Donna bus

What it is about

A magical musical story, replete with sound effects, for granddaughters Edie and Ida.

How it was written

One winter's night, after a prolonged absence, the Muse returned with a vengeance. Using what looked suspiciously like a crowbar she entered our house, levered me out of bed, and delivered this lecture:

"Stop overthinking the music. Start with the form instead. Treat the piece as a story. Plot it as a series of scenes. Write the lyrics for the scenes. Convert each scene into a complete musical phrase. String the phrases together. Add sound effects. Make the whole thing visually appealing."

On the way out she turned round and shouted:

"And stop messing about."

🕮 The story 🕮

Scene 1 Cave

I don't like

I don't like this place

We don't like this place

Its 🌨 cold, ⛈ wet, full of 🐍 🐍 🐍 snakes

Whats that (what?) over there?

Is it a 😀 smile? (oh no) its a 🐊 crocodile!

Scene 2 Search

Lets get out of here, lets go this way

Hi ho silver 🐎 away

Scene 3 Frights

Lets open this door 🚪 [creak]

👻 ghost 😱 Eek! Shriek! 👣

Lets open this door 🚪 [creak]

👾 monster 😱 Eek! Shriek! 👣

Lets open this door 🚪 [creak]

🎃 cackle 😱 Eek! Shriek! 👣

Lets open this door 🚪 [creak]

🎶 ABBA concert 😐 Ooh! Umm!

Scene 4 Escape

We've seen the 🌈 light

Jump 🍾 POP

Here comes the 🌅 sun

Its 😎 bright!!

Scene 5 Rescue

📯📯 Parp Parp!

Donna! 🎉

𝄆 Donna is a 🚌 bus

Donna is a 🚍 bus

Donna is 👯 our bus

She belongs to 💛💜 us 𝄇

Scene 6 Home

Can we go 🏡 home now?

Can we go via the ⛵ Bay of Biscay?

Its a very unusual place 🤔

Its ...

Credits

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking over the universe. The popular ChatGPT and Claude excel as virtual assistants doing in-depth research about music. At the moment they do not generate music but they can generate code which you can paste into a programme such as Python or a website such as SoundsFree to produce music and sound effects.

Digital singers abound throughout the ether and Singing Voice Synthesis (SVS) is a marvellous tool although there are issues with plagiarism, copyright and licensing. OpenUtau is one of the few open platforms available.

Text-to-Speech (TTS) is widely used in the song. It takes a lot of time to sync TTS speech to music and a lot of experimentation but it is great fun. Piper is an easy to use TTS model and provides Evie's voice. TTSMaker is another excellent free TTS tool and provides Ida's voice.

Musical Effects (FX) are essential background to a children's story and the marvellous Freesound and Pixabay sites provide a treasure trove of FX samples.

Tech spec

Title: Donna bus

Key: C

Tempo: 120bpm

Length: 2' 36"

Genre: pop