(idea) by WWWWolf Fri Mar 30 2001 at 21:19:40

A Midkemian bar hit.

In taverns of Midkemia, travellers often entertain each other with their musical skills. For beginners, this is often a good way to get the tavernkeeper's wrath on your neck. (Torturing small animals is often forbidden in tavern rules - that sort of racket drives away the customers.)

Okay, this song really is a melody that appears in computer game Betrayal at Krondor. It is a central theme in the game; many other music pieces are variations of this theme.

The only use in that game for the "barding" skill is that you can (as implied above) play lute in taverns and perharps get money - or get thrown out if the performance is worse than what the tavernkeeper and listeners in general think it should be.

Thus, the game soundtrack includes many, many badly played versions of the tune! =)

Regrettably, the song presented below belongs among one of those bad versions:

  • The melody isn't 100% perfect. Wrong key, and both parts start wrong. Well, I guess this is enough to get the idea of the tune...
  • My music transcribing aids aren't that great. I mostly did this with ditty and Rosegarden... Modifying the tune and tweaking it and getting it perfect in Rosegarden is hard for me ATM because Rosegarden needs MIDI output and that isn't yet working for Aureal Vortex2 cards. I used TiMidity for output. Needs playing the whole tune every time, not nice. Whine whine whine...
  • Oh, and did I mention: No accompaniment and fancier patterns, just the melody?

If you think your ears can handle this, get Lilypond and rock on. Be the greatest Bard on this side of Kingdom! 

%{

 This Kingdom Mine
 =================
    The famous bar hit from inns of Midkemia

    ...and also a central theme in other parts of the background music
 of computer game Betrayal at Krondor. Composed by Jan Paul Moorhead.

 Entered by Weyfour WWWWolf (Urpo Lankinen),
    wwwwolf@iki.fi
    http://www.iki.fi/wwwwolf/

 Tune (c) Dynamix 1993. The, uhm, arrangement was done by y.t. =)

 Notes:

 Not a completely waterproof version, as everyone can hear! I guess
 this is enough to make everyone's ears ache. =(

 Damn, this is what you get with no MIDI keyboard and no MIDI
 synthesis, producing this almost something-sort-of-like-real-sounding
 version was sort of painful. Well, it's *almost* there. Think
 of Owyn playing the tune with 80% skill level. I think this will
 drive you out of the inn anyway... =)

}%

\version "1.2.7";
\include "paper23.ly";

\header {
        title = "This Kingdom Mine";
        composer = "Jan Paul Moorhead";
        enteredby = "Weyfour WWWWolf (Urpo Lankinen), 30 March 2001";
        tagline = "";
}

Melody = \notes
        {
        \key E; \time 3/4;

        [b8  dis'8]  e'2  |
        [dis'8  e'8]  gis'2  |
        e'4  fis'2  |
        gis'4  b2  |
        [cis'8  dis'8]  e'2  |
        [dis'8  cis'8]  b2  |
        gis4 fis2 |
        r2. |
        [b8  dis'8]  e'2  |
        [dis'8  e'8]  gis'2  |
        e'4  fis'2  |
        a'4  gis'2  |
        e'4  cis''4.  b'8 |
        [a'8  fis'8]  gis'2  |
        dis'4  e'2  |
        c'4  cis'2 \bar "|.";
}

\score{
        <
                \Melody
        >
        \paper{  }
        \midi { \tempo 4 = 140; }
}

I like it!