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The Sierra Soundtrack Collection

(1992)

The Sierra Soundtrack Collection Liner Notes The Sierra Soundtrack Collection Jewel Case Back The Sierra Soundtrack Collection CD

This collection of 20 tracks was selected by the composer, Mark Seibert, and comes from King's Quest V, Codename ICEMAN, Police Quest 2, Conquests of Camelot, Quest for Glory I, Conquests of the Longbow, and the love ballad from King's Quest VI (the only piece with vocals here). The booklet accompanying the CD includes comments by Seibert on all his pieces. You can read a review of this collection here.

"When starting this project, it was hard to pick from a couple hundred or so pieces of music that I've written over the last few years for Sierra On-Line computer games. I thought of all the people who have written to me about favorite songs or spots in games, songs that people here who worked on the games enjoyed, and songs that were special to me. After realizing that all that wouldn't fit on one CD, I cut it down to the songs included on this project. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed making it."

- Mark Seibert             

King's Quest 5
by Mark Seibert

Code-Name: ICEMAN
by Mark Seibert

Police Quest 2
by Mark Seibert

Conquests of Camelot
by Mark Seibert

Quest for Glory I
by Mark Seibert

Conquests of the Longbow
by Mark Seibert

King's Quest VI
by Mark Seibert

 

From the CD liner notes...

  1. King's Quest V Theme - See Track 02.

  2. Graham's Theme - The two pieces above are from the opening sequence. Both are significant in that they carry strong motifs from which much of the music for the game was derived.

  3. Cassima's Theme - This theme is played when Graham meets Cassima in the kitchen of Mordack's castle. When King's Quest VI was being designed and I found out that Cassima was a major character, I thought it natural to spin off the Girl In The Tower from the basic motifs in this piece, thus tying the two games together.

  4. The Bandits - During the last few weeks before shipping a game, it seems everyone at Sierra is playing it. With King's Quest V it was no different, except that perhaps more people were playing than usual. It is during these times that a musician gets to know what the favorite songs are by listening to people humming or whistling as they walk through the hallways. I don't know that this was necessarily the favorite. Maybe a lot of people got stuck at the bandit's tent that day. I don't know, but it seemed this silly little song was whistled on more than one occasion during that time.

  5. The Dark Forest - When I started writing the music for King's Quest V, this was one of the first pieces I wrote. King's Quest IV started a sound for the King's Quest series by featuring the classical guitar, and having a degree in classical guitar I felt very comfortable in continuing to write in that style. The solo guitar accompanied with the occasional bassoon, cello, owl, and cricket seemed the perfect backdrop of sound.

  6. Crispin's Theme - This is the music that underscores meeting Crispin during the opening sequence. I chose the bassoon to represent magic users in King's Quest V and since Crispin is a Wizard, his theme is built upon the bassoon carrying the bass part. It made for an interesting counterpoint between he and Cedric, who was represented by the clarinet. During the game one might notice the use of the bassoon with other characters like the Witch and Mordack.

  7. King's Quest V Closing Sequence - This is the music from the closing sequence. It's a long piece that covers a number of the main themes from the game as Roberta did what was in my mind; a curtain call. As each character is featured, their theme is recapped.

  8. Whitney - Both this song and cut number 10 (FunkQ) are songs the band in the bar is playing. When I saw the band in the scene I thought it a natural to have the band playing the music for the background. The band has a song list of 4 or 5 tunes (I can't remember which) but I do remember spending lots of time on this with Mark Hood, the programmer of the scene.

  9. Love Theme/Morning - This is a sequel of two pieces that were written around a certain person you meet in the bar. Without giving away too much of the story, let's just say you spend the night and wake up in bed alone.

  10. Funk Q - See "Track 08".

  11. Police Quest II Theme - A vicious killer has escaped from prison. Armed and dangerous, he's out to get even with the cop who put him away. Other than a very short little piece in King's Quest IV in Lolotte's Castle, Police Quest II was the first game for which Sierra asked me to write. About 6 weeks before they were going to ship the game, they came to me and asked if I could throw something together. The Police Quest Theme was the first thing I did.

