Post by captainch on Nov 2, 2022 8:30:39 GMT
Hello y'all.
Now, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post about this, but I decided I might as well give it a try as a last resort. It's not like this media is lost (maybe it could be?), but it's simply 'unidentified.' At least, it's been proven difficult for specifically me to pin down what I'm looking for, but it may prove very easy for someone else to pin it down. I've been quite obsessed with finding this for a long time, but I've not been able to reach the kind of satisfying conclusion I want. I know where to start looking, but I tried looking in that spot and went out the other side empty-handed. Maybe it's OCD or I'm tone deaf or something. What I really need is input from other people, and that's why I came here. I also apologize if this post is long-winded.
So, allow me to explain what I need help looking for.
There exists a well known turn-based strategy game series by the name of Sid Meier's Civilization. I assume I don't need to explain what the games are about. In the sixth and latest game in the series, the soundtrack for all the civilizations (with a few exceptions) are based on real traditional folk music for the culture the civ represents. So for example, if you play as Australia, you will hear Waltzing Matilda. If you play as America, you will hear Hard Times Come Again No More. If you play as England, you will hear Scarborough Fair. This makes playing the game as a specific culture feel really authentic, and this has fueled my passion for traditional/early music.
Anyways, each civ has a 'main theme' that plays when you start the game and advances through the technological eras, and the main theme will evolve with the era you're in, going from using one or two instruments at the start to a full on orchestral arrangement in the later eras. Waltzing Matilda, Hard Times Come Again No More, and Scarborough Fair are all the main themes for their respective civs in this game.
Each civ also has a set of 'ambient themes' that play irregularly throughout gameplay. These will usually be lesser known folk songs or original compositions altogether. There are exceptions of course. One of England's ambients is Greensleeves, and I would be hard pressed to find anyone with at least a cursory knowledge of traditional music who doesn't know what Greensleeves is. Most ambients have a clear name and can be easily searched on YouTube or Spotify to find the original folk song they were based on. Other ambients are named more ambiguously in the files, like 'guitar improv 4' or 'court music 2' or 'Altai folk song.' Some of these do end up being found as real folk songs, but it's still not entirely clear to what extent this is true for all the ambiguously named tracks. I've kind of taken it up as a mission to find all the music that was used as a source for the music in Civilization VI, including all of the ambient tracks.
This finally leads me to what I'm looking for. Lately I've been homing in on the music for the Polish civ. Here is a playlist of all the music tracks that are used for Poland: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR2pbIMGdPmHK6x0WZenSpXAtVKs8wJc2
For the longest time, people only knew about Hej Ide W Las (the main theme) and Czerwienne (also known as Czerwieniaska). The other three tracks are titled ClarinetFolkDance, FestivalDance, and PolandAncientDance (titled simply 'Folk Dance' in the YouTube playlist). Obviously, they proved difficult to track down with the vague names. Around a couple months ago I asked Roland Rizzo, a composer who worked on the music for the game, about the music he used for Poland. Here is what he said:
- - -
"When I was researching Traditional Polish folk music, most of the results were Polkas, which didn't even originate in Poland. But I did find this CD, which is where all of the melodies I used for the Polish Civ are from:
www.amazon.com/Polish-Folk-Traditional-Music/dp/B000ETRB7C/ref=sr_1_4?crid=14A4A1W0T3Y8A&keywords=Polish+Folk+%26+Traditional+Music&qid=1661704736&s=music&sprefix=polish+folk+%26+traditional+music%2Cpopular%2C74&sr=1-4
Quite a few of these were vocal, so if I used one of those, they were rearranged to be instrumental. Also, almost all of these pieces were renamed by someone who probably looked at the Polish names and said, no.
The Clarinet Folk Dance probably refers to the first track of the CD: Wprowadzony (Introduction Piece)/Clarinet Solo Folk Dance. I remember using Wprowadzony, but not the second half of the piece, which is the Clarinet Solo.
The Polish Festival Dance is: Gdzies Byl Jasinku (Where were you Johnny?)
I can't remember the PolishAncientDance, sorry, but that's definitely not its original name."
- - -
Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't list the songs in the album anymore, but fortunately I made a Google doc with the list of songs and Spotify links so you can listen to all of them: docs.google.com/document/d/1jjXolf5cR8rSlo1PhNkvvA_t1WhVp9tpr3KyNIvNadk/edit?usp=sharing
The album on Amazon seems to be a compilation of songs from three other albums put together, so that's why they are listed in different albums on Spotify.
As I expected, I listened to Introduction Piece/Wprowadzony and Where were you Johnny? and sure enough they matched the music in the game. Now I just had to find the PolandAncientDance by myself. I tried looking multiple times though and I wasn't able to pin it down exactly. A lot of the melodies sound pretty similar to me, and there's no easy way for me to compare them side by side since I don't really know music theory or anything like that. It also doesn't help that these are recordings from the 50s at latest and they don't have the best quality. Personally I'm leaning towards it being a mostly vocal song with the string instrument in the game version replacing the vocals. If I had to put out guesses, they would be The Lark Sings, Beggar’s Carnival, Hey Kepa, I’m not afraid of the Uhlan, and Johnny sits on a Chestnut Horse. They could be one of those or none of those. But I do feel confident in taking Roland Rizzo at his word that all of the tracks he used for Poland were based on songs in this list. I also have somewhat of a gut feeling that it isn't any of the songs in the 'Fire in the Mountains' album, due to their heavy use of fiddles which would have fit more with other Poland tracks. So what I would like help with is figuring out which one of these folk song tracks is closest to the song in the game. Feel free to listen to all of the tracks on the list, and I will appreciate any pointers or potential solutions. I just hope I'm not crazy for obsessing over this
Now, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post about this, but I decided I might as well give it a try as a last resort. It's not like this media is lost (maybe it could be?), but it's simply 'unidentified.' At least, it's been proven difficult for specifically me to pin down what I'm looking for, but it may prove very easy for someone else to pin it down. I've been quite obsessed with finding this for a long time, but I've not been able to reach the kind of satisfying conclusion I want. I know where to start looking, but I tried looking in that spot and went out the other side empty-handed. Maybe it's OCD or I'm tone deaf or something. What I really need is input from other people, and that's why I came here. I also apologize if this post is long-winded.
