What Are You Practising / Composing Now?

[Bryn]

Yes Dave, I'm a tinkerer, and studying Grade 5 Music Theory, this tool certainly helps to identify chord progressions.

Strange that studying even the very earliest and simplest piano sonatas of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, they very rarely follow the rules I am being taught, you know, that e.g., Chord X is best followed by Chord Y.

But maybe it's like the old saying, you have to know the rules well, before you are allowed to break them!

Thanks again for the link,

Mario

As Douglas Bader had it, when legless, “Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.”

[Mario]

when legless,

Aha! So THERE'S where I've being going wrong!

Now I get it.

Thanks Bryn!

Mario

[Dave2002]

I found this Youtube video about harmony - Jazz variety - maybe - https://youtu.be/H2cBXXV47jI

I don't agree (i.e. "like") everything in it, but it presents things in an interesting way, and might be useful to some people - or not!

The software tool shown in the video is currently available quite cheaply in the iOS version.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Finished Piano Sonata no 3 today after 3-4 weeks work. To add to my ever growing catalogues of compositions. Perhaps one day they'll be noticed

[BBMmk2]

Finished Piano Sonata no 3 today after 3-4 weeks work. To add to my ever growing catalogues of compositions. Perhaps one day they'll be noticed

That sounds like good work!

I’m still engrossed in my transcription of the 6th movement from Mahler’s Symphony No.3 for concert band. I have a band in mind for it too!

[Richard Barrett]

Gosh, was that only a week ago? The second track is now finished too, composed on bass clarinet improvisations by Lori Freedman.

The third track has taken two weeks rather than one, largely because of "events, dear boy". This one is based on a series of six brief improvisational recordings by flautist/composer Anne La Berge, someone else I've often worked with in both notated and non-notated contexts. It differs from its predecessors in that firstly the natural flute sound is never heard, and secondly all the "electronic" sounds are derived from the flute recordings, although the latter might not be at all clear on listening, nor is it important to know of course, the point was for the music to be influenced by that particular MO.

I used sometimes to wonder how it would be if I put aside writing scores and performing for a while, and concentrating exclusively on electronic music, thinking at the sae time that such an opportunity would be unlikely to present itself. Well, now I know. I was watching the new documentary film about Frank Zappa the other day (which I recommend, although it is quite a flattering portrait of the man, while the music gets no more than a bit part) where he says his main reason for doing what he does is to be able to hear the music he's imagined, and then if anyone else is interested in hearing it that's good too; and this past year has brought that sort of idea into sharp focus for me, I mean the necessity to go on doing it whether or not anyone is listening. Although the lack of contact with audiences does leave an enormous hole in one's life.

[Serial_Apologist]

The third track has taken two weeks rather than one, largely because of "events, dear boy". This one is based on a series of six brief improvisational recordings by flautist/composer Anne La Berge, someone else I've often worked with in both notated and non-notated contexts. It differs from its predecessors in that firstly the natural flute sound is never heard, and secondly all the "electronic" sounds are derived from the flute recordings, although the latter might not be at all clear on listening, nor is it important to know of course, the point was for the music to be influenced by that particular MO.

I used sometimes to wonder how it would be if I put aside writing scores and performing for a while, and concentrating exclusively on electronic music, thinking at the sae time that such an opportunity would be unlikely to present itself. Well, now I know. I was watching the new documentary film about Frank Zappa the other day (which I recommend, although it is quite a flattering portrait of the man, while the music gets no more than a bit part) where he says his main reason for doing what he does is to be able to hear the music he's imagined, and then if anyone else is interested in hearing it that's good too; and this past year has brought that sort of idea into sharp focus for me, I mean the necessity to go on doing it whether or not anyone is listening. Although the lack of contact with audiences does leave an enormous hole in one's life.

Right! I'm now thinking of all the composers (which includes improvisers!) who have never had contact with their audiences, who have only ever heard their music through broadcasts or recordings. What can this possibly mean?

[Dave2002]

I've been working on a piece with different instrumental combinations - to see how it sounds with different groupings. Today I produced a somewhat restricted version for recorders, and then I wanted to hear what it sounded like with some of the parts suppressed. I found that I could do this with the Mixer in MuseScore, but in so doing I also discovered that the mixer has a feature to change instrumental sounds, so I tried replacing one of the recorders with a shakuhachi. It is possible to do this almost dynamically, and to try all sorts of unlikely instruments very rapidly - even the odd one called helicopter!

