Welcome to Degumoth Studios!
This is the home of Liāna D. A. Lloyd's (L.D.A.L. for short) music and video projects. Thanks for visiting :)
To reach our Vimeo homepage, click HERE
Click on Music Links in the top menu to find links to our music in all other available ways. :)
2023 is ending.
THEOCRACY IS WRONG.
TERRORISM IS WRONG
ANTI-SEMITISM IS WRONG.
ANTI-PALESTINIANISM IS WRONG.
ISLAMOPHOBIA IS WRONG.
GENOCIDE IS WRONG!!!!!!
INVADING ANOTHER COUNTRY and calling it “civil war” IS WRONG.
I wish I could magically stop the sacrificing of humans on EVERY altar, whether it be religion, race, empiricism, oil,… but I cannot.
Here’s some clickable links to a few organizations that are doing important work (with more further below):
Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project
And please, take care of your and others’ health this holiday season and every season! No one wants to be sick!!
++On a lighter note:
Links below for other organizations I support should still be good, as should the Music Links page in the top menu with links to MOST places my music can be found.
Feel free to search on Tidal, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and other platforms, as some of my music has been distributed more widely than I am able to keep track of with individual links!
Also!! Apparently some of my music has been used by creators on TikTok?! So if you’re inspired, search for my tracks there, too!! Have fun!!
Merry Happy 2021…?
PLEASE get vaccinated against Covid-19! And boosted! And Wear A Mask in Public! PLEASE!
And THANK YOU to ALL that take those steps!!
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Here are just a few ideas if you have the brain space and a little extra to give this season:
(Just click on the text and the website should open in a new window!)
NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund
=+=+=And here are some arts organizations I love (clickable links here too)=+=+=
The Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh
2020
My Advent 2020 project essentially became uploading all 26 of my Advent music videos to Vimeo- which is now finally complete!!
Below is our very first Advent arrangement and video, newly posted to Vimeo. Sending you hope, and a light in the darkness, always.
2020
So, this is a year, huh?
Black Lives Matter. BIPOC Lives Matter. LGBTQ+ Lives Matter. Immigrant / Refugee Lives Matter.
Wear a mask. Please.
Everyone Needs Clean Water. Everyone Needs Food.
Vote.
Stay safe, Everyone.
Some Resources / Ways to Help (clickable links):
Links to anti-racist reading lists HERE
National Congress of American Indians Fund
Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project
Greenlight Bookstore/NYC Books Through Bars Wish List
University of California San Francisco article about masks HERE
Stanford Medicine News Center article about masks HERE
Earthjustice.org article on recent changes to the Clean Water Act HERE
Register to Vote HERE
Check your Voter Registration status HERE
*Links are clickable and will open in a new tab - please email degumoth@gmail.com about any broken links.
Please feel free to recommend other links I should include as well - these are just a starting point.
Thank you!!
Merry Happy 2019!!
As you have probably noticed, there is no official Advent 2019 EP this year….
HOWEVER! I am sharing a different YouTube video (from past years) every day on the DeguMoth Studios Facebook Page - in a DIFFERENT order from last year!
So, if you’d like to enjoy a random musical Advent calendar, please check it out!
Click HERE for the DeguMoth Studios Facebook page :)
Click HERE for the DeguMoth Studios YouTube channel for all of our Advent videos in whatever order you please :)
Meanwhile, all of our Advent recordings are still available for streaming and/or download everywhere they’ve always been!
Please click on Music Links in the top menu, or HERE for quick access to links to all of our music on a variety of platforms :)
We sincerely wish you a lovely Holiday Season and a fruitful New Year, whatever you believe/observe.
We wish you the Love of all beings special to you and Love within, Joy, Peace, and Hope, a light in the darkness, always. Always.
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P.S. If you come across any broken links, please email me at degumoth@gmail.com
P.P.S. If you want to license any track, especially if it is not available via Jamendo (not all of them are), please also contact degumoth@gmail.com
Many Thanks for visiting and supporting my music!!
Advent 2018
Our sixth (and possibly last) Advent EP is complete and available on many platforms (see below for links)! This little album has SIX tracks - 4 tracks for the Advent Sundays, plus 2 bonus tracks. We hope you enjoy it!
