By David Ellis alunaticsdaydream Bandcamp a-lunatics-daydream SoundCloud ducksual Tumblr.
Cover art by dodostad dodostad Tumblr dodostad Twitter kotijumi DeviantArt.
Released 12/25/2012.
Duration: 3:02.

Listen on Bandcamp or YouTube.

Read artist commentary.

Tracks that A Study In Skaia references:

• Skies of Skaia by Mark J. Hadley

Artist commentary:

David Ellis: (composer, booklet commentary)

I don't really have much to say about this. I'd been messing about on guitar and found that most of the first theme from Skies of Skaia was playable with harmonics in standard tuning, and only the top note wasn't possible. By returning to EADF#BE and putting a capo on at the 5th fret it was possible then to play the whole thing.

The piece was originally just going to be loose reworking of Skies of Skaia using lots of acoustic guitars but then the second theme felt like it needed something more. I ended up adding drums and electric instruments for the second section to lift the piece and finished off with a little guitar improv into the quiet harmonics to finish.

I liked the alliteration in the title and it was pretty much how I thought of the piece. There's not really a reason for the hint to Sherlock Holmes.

David Ellis: (composer, Tumblr)

This is essentially an arrangement of Mark Hadley’s ‘Skies of Skaia’ from the first Homestuck album with lots of acoustic guitars.

I found that with slight retuning and a capo it was possible to play the whole of the main theme with harmonics on guitar and so was messing around with an arrangement based on that and ended up doing this. Without retuning it’s not really possible to play the top note of the last repeat cleanly. It was originally just going to be acoustics but then distortion happened for the second part.

I was kind of using this as a break from the bigger projects I’m working on. Most of the time on this was spent playing the harmonics part wrong, because harmonics mess with my sense of where notes should be on guitar.

dodostad: (track artist, booklet commentary)

I can admit that I had no idea where this was going when I painted it. I don't think I've ever drawn clouds before either haha.