From the Mind of an Articulate Composer

Professional blog of Anna Marcus-Hecht. B.M in Composition at Ithaca College. Composer, singer, and more. Check out the links to see some of my work

[articulatelycomposed]

I love the music for Time's Apprentice, and while I've come across the livestream, I'm having a hard time understanding what's said. Is there captioning available? Or failing that, a transcript or script I could use to follow along? I'd love to watch the archived stream, but my ears just won't cooperate with me

Hi! Thanks so much for following Time’s Apprentice! The livestream’s quality is honestly abysmal, I wouldn’t recommend watching that. However, on November 8th at 7pm, I’m premiering the full recorded show on my channel, with a live talk back with some of the actors afterwards!

Also, very sorry if it took a while to get to your question, I’m not super active on tumblr anymore.

[articulatelycomposed]

I really love Time Apprentice! If you don't mind me asking, what are your plans for it? Do you intend to put on a full musical recording for it?

Thank you so much! I’m actually putting on a live performance of it this April and I’ll be putting the recording on my channel. I’ll probably be posting a compilation of rehearsal footage at some point if you’re curious (everyone in the cast is incredible and gets the energies of the characters so well, even though they don’t know the source material)

[articulatelycomposed]

The next number for Time's Apprentice is here. This is the act one finale, where a revolutionary gets burned at the stake for doing nothing more than promoting equality. And for having weird colored eyes. The regime shows no mercy...

If you haven’t seen my other demos from Time’s Apprentice and have a sneaking suspicion you know this story from somewhere, that’s because it’s an adaptation of the ancestor timeline of Homestuck. Quite a few things have been changed to humanize the characters more, but the storyline is still there.

youtube—ko-fi

[articulatelycomposed]

Hey! This is a little out of the blue but I was just relistening to an old project of yours that I was in (The Homestuck New World Parody- I was Eridan!) and I clicked through to your blog and saw that you were a composer and getting a degree in it! I just wanted to say congratulations and also thank you for giving me a chance. I was 16 when we did the project and I'm 19 now and just finished my first music final in college, and I wanted to thank you for giving me chance and encouraging me!

Aaah I remember you! Thank you so much! And congratulations on your first semester of music classes! The fact that fan projects can encourage people to forge a career is so important, this is why I love fandom. (Also, what are you studying? Comp? Voice? I’m curious now)

[articulatelycomposed]

Toby you sly sly fox. How dare you drop another undertale on our heads with barely any notice. One with a gorgeous sung end credits song too. A song that can only be made better with three part close harmonies...(you see what I'm getting at here).

The second I finished Deltarune I knew I had to cover this. It's in a comfortable range, it's has vaguely melancholy secondary chords, what more is there to ask!

Thanks to Rui Ruii the Seal Pianist for letting me use their cover as a backing track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihy0y... 

youtube—ko-fi

[articulatelycomposed]

Time's Apprentice is still underway! This week's video is a reprise to a song that... hasn't been fully written yet..... Don't worry, you don't need to hear the first Darkest Nights to feel the punch of this one (or should I say, feel the sword to the gut). In this song, our beloved mind controlling pirate queen is faced with a dilemma when her fiery revolutionary of a boyfriend decides to break up with her.

If you haven’t seen my other demos from Time’s Apprentice and have a sneaking suspicion you know this story from somewhere, that’s because it’s an adaptation of the ancestor timeline of Homestuck. Quite a few things have been changed to humanize the characters more, but the storyline is still there.

youtube—ko-fi

[articulatelycomposed]

So Adventure Time just ended.... The night the finale aired I spent all night ugly crying over this new song. I swear, Rebecca Sugar is some sort of emotion wizard. Now that it's been a couple weeks I can handle my own tears long enough to actually cover the song. I hope I've figured out the perfect balance of Time Adventure, other AT songs, and melancholy visuals to make you guys cry too :)

youtube—ko-fi

[articulatelycomposed]

The next musical demo is here! Well it’s been here for a week but last week was a little crazy, so I never got around to posting here. Anyway, it’s here now! In this song, a band of revolutionaries tries to convince the servant to the god of time to leave her abuser by telling her their stories of triumph.

