Ultima Songbook
Ultima is a famous computer role-playing saga. It features 9 episodes in the orginal series which were organised in three Ages, each one spanning over 3 titles.
My personnal favourite trilogy, was “The Age of Enlightenment”, covered in episodes IV, V and VI. The story is about the rise of The Avatar, a hero who embodies the seven virtues in a mthologic land called Britannia. All ingame dialogs were written in old english, and that helped a lot so set the ambience.
The earliest game were developed on the Apple II platform and thus did not have a very rich soundtrack. It was in the sixth episode which took advantage of AdLib soundcards and midi interfaces that music really found its true dimension.
I found midi versions of all the game’s music and began writing guitar adaptations of U6 parts. Later, I started to work on episodes 4 and 5 and got the idea to compile them as a songbook. I wanted to make something rich, including not only music, but also images and texts taken from Britannian culture. One of the serie’s strength was the rich manuals and maps included in the box. I wanted to honour this tradition by putting together something that would rather be a book of interest to all Ultima fans than a basic collection of scores.
I started this project a in 2003 and it is still a work in progress. I still want to complete many of the U4 and U5 themes and improve the nonmusical contents even more. Transcription and guitar arrangement, even based on midifiles, is a long process. I will post updates here when I’ll have advanced on this.
Please note that I’m aware of potential copyright issues about these contents. I tried to contact the original composers, but since Origin doesn’t exist anymore, this process isn’t simple. I just hope that this tribute work will be simply appreciated by all fans.
Download it in PDF format (8Mb)
Credits
Guitar Arrangements:
- Yannick Kirschhoffer
Original composers:
- Kenneth W. Arnold
- Iolo Fitzowen
- Herman Miller
- Todd Porter
- Richard Garriott
Illustrations:
- Denis R. Loubet
Lord British and Ultima are registered trademarks of Richard Garriott and Origin Systems, Inc.
The Avatar is a trademark of Origin Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.