By Hilary Troiano jaydeis Tumblr ← Bittersweet Previous track by this artist → Shooting Star Next track by this artist.
Cover art by Killian Ng cargocollective.com Other KLLiiNNG Twitter viivus Tumblr → Bargaining with the Beast Next track art by this artist.
Released 10/25/2011.
Duration: 4:28.

Listen on Bandcamp or YouTube.

Read artist commentary.

Tracks that Homefree references:

• Shooting Star by Hilary Troiano
• Homestuck Anthem by Clark Powell
• Sburban Jungle by Michael Guy Bowman
• Upward Movement (Dave Owns) by Kalibration

Tracks that reference Homefree:

From Fandom:

• Heritage for the Future by Kanishka

Artist commentary:

Hilary Troiano: (composer, Tumblr)

Someone sent me a PM asking for some commentary about my two MSPA songs, so here it is.

Hilary Troiano: (audio commentary transcript)

(Before talking about this song, Hilary talks about her other song, Ace of Trump, with those sections transcribed on that song's page.)

Um, my other song, Homefree. This one's got less to it, like [laughter] my first goal of this song was actually for me to learn how-how to use a program called Fruity Loops Studio, um... 'cuz, up until this point all of my music had been done with a program called Melody Assistant, and in some ways I really love Melody Assistant like, I have this whole sound database to it that makes it really have an incredibly authentic sound to the instruments but, on the other side of the spectrum it has very little synth options, which, whi-which is really the direction that the MS Paint Adventures music team has moved in, um. So I was like alright alright, let's learn how to synth a bit. Um, and so, in some ways um, Homefree draws a lot from a song I wrote AGES and ages ago, it was a song called Shooting Star which, I mean i-it was kind of basically supposed to sound like an anime opening and it did but i-it... it was missing something. Like, it was very mor— it was more of in a minor key and it was slower, and so I was like, alright. Well first things first I'm gonna try and get this up to, what was it the tempo of [incomprehensible] I don't know how you say that. It's an opening of an anime that you may or may not have heard that just is really high energy and I was like 'Okay, so, if I wanna have a high energy song I probably should try and make it sound about this fast' [laughter].

So, the opening of Homefree is basically the opening of Shooting Star and, then, then I started like, I was like you know, after you get past the opening it's not really good until you get to the ending and so I was like 'What else can I put in here?' and so I started putting down the Homestuck theme just because it was easy and jumped to mind, and so, when that, when that really seemed to work I was like 'You know what? Let's throw in more bits of different Homestuck songs in there' like, after the um Homestuck theme, what really... what I think most people don't really notice is that the next part actually sounds like, like the like Suburban Jungle like, it's-it's moved down about one note but it's like, Suburban Jungle is like [singing] and then, and then in Homefree it's [singing] y'know it's basically the same melody.

Um, and then, then it moves into another part which is... kind of hard to hear but there's a little bit of Dave Rocks- Rocks at this Game? Is that what it's called? Wow I don't even know the songs of the MS Paint Adventures music team, I'm the worst member! [laughter] But anyway, anyway, but you can hear like the [singing] underneath the violin melody and then after that it goes into what was the ending to Shooting Star which is this, um... it-it's um, I think it's one of the strongest parts of the song because it's a... It's basically like, it's supposed to sound like kind of like just like breaking free you know like, like it rises and then at the very end it just, goes off into it's own place um...

One of the other interesting things about Homefree- waitwaitwait, I need to address something about Homefree [laughter] okay so, I know the MS Paint Adventures music team, we get a lot of people say 'Ohh this sounds like this this sounds like Touhou this sounds like' I don't know um [laughter] I didn't mean to make this sound like a Pokemon song, I realized after it was already out there that, yeah, that ther-there's a part to it that really does sound like a Pokemon battle theme [laughter] oh god! That wasn't intentional, that really wasn't intentional but um [laughter] I guess that's what happens when you're part of the Pokemon fandom for so long like I mean I w— I was actually a really really obssessed fan for a while like-like I don't know if any of you, if you've been to Bulbagarden, if you've ever used the Bulbapedia or listened to the Bulbacast, yeah I used to be part of all that I used to be like the top editor of Bulbapedia and I used to like just rant about how Brock was the greatest character ever on the Bulbacast [laughter] I don't really do that anymore now and so that's part of the reasons why it's so embarassing that [laughter] my music sounds like Pokemon music [laughter] oh god! Okay okay anyway, um... yeah anyway, so.

One-one thing that I-that I did wanna make it sound like though and I don't really remember what inspired this but, in the last section I was like 'You know what? Um, since this is- since time is such a big theme in Homestuck, I think I'm gonna try and make it sound like the Westminster bells playing here' and-and so you hear those [singing] which actually isn't how the Westminster bells go but y'know what, screw it! That's how I remember them because, I don't actually hear the Westminster bells that often. [laughter] No, that's a lie, I used to hear them all the time in college and I still don't remember exactly how the notes go, um. [laughter]. So, anyway, anyway. Um... but... wait no, I remember now! I remember what led to it! Because I noticed that exactly at 4 minutes and 13 seconds into the song like it-like I was like 'It would sound really good if there was just a bell chiming here and it's-and it's like [singing]' and then I was like, I was like 'You know what? Let's-let's make it sound like this is where the clock strikes twelve and it's like, so earlier there's the Westminster bells which starts, which plays right before... right when the clock strikes mid-midnight or noon or any sort of twelve, and then at 4 minutes and 13 seconds in it starts chiming, um, like that's when the... final countdown ends, whatever you wanna call it, like when the, when the timer runs out and hits zero. Um, and for a bit I actually considered since the-th-it actually only chimes four times, I was thinking of having just eight more chimes of it while nothing else was playing. I... didn't actually go with that though because I thought that would just sound weird and artsy to most people like you know, why didn't the song already end, why can't I go on listening to the next song... but I don't know, anyway. [laughter]

Long story short, um... actually I don't know what is the long story short. Well i-it's basically, um, it's not quite the Homestuck theme. I-i-it's, I do-I don't think it's gonna be used, I don't think Hussie's ever gonna use any of my stuff but, you know I'm, I'm really happy whenever I get anybody saying that they like my work, like, that's really one of the best things about writing music I'm not even gonna lie. I mean, I love doing all kinds of art, I love, I love writing, I love drawing, I'm not really that great at anything except programming [laughter] but, um, one of the things I love most about music um, is, when you're a musician, there's... uhh how do I even explain this... um it's like... a lot of people really love it, but there's so few people who really know-know how to get into it like, they think that you know, you have to be a really blessed singer or, or um... like you need to have just been born playing the saxophone or something and, you need like uh, an agent recognize you- I don't think any of that's really necessary to really, just start writing music and start enjoying it like, I-I-I think people would— it's kind of like any art, it takes, it takes some practice and then all of a sudden you'll start surprising yourself like 'Wow, did I really make that? Is it really possible for someone to make something that sounds like this? Is it possible for me to make something that sounds like this? I don't need help, I can do this on my own?' Um, or maybe that's just how it was for me I mean... I, I... sometimes I still think it's kind of amazing that I can make anything never mind something that, gets-that's part of such a really amazingly talented team such as the MSPA music team... [laughter]