Also, we shared a different Advent track YouTube video (from past years or our newest Advent project) every day through Christmas Day on our Facebook page!
Click HERE for our FaceBook page if you want to check out our daily posts…
Click HERE for our YouTube channel, where we created the Advent Past and Present Playlist. A different video was added every day, and the playlist is now complete as of Christmas Day (December, 25), 2018. Merry Happy!!
Advent 2018 is available in the following places:
Spotify , iTunes/Apple Music , YouTube Music , Amazon , Google Play Music, Bandcamp , Jamendo , Soundcloud
All of the above links are clickable, or you can go to our Music Links section in the menu at the top of this page OR just by clicking HERE .
Advent 2018 YouTube Playlist HERE
Advent Past and Present Playlist HERE
About Advent 2018
This is our SIXTH Advent EP, which means we’ve created 24 arrangements of Advent/Christmas carols…plus, this little album has 2 extra tracks!
It seemed right to add a song for Christmas Day (which is our 5th track, Noel).
We also included our rendition of Falcon Carol, because we like that carol and wanted to include it, even though it isn’t a carol for the Holiday season at all, technically (it’s our 6th track).
The first 4 tracks are for the Four Sundays of Advent, as always.
Because this is quite possibly our final Advent EP, at least in the way we’ve been doing them these six years, we made sure to include carols that we’ve loved our whole lives: Wexford Carol, From Heaven High, and Corde Natus Ex Parentis (although we first learned it in English), have been dear favorites for many years. Only Alma Redemptoris Mater was a happy new discovery on this year’s project.
We worked really hard to make this a beautiful little album, so we really hope you enjoy these arrangements!
May you have a joyous and blessed Holiday Season, and a Happy and Fruitful New Year!
Wexford Carol (Hope): This carol is also known as the Enniscorthy Carol. Although it is quite old, it was "re-discovered" and transcribed by Dr. Grattan Flood (1859-1928) who lived in Enniscorthy, in County Wexford, Ireland. He was the organist and music director at St. Aidan's Cathedral there.
The melody is Irish, and the text can be sung in English or Irish, but people have noted the English text’s similarity to a much older carol, “Let All That Are to Mirth Inclined.” They are definitely related! (This has been your carol nerd moment. :) )
Alma Redemptoris Mater (Peace): With text by Hermannus Contractus (1013-1054) set to Gregorian Chant Simple Tone, this is the Marian Antiphon that is sung in the Roman Catholic Church at the end of Compline from the first Sunday of Advent until the Feast of the Purification (or "Candlemas") on February 2nd. We wanted to include at least one “official” Advent song on this album, and when we discovered this lovely antiphon, we knew this had to be the one! We had fun using different vocal arrangements/ harmonies for each of the three repetitions.
From Heaven High (Joy): This is a favorite Christmas carol. It was originally 15 verses, written in German by Martin Luther in the 1530s. For our favorite five verses, we used Catherine Winkworth’s 1855 English translation. We also edited the translation just a tiny bit, because we know a little German. We had a lot of fun with the harmonies.
Corde Natus Ex Parentis (Love): This carol was originally a long poem in Latin, written by Marcus Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (348-410). It was later pruned to 9 verses and set to a Plainsong Melody (Divinum Mysterium). We first heard/sang this hymn in English, but we love Latin, so that’s the text we used for our four favorite verses.
Noel (Christmas Day): As it turns out, there are many versions of The First Noel, but most seem to have arisen in the 16-17th centuries in England or earlier, with variations of melody and text. I decided to combine a couple.
Fyfe’s Noel is supposedly an older version than the one many of us know, but William Wallace Fyfe published it in his book “Christmas, its customs and carols,” in 1833. The little intro and outro of my recording are from the melody and chorus of that version, respectively.
The rest of the more familiar melody/text/chorus of my recording are, of course, from the more widely known version, published in Williams Sandys’ book “Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern” in 1833. This particular combination of melody/text seems to have first appeared in the 1800s, while older versions (such as Fyfe’s, possibly?) might date back to the 13th Century!
I turned mine into a bit of a round/canon, because I thought it would be fun. :)
Falcon Carol: The Falcon Carol is very old. The words have survived but the original melody has not. It is often better known as the Corpus Christi Carol. Per Wikipedia, the text was found on a manuscript written around 1504 (the manuscript was found by an apprentice grocer named Richard Hill!!).
