The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #402: Musical Interlude – Making “Riding a Rainbow” Part 1

Making a synthpop instrumental track for a flying sequence in The Thirteenth Hour inspired by When in Rome's "The Promise."

The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #402: Musical Interlude – Making “Riding a Rainbow” Part 1

https://archive.org/download/podcast-402/Podcast%20402.mp3

This week, I’m starting work on another music track that I’ve been meaning to make for a long time.  There’s this section of The Thirteenth Hour where the main character, Logan, who is shipwrecked and bereft of anything to help him on his mission, encounters a magical flying hoverboard he calls Lightning that he can communicate with that can play also play music as it flies. 

Just at that second, I tried to scream as Lightning shot upward suddenly, but my voice was still somewhat hoarse. All that came out was some kind of croaking sound. Then she hung a hard right, shot into a loop with a couple of twists thrown in, and straightened out high above the clouds. My stomach, however, took a little longer.

“Guh … give me a minute to recover,” I panted.

“Okay. It’s pretty much a straight trip from here, so we’ll take it easy so you can get used to doing turns and things like that. Of course, you can always count on me to fly, but I thought you’d like to give it a shot yourself.”

By shifting my weight left and right, I was able to make turns. By leaning forwards or backwards, I could either climb or dive. I even tried a tentative loop with all the grace of a one–legged stork.

“Hey, not bad!” flashed the message board. “See, it’s not so hard!”

“I guess …” I said.

“Logan, I know what you need! A little attitude! How about some music? ‘Cause there isn’t much to see up here. Just clouds, and when you’ve seen one, you’ve pretty much seen them all. And there’s nothing like music to boost your confidence!”

“Music?” I asked, a little surprised.

“Yes. One of my unsung talents.”

“Hey, Lightning, that was a joke! Well, kind of, anyway. I think that’s called a pun.”

“Really? Well, see, things are looking up already!”

I heard a sound suddenly. Or sounds, rather, but they were like nothing I had ever heard before. The music sounded slow, at first, then it picked up pace, until the speed of the music matched the speed of our flying. It was strangely futuristic, but at the same time, it seemed like I had always known the melody.

There were words sung, too, but in a language that I neither understood nor wanted to understand; somehow, the mystery of the words added to the mystique of the music. In a way, this is in vain, as my description here will do no justice to the melody, because there are some things that are perhaps impossible to describe in words and are better left unspoken.

I felt, at that moment, an incredible rush of energy and indescribable exhilaration. I felt ready to take on the world – or, at least, a dragon or two. All my fears of flying vanished like the mist of the rainbow behind us. The feeling of gliding through the air with the wind rushing through my hair, sleeves and pant legs flapping back and forth, and the music rushing up to meet my ears was indescribable. But it is perhaps best compared to that day, long ago, when, as I stood at the top of the hill near the castle, looking out at the landscape around – I let the wind take my hand and lead me to dance.

The music I envisioned at the time was When in Rome’s “The Promise:”

So I’ve always intended to make an upbeat, fast paced synthpop song for this segment of the book.  I decided to make this one with a steady beat at 120 bpm with the chords of The Thirteenth Hour theme in the key of C – more of less the same chords used in “The Promise” and “Forever Young” by Alphaville (another one of my favorites from that era and still, now).  I’m still working out the lead, but you can listen to what I came up with so far on this episode.  Hopefully, when it’s done, it will make good background music for the DnD Patreon episodes we’ve been doing, perhaps for a battle or a chase or another time upbeat music is required.

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Check out the growing line of Thirteenth Hour toys and other products on the Thirteenth Hour Studio Etsy store (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio).  There are a number of custom figures from retro films being sold for charity that available there as well. 

Check out this collaboration with past show guest Jeff Finley on handpan: 

Follow along on Spotify!  There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!

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