[Freecol-developers] New Anthem sounds

[Caleb Williams]

Hey all:

I was reviewing the open bugs and I came across BR # 2043 (a copy of this
text will be copied there as well) concerning the missing sound files for
the four national anthems of the FreeCol-ruleset nations.

In that spirit, I composed a short portion of the opening of each of these
four anthems needed. I also have recorded files for the four original
anthems so that they maintain a consistent sound. For the Danish and
Russian anthems, I chose an earlier anthem that would have been used at
least in the 1800s.

I notated all eight with a professional notation software (Finale) used
professional sound samples (Garritan Personal Orchestra) to produce each
anthem. I then tweaked the levels and any dead air in the resulting WAV
file. I converted each file to OGG in Audacity so it can be used by FreeCol
with no further tweaks.

Each anthem is written for a brass quintet (2 trumpets, 1 horn, 1 trombone
and 1 tuba). The melodies are for the most part well known, while the
harmony has been either adapted from the original or written from scratch
(Dutch). As far as I can tell, all eight of the originals are old enough to
be within the public domain. It could be argued that less contemporary
instruments could be used as samples, but I don't have any libraries with
any older brass samples.

I have included a zip file with each anthem to the bug report at
https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/bugs/2043/. I look forward to your
feedback.

I will have to look at some more native music, and have added a note about
that as well.

Thanks,