Hildegard von Blingin'

A very belated update

Dear patrons, it has been far too long, so let me first say that I am so sorry for my unexplained absence for the past several months. My day job's contract continues to get extended, so between working full time and an illness in the family (that is thankfully now resolved), I let things get away from me. But I should have updated you all a while ago, so I do apologize for the lack of transparency and communication.

I'm very fortunate to be employed, but also happy to say that I'm re...

Ambient Tavern WIP and Hiatus Announcement

Dear patrons,

I hope you're all hale and happy! I've been working away on this ambient tavern track, although calling it ambient doesn't quite capture the vibe. My intention was to create a soundscape and record a handful of pieces to layer on top, making the listener feel as if they were sitting at a table listening to the band play in the corner. I've created about 10 minutes of content, but I'm hoping to double that so that the whole thing can be looped. It'll be excellent D&D b...

Thanks a million!

On January 2nd, our humble channel passed 1,000,000 subscribers. We're coming up on 5 years of music making now, and it's all still very surreal. I want to say a special thank you to all of you, because I couldn't have made it to this milestone without you. Your support has allowed me to make this a priority in my life, so thank you, I can't explain what that means to me. And a big thanks to the friends, family, and talented colleagues who've also made this possible.

As for this month's...

Once Upon a December

Hello dear patrons, the Yule season is upon us! I wanted to do something cozy and nostalgic this month, so I present to you my cover of Once Upon a December from Anastasia. Nothing strictly Bardcore here, since it's more of a faithful cover, but there is such a timeless quality to this song that sends me right back to childhood.

I had fun altering the art for this one, and discovered an artist whose work I now really admire. Michael Stennett was a costume designer who worked with The Me...

A Wintery Original and the Pink Pony Club Instrumental

As promised, here's a last minute November extra for you all! I've attached the instrumental for Pink Pony Club, which in this case is the backing track with the vocals removed.

I've also included a short song I wrote for Winter time called Hearth Song. It was inspired by classic folk tunes like The Parting Glass and Auld Lang Syne, as well as Loreena McKennitt's gorgeous yule-themed album To Drive the Cold Winter Away. I've attempted to sin...

I turned Chappell Roan's Pink Pony Club into the Pink Pony Inn

Hello everyone, happy November! I hope that those of you in the darkening parts of the world are adjusting to these early sunsets and keeping your spirits up. It felt like the right time to finally tackle this song, so may I present my cover of Chappell Roan's Pink Pony Club.

A couple fun facts about the lyrics:

• LA and Tennessee became Calais and Annecy, respectively. These two cities are on opposite ends of France, and are under 200 leagues apart (it's more like 150, but ...

  2024-11-22 23:07:18 +0000 UTC View Post

Sally's Song from The Nightmare Before Christmas

Hello all! This will be going live tomorrow on Youtube as my video for the month of October. This song was such a fun one to cover—Danny Elfman has always been a hero of mine. I extended the original a little bit with an instrumental verse since it's really quite short without it.

My next move is to start on my cover of a Chappell Roan song. I'm always hesitant to share what I'm attempting next in case it doesn't work out, but for transparency's sake, I will be tackling Pink Pony Cl...

October Update

Hello dear Patrons! The leaves are crunchy here and spooky season is upon us. In between working on my usual Youtube videos, I've been slowly remastering and fixing up my older songs for Spotify. I've learned a lot since I started, which is funny, because songs take me twice as long to create now as they used to. I just chalk that up to my perfectionism and the arrangements becoming more complex.

Also, if you're interested in a little tech update, I never mentioned that I got myself an ...

Birds of a Feather

Hello dear patrons! The leaves are falling, the weather is turning moody, and I find myself listening to the soundtrack from "Over the Garden Wall" more. Happy belated Autumn Equinox!

This will be going live on Youtube this week, but you guys get first look as always. Billie Eilish is a tricky one to give the Bardcore treatment because her style is so distinctly contemporary, but I persevered through this one. I'll take any excuse to add a bunch of harp glissandos and dulcimer sparkle...

Caritas Abundat - By Hildegard Von Bingen

Good day everyone!