So, allow me to explain what I need help looking for.
There exists a well known turn-based strategy game series by the name of Sid Meier's Civilization. I assume I don't need to explain what the games are about. In the sixth and latest game in the series, the soundtrack for all the civilizations (with a few exceptions) are based on real traditional folk music for the culture the civ represents. So for example, if you play as Australia, you will hear Waltzing Matilda. If you play as America, you will hear Hard Times Come Again No More. If you play as England, you will hear Scarborough Fair. This makes playing the game as a specific culture feel really authentic, and this has fueled my passion for traditional/early music.
Anyways, each civ has a 'main theme' that plays when you start the game and advances through the technological eras, and the main theme will evolve with the era you're in, going from using one or two instruments at the start to a full on orchestral arrangement in the later eras. Waltzing Matilda, Hard Times Come Again No More, and Scarborough Fair are all the main themes for their respective civs in this game.
Each civ also has a set of 'ambient themes' that play irregularly throughout gameplay. These will usually be lesser known folk songs or original compositions altogether. There are exceptions of course. One of England's ambients is Greensleeves, and I would be hard pressed to find anyone with at least a cursory knowledge of traditional music who doesn't know what Greensleeves is. Most ambients have a clear name and can be easily searched on YouTube or Spotify to find the original folk song they were based on. Other ambients are named more ambiguously in the files, like 'guitar improv 4' or 'court music 2' or 'Altai folk song.' Some of these do end up being found as real folk songs, but it's still not entirely clear to what extent this is true for all the ambiguously named tracks. I've kind of taken it up as a mission to find all the music that was used as a source for the music in Civilization VI, including all of the ambient tracks.
This finally leads me to what I'm looking for. Lately I've been homing in on the music for the Polish civ. Here is a playlist of all the music tracks that are used for Poland: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR2pbIMGdPmHK6x0WZenSpXAtVKs8wJc2
For the longest time, people only knew about Hej Ide W Las (the main theme) and Czerwienne (also known as Czerwieniaska). The other three tracks are titled ClarinetFolkDance, FestivalDance, and PolandAncientDance (titled simply 'Folk Dance' in the YouTube playlist). Obviously, they proved difficult to track down with the vague names. Around a couple months ago I asked Roland Rizzo, a composer who worked on the music for the game, about the music he used for Poland. Here is what he said:
- - -
"When I was researching Traditional Polish folk music, most of the results were Polkas, which didn't even originate in Poland. But I did find this CD, which is where all of the melodies I used for the Polish Civ are from:
www.amazon.com/Polish-Folk-Traditional-Music/dp/B000ETRB7C/ref=sr_1_4?crid=14A4A1W0T3Y8A&keywords=Polish+Folk+%26+Traditional+Music&qid=1661704736&s=music&sprefix=polish+folk+%26+traditional+music%2Cpopular%2C74&sr=1-4
Quite a few of these were vocal, so if I used one of those, they were rearranged to be instrumental. Also, almost all of these pieces were renamed by someone who probably looked at the Polish names and said, no.
The Clarinet Folk Dance probably refers to the first track of the CD: Wprowadzony (Introduction Piece)/Clarinet Solo Folk Dance. I remember using Wprowadzony, but not the second half of the piece, which is the Clarinet Solo.
The Polish Festival Dance is: Gdzies Byl Jasinku (Where were you Johnny?)
I can't remember the PolishAncientDance, sorry, but that's definitely not its original name."
- - -
Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't list the songs in the album anymore, but fortunately I made a Google doc with the list of songs and Spotify links so you can listen to all of them: docs.google.com/document/d/1jjXolf5cR8rSlo1PhNkvvA_t1WhVp9tpr3KyNIvNadk/edit?usp=sharing
The album on Amazon seems to be a compilation of songs from three other albums put together, so that's why they are listed in different albums on Spotify.
As I expected, I listened to Introduction Piece/Wprowadzony and Where were you Johnny? and sure enough they matched the music in the game. Now I just had to find the PolandAncientDance by myself. I tried looking multiple times though and I wasn't able to pin it down exactly. A lot of the melodies sound pretty similar to me, and there's no easy way for me to compare them side by side since I don't really know music theory or anything like that. It also doesn't help that these are recordings from the 50s at latest and they don't have the best quality. Personally I'm leaning towards it being a mostly vocal song with the string instrument in the game version replacing the vocals. If I had to put out guesses, they would be The Lark Sings, Beggar’s Carnival, Hey Kepa, I’m not afraid of the Uhlan, and Johnny sits on a Chestnut Horse. They could be one of those or none of those. But I do feel confident in taking Roland Rizzo at his word that all of the tracks he used for Poland were based on songs in this list. I also have somewhat of a gut feeling that it isn't any of the songs in the 'Fire in the Mountains' album, due to their heavy use of fiddles which would have fit more with other Poland tracks. So what I would like help with is figuring out which one of these folk song tracks is closest to the song in the game. Feel free to listen to all of the tracks on the list, and I will appreciate any pointers or potential solutions. I just hope I'm not crazy for obsessing over this
