”I wrote this Viking song in 30 minutes…Now it has over 100 million streams”  

So spoke Gavin Dunne, the musician who is better known for his music project “Miracle of Sound”. Though “Gav” was famous to a decree in the past, in the recent years his gaming/film/folklore related songs have blown through and has become a sensational musician whose fame was so explosive he has had to repeatedly tell people that his songs are indeed his and not written by someone else. Someone even claimed his Viking themed song “Valhalla calling” was a centuries old folksong. Gavin himself only described the feeling these comments gave him as a “Uniquely weird experience”.  

Though he did write this song in 30 minutes while singing in the shower, it is not a stroke of luck through which it and his other songs are popular. Before starting “Miracle of Sound” Dunne had already amassed 15 years of experience with playing and singing in different groups. Now “Miracle of Sound” may sound like a band but it’s really a one-man project. It has a guitarist, a bassist, a singer, a writer, a keyboard player, also a small orchestra and they’re all called Gavin Dunne. He personally plays the guitar, the bass, and the keyboard on top of writing and singing, or otherwise known as vocalizing his songs. What instruments he can’t play he can produce their sounds electronically. This is beyond extraordinary as similar musicians are far and few between, let alone imagine yourself learning to play at least three instruments and make sounds of others on a computer while simultaneously learning different styles of singing and writing your own songs. Dunne doesn’t even know musical notes! He makes his songs based on feel alone, by ear he invents his own melodies without writing them down.  

As an artist Gavin Dunne has less media presence than celebrities but he makes up for this by being original. To describe it, he has a sense of humor that is both witty and lightly sarcastic, but not to the point of being snarky. He speaks quite frankly even when people recently began to accuse him of culture theft regarding the song “Valhalla calling”. His reply essentially pointed out the lack of any case against him. It was obviously not a case of cultural appropriation, but it was a first for the musician when he faced this “dark side of fame”.  

But enough about that. As a rule, his songs and media presence have been far more on the side of uplifting. As Dunne himself writes on his website “My music is known for addictive, catchy hooks, uplifting messages and a diverse range of genres & song structures.” Though in his case diverse sounds like an understatement and the diversity of the musical genres he sings, and plays is vast. Jazz, Edm, Classical, rock, pop, hard rock, alternative metal, tribal music, dee-wob and the list goes on. The thing is these songs don’t sound bad. When one hears that someone plays so many genres one would assume they have some deficiency to them. But there isn’t any. You can’t hear it. If you were a professional musician who plays in one of these genres, then maybe you could, but to the ears of the common man his musical variety sounds like a miracle.  

Makes you wonder how in the world he does that?   

“His (so far) best song in my opinion is “Scarlet sky” and it’s based on the video game Elden ring.” -Writer