I'm back from my sojourn in Europe with my dad, where I visited six countries, sang in two empty churches, and accidentally ate the hottest pepper of my life in Serbia. I tried to find inspiration wherever I could, and discovered it in all sorts of interesting places. There was a little music listening nook in Buda castle where I felt a spark of something ignite.

I decided to go back to the roots of this channel and recorded another one of OG Hildegard's compo...

We Didn't Start the Fire

As hinted a few times, here is the massive project my brother and I have been working on. This truly was a labour of love, and I hope you all enjoy it. The video will go live for everyone else on Youtube tomorrow.

One important update: I'll be pausing the Patreon for August because I'm heading off to Europe on vacation with my dad! We'll be travelling through a number of countries and I'll do my best not to get burnt to a crisp. So you won't be hearing from me until September, but...

AI and the Future of Bardcore

Folks, I've decided to outsource my work to AI. Now I'll finally be free to stop making music or art and just lie face down in a field somewhere.

I jest, I jest. Please enjoy this exploration into the current landscape of AI generative music. I learned a lot in the process, and have taken the edge off my existential dread just a little bit.

Out of curiosity, how has your profession or hobby been affected by the tide of AI? Have you been personally impacted? It feels like it all ...

Behind the Scenes | Episode 3

Good day, I hope you're all enjoying the end of June! Here is another behind the scenes episode, in which I explore the language and vocabulary of Bardcore. If you've ever wanted to hear Dr. Dre get the Shakespeare treatment, you'll want to hear this one.

Just a little personal update—this week my brother, who goes by Friar Funk on the channel, is getting married! We're all very excited for the festivities. Do you have anything exciting happening this Summer?

House of the Dragon - Rhaenyra Targaryen Theme

Happy June everyone! It's been so gorgeous out here, which means recording takes between neighbours loudly mowing their lawns. Not very Medieval of them! It would be so much quieter if they all switched to scythes.

Now this is a little embarrassing, but I haven't actually caught up on season 2 House of the Dragon yet. My intention was to post this song and then watch after as some sort of reward, and my family has carefully spared me from any spoilers. If you're watching, how are you en...

Three instrumentals and phone backgrounds

Dear patrons, I am just squeaking through the gates on the last day of May. I've been working away on a new piece, but in the meantime I also wanted to give you three new instrumentals and some bonus Bardcore phone backgrounds just for fun!

Eventually I will probably upload some instrumentals to Youtube and Spotify, but you'll always be the first to hear these well in advance. I've attached high quality wav files, but won't be offended if you decide to compress them into mp3s for ease...

Black Summer - Red Hot Chili Peppers - ft. Collin Vodicka

I hope you're all having a merry month of May! This song would perhaps would hit different in July or August, but it's already heating up where I am and I've been wanting to cover this since the first time I heard it on the radio.

This cover features the talented Collin Vodicka on the Irish flute and duduk, which originated in Armenia. Please check out his work here:
Website: https://www.collinvodicka.com/ ...

Behind the Scenes | Episode 2

Hello again dear Patrons! I hope you've had an excellent April, wherever you may be. I've spent most of it working on my next cover, which will hopefully come out in May. I've selected a song by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and I'll be joined by a woodwind player from Boston! I'll be sure to post it here first.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy another look behind the scenes where I delve into four of my covers and the songs that inspired them. Thank you for your continued support, and...

My Most Historically Accurate Song Yet

My dear patrons, I hope you will indulge a more serious attempt to recreate a Medieval piece with as much authenticity as I could muster. This required a great deal of research, and I had to learn how to play several new instruments in order to complete it. Wishing you all a very joyous Spring!

Soldier, Poet, King, but it's in a minor key and 50% more Medieval

Hello everyone, I hope this finds you in excellent spirits! Due to popular demand, I roped my brother Friar Funk into singing on another cover. We created a twist on the song Soldier, Poet, King by The Oh Hellos (their debut album is very Bardcore in flavour and I highly recommend it).

This was a tricky challenge because the song is already very folksy sounding, and has been popular with the D&D and fantasy nerd crowd since it came out. I decided to switch it to a minor key, slow...

