Description
Guided By Starlight is an epic tale of a traveler on a journey through a cosmic desert landscape to find the sacred location where the stars will grant him a wish; it is aurally painted in a hybrid orchestral style. Deep in the desert at the point where the moon is closest to the Earth lies the Solar Relic. Legend says that those who present a wish that originates from a purely selfless intent will have a single wish granted on the night of the Star Storm, the largest meteor shower of the year. This voyage has action and adventure, exploration, interesting and helpful strangers, as well as joy, peace, sadness, loss, and love. Follow along on this emotional journey as this traveler traverses the celestial desert, all the while guided by starlight.

Message from the artist:
Here is the story to accompany the soundtrack. Please feel free to read along while you listen!

1. One Cosmic Night: The scene opens and the traveler finds himself in an unfamiliar yet tranquil environment surrounded by sand dunes and a brilliant violet sky with bright stars, sprinkled stardust, and a moon in the distance illuminating the landscape. He wonders to himself which way to go. He recently embarked from home, leaving his wife and baby child at home to search for the Solar Relic to ask the stars to grant him a wish on the night of the Star Storm. This theme accompanies peaceful exploration of the beautifully cosmic area.

2. Mapping Constellations: Without clear landmarks in the desert, the night sky opens the key to navigation. He must map out the constellations in order to determine which way to proceed. The constellations shed light on the path forward. This calm theme uses many suspended chords to evoke the sense of curiosity and uncertainty of deciphering constellations, while at the same bringing a sense of contentment at the progress being made. Mapping constellations is intended to be a central task of this game offering a respite from exploration in the overworld.

3. Let Fortunes Be Told: The constellations guide the traveler to a small outpost adorned with glowing crystals and bottles filled with neon-colored bubbling solutions. Inside a tent he finds a lovely, but quirky elderly woman who introduces herself as a fortune teller. This piece is intended to highlight her quirkiness and round-about-ness as it uses elements of lydian mode and modulates back and forth between C major and Bb major. She predicts the traveler’s fortune, sensing a dark secret that the traveler is hiding deep within himself, but can see that he seeks the Solar Relic for noble reasons. Peering into her crystal ball, she sees the missing constellation that he needs in order to proceed on his quest.

4. Where Star Kids Sing: Now being set in course toward the Solar Relic, the traveler continues onward with more purpose. As he journeys through the cosmic desert, he sees many wonderful things including a waterfall with water flowing in both directions, animals that can swim through the air as if it were water, and many exotic plants that illuminate the landscape with vibrant bioluminescent greens, pinks, and blues. The traveler now finds himself in a flat expanse and notices a strange sense of serenity as stardust sparkles silently float downward around him. As he slows his movement and listens around him, he thinks he can make out a hint of young voices coming from above him. As he closes his eyes and lets the heavenly atmosphere envelope him, the voices soon turn into a choir of singing young stars. This piece is composed to highlight the tranquility of this particular area. You can hear the star kids’ singing grow as he moves closer and closer to his destination.

5. Captain of Sand and Sea: Crossing over the next sand dune, the traveler sees that the moon is getting bigger and closer to the horizon. The next expanse has a new breeze that is warm and purposeful in the exact direction the traveler is headed. With gentle hills and swells of sand and occasional pools of water in his path, the traveler is pleased to find a small boat with a sail intended for sailing across both the sand and water. This action-filled piece accompanies the newly invigorated sense of adventure as the traveler glides up and down the sand dunes and across the pools of water in his quickened pace toward his goal. This piece features the dorian mode to give a sense of sea-faring action with a strong sense of forward momentum. The use of full orchestra highlights the excitement the traveler feels in his new high-speed mode of transportation as he nears his destination.

6. A Starlit Prayer: Having finally reached the Solar Relic, the traveler pauses before slowly stepping up to the pedestal with the moon large and bright in front of him. He thinks back to the dark secret the fortune teller sensed and a tear falls from his eye. Thinking of his wife and baby, he clasps his hands together and raises his chin toward the stars and presents his wish. The dark secret is a cancer growing inside of him that he knows will soon take his life. All he asks of the stars is that his wife and baby will be okay when he is gone and that they feel his love surrounding them everyday for the rest of their lives moving forward. The night sky then erupts in a brilliant display of shooting stars as the Star Storm begins and a light cascades down to the traveler. The stars sense the purely selfless desire and grant his wish. The contemplative nature of this piece highlights both the sadness and love that the traveler experiences in these moments of prayer. His journey has ended and he has succeeded in his goal, and whatever comes to pass in his short future, he can finally be at peace knowing that his family will be cared for, guided by starlight.

Theme:

Wish upon a star

Picture theme

How does it fit the theme?
I wrote this original soundtrack to fit both the picture theme as well as the text theme “Wish Upon a Star”. To fit the picture theme, I created my story around the image, with the setting in the desert and the destination being the place where the moon is close to the Earth. I also incorporated the boat, depicted in the sand dune, into the story, allowing the traveler to use it to navigate both a desert sea as well as giant swells of sand. To fit the text theme, I incorporated wishing on a star as the central premise of the story. Musically, I used instruments that evoked a space-like feel with synthesized echoes and high-end reverb in juxtaposition to instruments that evoke the sense of being in a desert including traditional sitar and other gritty instruments to set the environment. I prominently use piano as it has a soft and round quality but still with quick percussive attack, mirroring the way shooting stars transiently but smoothly streak across the night sky. I also use choral voices in a few of my tracks to emphasize the human emotion impacting the story, and to add a celestial and heavenly aspect to the acoustic imagery. Musically, I carefully selected harmonies to evoke certain emotions depending on the scenario: spacey unresolved suspension chords to depict to the cosmic expanse of the desert night, playful lydian with modulation and use of tritones to depict the quirkiness and whimsy of the fortune teller, a lilting and driving dorian for the boat theme to depict sea-like action, etc. Additionally, wishing upon a star implies hope as a central theme and feeling, and throughout my OST, I tried to insert moments of deep emotion, culminating in the heart-wrenching hopeful wish in A Starlit Prayer. Every piece of this OST was carefully selected to correlate with my interpretation of the theme and therefore, Guided By Starlight embodies the themes in its entirety.

Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://soundcloud.com/user-639826435/sets/guided-by-starlight

Soundtrack use permission

Yes (CC BY-NC)

Any non-commercial project