  12. Camelot Credits - Solve the enigma of the Holy Grail as you cross Europe and the Middle East in an action-packed quest to find three missing Knights of the Round Table. This is the opening credits music. The theme is weaved into a number of the pieces of music through the game. I enjoyed writing the music for this game. At school, I spend much of my time studying early music, since I was a guitar major.

  13. Opening Sequence - Much of the music for the opening and other sections of this game were written while I was out playing golf. I would often work in the mornings cleaning up sequences I had done the day before. Then I'd hit the golf course about two in the afternoon. I found just playing and walking helped clear my mind so I could concentrate on the music. When I would get home from the course, I would input the music I had developed in my head while playing. The golf course is now one of my favorite places to compose (and hack.)

  14. Glastonbury Tor & The Mad Monk - Glastonbury Tor was one of my favorite places in the game. The music and pictures were kind of strangely peaceful. That is, of course, until you talk to the monk about certain things!

  15. Quest For Glory Theme - Your custom-designed character is a graduate of the Famous Adventurer's Correspondence School. Rescue the children of a powerful Baron and defeat the schemes of an evil witch. You'll confront magic spells, weapons, and wicked opponents. But, be careful, the road to glory is full of challenges. The Theme and Battle Music from Quest For Glory has stuck with the game throughout the series. It was a challenge to orchestrate these pieces out on an MT-32 or AdLib card. Here you will get a chance to hear a more complete interpretation of what these pieces were supposed to sound like.

  16. Battle Theme - See "Track 15".

  17. The Magic Meadow - Of all the music I've written for Sierra over the last few years, The Magic Meadow is the one I've received the most mail concerning. So with all of the requests for it, how could I leave if off. Besides, this is my dad's favorite and if it wasn't included on this recording, he'd probably write me out of the will.

  18. Longbow Opening Sequence - The opening sequence for Longbow was written as a piece to be sung by the troubadour. The words for the piece were given to me by Christi Marx and I was supposed to set them to music. Since by nature of the style this gets rather repetitive, I tried to set each verse to a subtle arrangement depicting the tone of the words and the actions on the screen. My first thought was to record this with the words, but after much debating, it ended up as the instrumental version you hear on the disc.

  19. Map/Abbey/Hedge/Fens - I found the music of Longbow to be rather relaxing and peaceful and thought perhaps a collection of segued guitar pieces might make for a nice piece. The Abbey music was written as a traditional Gloria using the Latin, Gloria in excelsis Deo. For fun, can you figure out how the words fit to the music?

  20. Girl In The Tower - The industry event of 1992!  Sierra assembled the best writers, artists, animators, and programmers to create the biggest chapter in the best-selling computer game series of all time. In this richly textured adventure, you help the shipwrecked Prince Alexander make his way through a series of mysterious islands. Each island holds unique surprises and is populated with such amusing and terrifying characters as the Five Gnomes of the Senses, the Winged Ones, and the Lord of the Dead. This game is so detailed, it's quite possible for you to come to the end without seeing or solving everything. Fully 30-40% of the encounters are optional, so beginning players can complete the story with plenty of challenge but a minimum of frustration.

    Girl In The Tower was an idea I came up with when I found out that King's Quest VI was going to be a love story between Alexander and Cassima. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to write a top 40 type love ballad to be sung as a duet. As I explored the possibilities, I found some of the motifs from the original Cassima theme worked well in this style...
 

Crib notes:

All selections were re-orchestrated during the summer of 1992 by Mark Seibert in his home studio. Recording of the sequences took place at Maximus Recording Studios in Fresno, California the first week of September 1992. All the selections were recorded onto a 2-inch 24 track format at 30 ips. Engineering and mixing was done during the middle of September by Jeff Hall at Maximus along with an occasional hand in the way by Mark Seibert.

Extra musicians include:

Ron Delarm (Guitar on Girl In The Tower)
Bob Bergthold and Debbie Seibert (Vocals on Girl In The Tower)
John Ayala (Sax on Whitney, Funk Q, and Police Quest II Theme)

(All Tracks STEREO 44.0 kHz 128 kbps)
Produced by Mark Seibert and Jeff Hall
Copyright 1992 Sierra On-Line/Published by Sierra On-Line BMI

 

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