The sounds of Azir

The Sounds of Azir

Alien music and languages from beyond the Impossible Gate.

Languages

Fonts

All fonts on this page are freely distributable.

Sound samples

Music

Zireen music

Sangari music

    • Vini (2013), a small sample of Sangari music (maqamic[17] tuning, sounds from Garritan World Instruments and Jazz & Big Band)

    • So Riiva Jetsyndari (2013), an experiment with using UTAU to sing in Tirelat. The text is from Relay 9 (2004).

    • Khojda rugi u room (2013), aka "The Other Side of the Mountain". Varan Mataki (Utau) singing in Tirelat, with a Garritan Jazz & Big Band guitar tuned in golden triforce[15].

    • Fü Margareļ (1999), a translation of Hanleni Halsen by Irina Rempt. Zêl Mok (Utau) singing in Jarda, with a Garritan Jazz & Big Band guitar tuned in starling temperament.

    • Têz Azida-ṛa ķa śiv (2000), text from the third Conlang Relay. Zêl Mok (Utau) singing in Jarda, with a Garritan Jazz & Big Band guitar tuned in starling temperament.

Impossible songs

    • Larhakim (2013), translation of the traditional carol "We Three Kings", in golden triforce tuning. Vocals: UTAU (Varan Mataki), guitar: Garritan Jazz & Big Band.

    • Zirakaj ma šëłkida, or "Fear not the harvester" (2014). A song from the album "Officials of Chance" (Saj Zumbadin u Muntrhu) by the group Indigo Snail Religion (Guuri N̨ałti Ruz). Vocals: Utau (Varan Mataki), instruments from Garritan World Instruments and Garritan Jazz & Big Band.

    • Miṛ ("Sing") (2014). I like to think this is the song that started my interest in languages many years ago. Vocals: Utau (Zêl Mok). Instruments from Garritan Jazz & Big Band, Garritan World Instruments.

    • Jĕmëriłan sy reev (The world is round) (2014). Vocals: Utau (Varan Mataki), instruments from Garritan. Tirëlat translation of "Because" (The Beatles).

    • Ee khaktsy (Little star) (2014), translation of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". Featuring MAIKA on vocal.

    • Ŗudoł, tiskjul sŏlvazni (Rudolh, fire-nosed ice-deer) (2014), Jarda translation of "Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer". Vocals: Utau (Zêl Mok), instruments from Garritan World Instruments and Garritan Personal Orchestra.

    • Tyšwi vë xeev (Dust in the wind) (2014), Tirëlat translation of "Dust In The Wind", with MAIKA on vocals and Garritan instruments.

Mizarian music

Theory and experimentation

    • Alpha Blending (Carlos Alpha scale, brief example)

    • Beta Testing (Carlos Beta scale, brief example)

    • Gamma Correction (Carlos Gamma scale, brief example

    • Music to accompany the short poem fosi tambranipan by Roger Mills. 10-note "double slendro" mode of lemba temperament.

    • An example of gorgo temperament.

    • Improvisation in 17-note MOS of beatles temperament.

    • Experiment with 15-ET guitar (Acoustic Guitar from Garritan Jazz & Big Band).

    • Unfinished attempt to write in 11-ET from 2002-2003 (Pianoteq, Garritan Personal Orchestra, World Instruments, Jazz & Big Band).

    • Jack of All Trades, blackjack scale, 21-note MOS of miracle temperament.

    • Three versions of "Lu-doq o trang how leng-dr" (2013, from a translation by Roger Mills): porcupine, 8dino (equal steps of 148.13 cents), and diminished (Garritan Personal Orchestra, Garritan World Instruments).

    • "Lu-doq o trang how leng-dr" with lyrics in Gwr by Roger Mills, sung by TONIO. Tuning: porcupine[8].

Older music

Retuned classical music

Featured article: Singing in conlangs with Utau

Utau is a Japanese program that sings by stringing together bits of sampled voice. The nice thing is that you can record samples of your own voice and sing in different languages! It's a lot of work to record and mark up all the samples, but it's not that complicated once you get the hang of it. Here's a song I wrote in Tirelat, from my translation of the Relay 9 text: So Riiva Jetsyndari.

Utau can be found at http://utau-synth.com/ (click the "ダウンロード" link ... it means "download" in Japanese). The first thing to know if you're installing it for Windows is that the system locale (under Regional and Language Options) needs to be changed to Japanese. That only affects non-Unicode programs, and I haven't had any issues with the majority of programs I use, but you might start seeing occasional Japanese characters in some programs (mostly the backslashes on the Command Prompt will look like yen signs.)

The next thing you'll want if you can't read Japanese is a patch to add English menus. Some menus and dialog boxes are still in Japanese, but it's better than all Japanese. Extract the res folder from this zip file and put it under the UTAU directory where Utau was installed.

http://ux.getuploader.com/utau_a5/download/33/utau_a5_35.zip

Actually learning to use Utau isn't the easiest thing, but at least there's an English translation of the user manual.

http://utau.wikia.com/wiki/UTAU_User_Manual

Here's a few tips to get started:

    • Add new voices from the "Bank Regist." tab on the Option dialog. I've got an example of a Tirelat singer, Varan Mataki. Extract the zip file anywhere that's convenient, browse to it with the Select... button, and click Add to add the voice to the list of registered voice banks. And here's the ust file for "So Riiva Jetsyndari".

    • Don't check the "use resampler.dll for rendering" box in the options. It does bad things with the sound in English versions of Windows.

    • The crossfade buttons (P2P3, P1P4) are important for smooth transitions between sounds. I can't tell the difference between them, though. I just use P2P3. I've seen some sites recommend that you select everything and click ACPT, P2P3, ACPT, but I can't tell what effect the ACPT button has.

    • Mode2 is best for editing pitch bends and vibrato. You can right click the note and select "Pitch..." from the context menu, or right click on control points to manipulate them in the piano roll. (It helps to zoom in when you're editing pitch bends.)

    • When I recorded the Tirelat samples, I used CVC syllables like "fif" and "zoz". You can get a CV and a VC sample both from the same sound file that way. I haven't had luck with isolated consonants or CC diphones. Utau was designed for Japanese, so it might not work well for languages with lots of consonant clusters.

New: download the updated oto.ini and the ust file for "Xojda rugi u room".