If you haven't seen my other demos from Time's Apprentice and have a sneaking suspicion you know this story from somewhere, that's because it's an adaptation of the ancestor timeline of Homestuck. Quite a few things have been changed to humanize the characters more, but the storyline is still there.

youtube—ko-fi

[articulatelycomposed]

This past semester I did some commission work for an indie game. The game has yet to be released and I don't know much about it aside from the music, but I was commissioned to write six short generic game themes for different scenarios. The game itself is very NSFW but the music is just meant to evoke a few key feelings, so they should be enjoyable even without the context of the game.

Just my preference: the best themes are the neutral and not romantic themes :)

[articulatelycomposed]

Another musical demo is done! In this song, a newly enslaved mother mourning the loss of her son is confronted by her master, asking for sexual favors in exchange for a promise of freedom. Lyrics are in the description on youtube.

If you haven't seen my other demos from Time's Apprentice and have a sneaking suspicion you know this story from somewhere, that's because it's an adaptation of the ancestor timeline of Homestuck. Quite a few things have been changed to humanize the characters more, but the storyline is still there.

youtube—ko-fi

[articulatelycomposed]

A few weeks ago I saw Jagged Little Pill (the Alanis Morissette jukebox musical) at the American Repertory Theater. I had been waiting  close to five years to see this show, and my god it surpassed my every expectation. Not only was the plot just so relevant, but the added chorus was phenomenal. They took this set of songs that was already amazing and made them even better.

Of course, what better way to show my appreciation for something than attempting to do a show accurate cover of one of my favorite songs (both from the show and from all of Alanis' music). With the power of memory, theory, and a fan recording I found on youtube, I think I've made something sort of accurate to the show.

The ART run ended last week, unfortunately, but if this show ever gets to broadway, or even just has another run at all, I urge you all to go see it. The world needs a JLP fandom.

[articulatelycomposed]

As the second installment of this song cycle, and second half of its set, Mushrooms serves as an alternate perspective to its partner, Ignore the Elephant. While the first song focused on the man's perspective, Mushrooms explores the woman's take on being ignored and pushed aside, and how that won't last forever, because "our foot's in the door." The text is by Sylvia Plath.

This song cycle (name currently TBD) features three sets of two songs each, with each set featuring a student-written text and a text by a well known poet. The sets each follow a different feminist issue, such as men dismissing women, or the assumption of motherhood.

This performance features Sarah McCurrach as the vocalist and Bradley Berg on piano.

[articulatelycomposed]

The first of an in-progress song cycle, Ignore the Elephant is a piece that discusses how men continuously ignore the needs and desires of the women around them. The text is by my good friend Christine Gaba (@optimists4thewin).

This song cycle (name currently TBD) features three sets of two songs each, with each set featuring a student-written text and a text by a well known poet. The sets each follow a different feminist issue, such as men dismissing women, or the assumption of motherhood.

This performance features Sarah McCurrach as the vocalist and Bradley Berg on piano.

[articulatelycomposed]

A couple months ago, I arranged a bunch of Undertale songs into a piano medley to act as the overture for @lemonlightproductions‘ Genocide musical, and now that the trailer for it has been released, I can share it with all of you! This genocide route piano arrangement folds seven pieces from the game's soundtrack into Megalovania. Doing this arrangement was lots of fun. This isn't my first time arranging Undertale music, I've done orchestral and choral arrangements for it before, but I haven't done it in a while, and Toby Fox's masterful motifs just blend together so nicely.

[articulatelycomposed]

What happens when I have a copy of the full score of Heathers? This. This is what happens. One month, six choral parts, and nearly 200 individual images later, I give you this cover of Beautiful. I hope it's as beautiful as you all would hope it to be.

Art by Sangled

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New Steven Universe episodes were last week! And my god those were some episodes. Of course, with new episodes comes new songs, and with new songs comes me having to cover them.....If you still haven't seen the big reveal, don't worry, this song doesn't spoil anything. It's just your classic sad Lapis.

[articulatelycomposed]

The next number from Time's Apprentice is here! In this song, a jaded hospital worker displeased with the state of the government and the atrocities they force her to commit every day finds a crying child abandoned outside her hospital. She sings him this lullaby, pouring all her insecurities and desires to forge her own path into the song. She eventually discovers that the child was born with an unusual mutation, causing his eyes to be bright red, which would be a death sentence under government orders, so she decides to take the child and run away from her responsibilities.

If you haven't seen my other demos from Time's Apprentice and have a sneaking suspicion you know this story from somewhere, that's because it's an adaptation of the ancestor timeline of Homestuck. Quite a few things have been changed to humanize the characters more, but the storyline is still there.