Many musicians I admire have covered this carol: Cecile Corbel, Jeff Buckley, and Hayley Westenra - but they all used Benjamin Britten’s melody, which is the more familiar (and also very lovely) melody, but is NOT in the public domain, as far as I could determine. Hence, I had to either use a different melody (and found none that I really liked), or write my own. So, I wrote my own. It is vaguely modal. I tried to sustain an eerie but heartfelt quality.
I hope you enjoy this version!
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ADVENT 2017
Advent 2017 is available for streaming, purchase, or download!
Available on: Amazon , Bandcamp , Deezer , Google Play Music , iTunes/Apple , Jamendo , Spotify , Soundcloud
Please see our "Music Links" section for all listening and purchasing options for this and all of our other EPs...or just click HERE!
About Advent 2017
Advent 2017 is our fifth Advent EP!
If the theme of last year’s EP was, generally, Peace, this year’s is Joy. In creating Advent 2017, I wanted to focus more on having fun and less on nitpicky details. As a perfectionist and music nerd, it is easy for me to get entangled in such details, or even worse, to become paralyzed by them. With all of the real darkness and important issues in the world, I made a conscious choice to not get stuck by less important things while trying to create music for the Advent season.
What does this mean for the EP? Well, track 1, “As With Gladness Men of Old,” is, technically, an Epiphany hymn…which means not only is it not an Advent hymn, it’s not even truly a Christmas hymn! It was even composed on the day of Epiphany (its composer, William Chatterton Dix, was recovering from illness). Plus, it was originally in 4/4 time, but I arranged it as 3/4, simply because I thought it was fun.
While track 2, “Puer natus in Bethlehem,” is at least legitimately a Christmas hymn, it is usually much longer and a bit more gently didactic. I chose the verses I liked best, the ones that moved the story forward. Plus, while there are many versions, it’s often heard as a simple Gregorian chant, sung by monks. You may have noticed that I am not a monk. I also put harmonies in my arrangement, while trying to still capture the soothing peace of Gregorian Chant.
Track 3, “Personent Hodie,” is a very old Christmas hymn, but interestingly enough, its text seems to be modeled by (and possibly a parody of) an even older hymn dedicated to St. Nicholas, whose feast day is December 6th. Also, it is very fun to sing because of the repeated syllables in the refrain sections. There are many text/language arrangements of this piece as well, but I enjoyed singing the full Latin version.
“Good King Wenceslas,” track 4, upset critics when it was first published (composed by John Mason Neale with Thomas Helmore) because the melody used was originally the tune of an old Springtime hymn. The story told takes place on the Feast of Stephen, which is December 26th. Also, it is about a Duke who was posthumously given the title of King, because of his many good works. It is, and has been for a long time, one of my very favorite songs of the Christmas Season.
All of this to say, none of these are definitively Advent hymns. But, I liked singing them, and I do think that they embody well the four Advent themes of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. I hope you enjoy these arrangements!
Thanks very much for stopping by my little corner of the internet! May you have a joyful and blessed Holiday Season, and happy and fruitful New Year!
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Advent 2016 - Still Available! :)
We love the season of Advent, and for the fourth year in a row we've created four arrangements of Advent/Christmas music, one for each Sunday of Advent. We arranged four relatively old carols - most date from around the 15th-17th centuries. Two are in Latin and two are in English. We hoped to evoke a sense of mystery, wonder, and peace with each carol, and we hope each one can transport the listener and lend a sense of timelessness. We truly hope you enjoy our arrangements, and that you find hope and a light in the darkness this Advent season and every season. :)
Available on Bandcamp , Jamendo , iTunes/Apple , Google Play Music , Amazon , Spotify , Deezer , and SoundCloud .
Click the yellow text to be taken directly to our EP on that website!
(See our "Music Links" section for all listening/purchasing options for this EP and all of our other Advent EPs!)
++If you want to go ahead and listen via this website, click HERE or "Advent 2016" in the top menu.++
**Below are the YouTube videos for all four of our tracks:
Let All That Are To Mirth Inclined, Song of the Nuns of Chester, Ecce Quod Natura, and At the Nativity.