It also looks as though saving the .mscz file saves the mixer settings and the instrument settings - including levels and pan settings, so it's possible to send a particular configuration out to others.

Anyone who is using MuseScore might want to try this.

[Dave2002]

Follow on to 713, if some of the lines are just selected to drumset - a tick box in the mixer, then even weirder things emerge. And why not?

Re sending the .mscz files - not absolutely sure if the configurations do always survive transfer via email. It might at least be necessary to make the Mixer visible - usually F10 in the versions of MuseScore I've been using.

[Dave2002]

In the last few days I have been exploring the Reaper DAW again. I always felt a weak feature of Reaper has been that it doesn't have a ready made set of audio outputs (virtual instruments), or rather - if it does they are not configured as defaults, and finding any takes a long while. This has also recently been revisited yet again on a Reaper Forum - https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=250120 - which may also give an indication of how and why this has happened. One explanation is that some while back many people used Midi, but Reaper wasn't developed then. Then (apparently) people started to move away from Midi, so Reaper developers didn't focus on that. I'm not sure if this is a correct interpretation - and indeed if Midi isn't used so much now, what is used instead? Having some form of computer control over equipment and also digital virtual instruments seems essential for anyone who hasn't got access to many musical resources - such as highly talented players and full orchestras ready to play even the simplest jottings down, or even synthesiser banks immediately on call, so I'm guessing that if there are moves away from Midi the approach itself of using computers must have been developed and enhanced a lot further, rather then being abandoned like a ruined Mayan temple.

Anyway, for what it's worth I found that I could output midi from Musescore into several DAWs - LMMS, Logic, Garageband and immediately hear something - even if "cellos" did get replaced by "pianos" etc. In the case of Reaper I went down the sequence of Fail+ Success - using a simple syntax notation, by which I mean a large number of completely failed attempts, followed eventually by a sort of success. When I got to the success stage I found I could do things which are indeed powerful - such as dynamically adjusting the tuning of individual tracks, and also monitoring the recorded outputs. It's still however work in progress. I'm still only maybe 50% comfortable with Reaper.

I'm not sure if Reaper running on MacOS under Catalina will work with libraries such as those by Spitfire Audio, or with VST software - but if it does that might be a way forward for some purposes.

I realise this is slightly technical, but it does reflect my current state of music creation. I might even go back to playing "real" instruments in a little while.

[Richard Barrett]

My fourth track, using Ivana Grahovac's cello recordings, is now finished. Unlike any of the others, this one concentrates on low sustained sounds and harmonic spectra based on them, giving it a more "orchestral" character than the others, in which the cello sounds are more embedded than soloistic. One more to go, based on Lê Quan Ninh's percussion improvisation. Ninh has a rather unusual percussion setup, centred on a horizontal orchestral bass drum which is "excited" by a huge diversity of objects from cymbals to pine cones, so in distinction to the aforementioned track there are no pitches to work with, although that doesn't mean I won't create some of course.

[Richard Barrett]

One more to go, based on Lê Quan Ninh's percussion improvisation. Ninh has a rather unusual percussion setup, centred on a horizontal orchestral bass drum which is "excited" by a huge diversity of objects from cymbals to pine cones, so in distinction to the aforementioned track there are no pitches to work with, although that doesn't mean I won't create some of course.

Done! I think that producing almost 70 minutes of music in less than two months is a personal record, although admittedly I was standing on the shoulders of giants rather than being solely responsible for it. Time now to return to notated music, even though god knows when it might get performed...

[Joseph K]

Done! I think that producing almost 70 minutes of music in less than two months is a personal record, although admittedly I was standing on the shoulders of giants rather than being solely responsible for it. Time now to return to notated music, even though god knows when it might get performed...

[Joseph K]

Two small collections of arrangements for guitar of Scarlatti sonatas have recently arrived in the post. I'm quite fond of these - why else would I buy them? - so I'm going to see if I can fit them into my routine; this might involve alternate days doing different things rather than the same every day.

Although since about last wednesday I've had a bad cold given to me by a little niece, and consequently have not felt up to following my schedule as faithfully as I'd like.

[Richard Barrett]

Two small collections of arrangements for guitar of Scarlatti sonatas have recently arrived in the post. I'm quite fond of these - why else would I buy them? - so I'm going to see if I can fit them into my routine; this might involve alternate days doing different things rather than the same every day.

I imagine those will be quite hard to play... I wouldn't know where to start adapting Scarlatti for guitar, even the more obviously "Spanish"-sounding ones.