I collaborated with Crusader Kings III to create an original song for Legends of the Dead

It's been tough sitting on this one for a few months, but the day is finally here! Paradox approached me a while back about writing a song for their expansion Legends of the Dead. The brief was to make something themed around death, legend, and memory, so I approached it as a bit of a funeral dirge. The video I've linked contains the extended version of the song, but I have also attached the short instrumental version I created.

I pulled inspiration from were "May it Be" and "Into the ...

Bardcore "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Elvis

Happy Valentine's Day lovely folks! I appreciated all your well wishes on my last post. I'm dealing with some long covid symptoms, but my voice is mostly back and I have lots of ideas. The release of my video game collab was pushed to next month, so stay tuned for that! I've also been recording some more trailers for Inkulinati, the Medieval turn based strategy game where I voice Hildegard herself.

Today's video is a Patreon exclusive! I've always loved this song made famous by Elvis,...

Please stand by!

My dear patrons, I apologize for my absence of late. I fell ill right after Christmas with a pesky common cold, and just as I thought I was getting better, I came down with the plague itself. You know the one.

I managed to get part way through a new song for the channel, started working on my back catalogue of instrumentals for Patreon, and also started a really exciting video game collab that will be coming out next month. All that being said, there is really only so much I can do w...

Krampusnacht - A Cautionary Carol Inspired by John Williams

Joyous Yule, everyone! I'm sorry it's been a wee bit quiet here; I've been working away on a few things at once, but hope to post at least once more before the end of December.

Krampusnacht was on December 5th, but it's never too late to caution your children not to go wandering in the woods. This piece was inspired by "Double Trouble", which was written by John Williams using Shakespeare's words. I wrote the lyrics and tune for this as a sort of Christmasy companion piece, and called ...

Wicked Game Bardcore Cover ft. Aaron Dolan on Uilleann Pipes!

I'm SO excited to share this cover with you all because I had the pleasure of working with Uilleann piper Aaron Dolan, who provided the pipes and whistles for this track. Also known as Irish Bagpipes, the Uilleann pipes are an Irish national treasure, and even if you've never heard the name before, you've probably heard them in a soundtrack (Titanic, for instance). Even Braveheart and Outlander, which are meant to be Scottish stories, used these distinctly Irish pipes.

*Edit: Due to a ...

Baba Yaga: Witch's hut in the forest ambient fantasy music

Good day, dear patrons! My apologies for the wait on this, but I'm very excited to present my first ambient song. Witch hut in the forest won by a good margin in the poll, so this piece is based on that prompt. And of course, which witch hut is more famous than the chicken legged house of Baba Yaga? I created the cover from scratch and included lots of spooky and cozy textures to create some moody Autumn vibes. I'd love to know if you end up using this in a D&D game or just in the backgro...

Help me pick a theme for a spooky ambient track!

As foretold, I plan on creating the odd ambient track to put on in the background while you work or play D&D. Since we're still in October, it's going to be a spooky sort of theme. Please help me pick from the options below, and keep an eye out for when I post the download! Voting ends on the 29th. EDIT: This is 99% done but just needs to be mastered. I'll be posting the track the first week of November!

Come Little Children - From Hocus Pocus

Here's a sneak peak at the video I'll likely be posting tomorrow. If you've never seen Hocus Pocus, it's a campy 90's Halloween cult favourite with music by the late great James Horner. I hope you enjoy this creepy yet relaxing lullaby. 

Instrumentals for Creep, Bad Romance, and Jolene

Good day, dear patrons! I'm so honoured to have you all here, it really means the world to me. I and wanted to say thank you with a patron-only post to distribute some long-foreshadowed instrumentals.
I'll be sharing these a few at a time because the process is a bit more complicated than just removing the vocals. I've added various instruments to carry the melody on these three, and hope they serve as useful background music in your studying or D&D sessions. Maybe you put on some Bar...

Behind the Scenes | Episode 1

Hello all! I'm thrilled to share this first episode of my Behind the Scenes series with you all. In this video, I explore the inspirations behind my covers of Bad Romance, Creep, and Jolene, and share a bit about my creative process. If you decide to support the channel here on Patreon, you'll have access to future episodes like this one.