb. (These are the yellow tracks in the screenshot above)
And for the long Floor echo, Cheat number 3: I just bounced the original melody and moved it under the narration. Sorry, echo purists. (It’s the light blue ‘fake echo’ track in the screenshot)
THE VOICE OF HOID
Obviously this whole thing would be very difficult to do without a Hoid to read it. So, I asked my friend Andy to become Hoid for the day, plied him with some good food and wine, and he put all of his drama school talents into the task.
Here he is in the story-recording fort we built, looking very dramatic.
So after editing all that and adding a bit of fire sfx and some sneaky sub-bass notes (cheat number 4) for a bit more atmosphere, the whole scene was pretty much set.
And there it is! Hope you enjoyed it, and that you’re looking forward to the fourth Stormlight Archive book, and finding out where that flute went… That’s what I’m wondering anyway.
Say hi on twitter - @timsteemson
or instagram - also @timsteemson
or say hi on instagram to Andy’s cat - @aslan_dean