What Are You Practising / Composing Now?

[Dave2002]

That is a superb thing to do, ptk Might even try one or two myself. Some of the Twilight Pieces look quite accessible. Something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Klx3GUisbk

Lovely - seemingly simple - piece. Definitely a find. Did he do strong and vigorous as well as dreamy?

[BBMmk2]

I'm guessing "know"? Best wishes ....

Indeed it was! Thank you, btw.

[Andrew Slater]

Here's something I did earlier on Musescore a mostly unison SATB setting of the 1st verse of the Breakfast competition poem (not submitted - not finished until January!) It's rubbish of course, but an interesting exercise.

[Dave2002]

Here's something I did earlier on Musescore a mostly unison SATB setting of the 1st verse of the Breakfast competition poem (not submitted - not finished until January!) It's rubbish of course, but an interesting exercise.

Sounded OK to me and I was surprised at how well the "choir" sounded at first. The dynamics aren't right though - which is a problem with Musescore, as I just discovered with this "test" piece - see links below. The score is written out, but probably almost impossible for a "real" choir to sing. It was intended only as a quick test of the dynamics and sonorities.

There are a limited range of options - either very quiet or pretty loud, and not much in between. The example does include different levels, and a couple of diminuendos, but they are not apparent in the MuseScore mp3.

However, they may appear if I export to a DAW and try again there.

Indeed they do - I tried exporting to Logic Pro X, which seems to do a better job of the dynamics, but the "virtual choir" sounds dreadful in comparison with the Musescore inbuilt one.

https://soundcloud.com/user-977473438/choral-work-v2-musescore-instruments-version

This is the original mp3 as produced from Musescore

https://soundcloud.com/user-977473438/chor-lpx-v2-trimmed

This is the version processed via Logic.

I have been led to believe that systems like Sibelius and Dorico might actually do a much better job of this, which I haven't checked out yet for cost reasons. That's almost certainly true.

Well done with your piece - keep at it.

[Andrew Slater]

Yes, the dynamics are a bit coarse; the first transition is from mf to p. There's a second transition to mp but it's hardly audible. I did have a crescendo at one time but seem to have taken it out. That was totally inaudible.

Exporting to midi doesn't help on my machine - and the voices sound the same, which implies that Musescore might be using the inbuilt (Ubuntu Linux) midi generator - the dynamic problem could be there.

I agree with you about the dynamics and generated sounds on your examples - something better is needed, but will probably come with a pricetag!

I'm currently playing with some (unaccompanied) clarinet variation snippets, which I've been doing for about 2 years! One of the variations seems to be turning into a galop and there's a piano in there somewhere in my head, and sometimes the clarinet in my head turns into a cello. If I get it written out properly I'll type it into Musescore and post it here in some form - it might give me an incentive to get a move on with it! Actually for the bits I have typed in, the clarinet midi didn't sound too bad a while ago but it seems to have developed an accompanying 'buzz' recently.

I'd be interested to hear of any improvements you manage to make to the generated sound.

[silvestrione]

Also having a go at the Bach Italian Concerto - sometimes only JSB will do

Yes absolutely, JSB mostly for me: the usual daily 2 x Preludes and Fugues, some movements from the Overture in B minor suite, and some transcriptions from the excellent volume produced by Oxford and introduced by David Owen Norris.

I have a friend who plays all the Baines: isn't there a sonata?

[Dave2002]

I'm currently playing with some (unaccompanied) clarinet variation snippets, which I've been doing for about 2 years! One of the variations seems to be turning into a galop and there's a piano in there somewhere in my head, and sometimes the clarinet in my head turns into a cello. If I get it written out properly I'll type it into Musescore and post it here in some form - it might give me an incentive to get a move on with it! Actually for the bits I have typed in, the clarinet midi didn't sound too bad a while ago but it seems to have developed an accompanying 'buzz' recently.

If you bung it into Musescore it's easy enough to change the clarinet to a cello, or a marimba, or anything else you fancy. That way if you dream that you might have heard it on a double bass you can check the following day.

I'll come back on other points later.

[MrGongGong]

Yes, the dynamics are a bit coarse; the first transition is from mf to p. There's a second transition to mp but it's hardly audible. I did have a crescendo at one time but seem to have taken it out. That was totally inaudible.
.

If you find out where to set the velocity curves for the controllers
you should be able to adjust so that it's using a logarithmic curve and the ranges are in the best place

[Dave2002]

If you find out where to set the velocity curves for the controllers
you should be able to adjust so that it's using a logarithmic curve and the ranges are in the best place

That may not be possible in Musescore. It's probably much better in Dorico or Sibelius.

If it is possible in Musescore I'd like to know.

[Dave2002]

Looping with drum backing in Reaper - for practice purposes

I'm putting this here in the first instance, as it may be generally useful.

I play with DAWs (in more ways than one ...) now, and I found this video about programming drum kits in Reaper, which I found very helpful https://youtu.be/JZe-CKu2G-o

There are instructions for how to obtain the free drum kit Virtual Instrument - and yes - it does work - after quite a bit of faffing about, but eventually it should work. Possibly if someone is using a Mac (as I do) the AU software won't work (hopefully I'll figure that later), but download the VST version and it should - and you don't need a key to at least try the software out. It is necessary to restart the computer, and it may also be necessary either to restart Reaper, or to Rescan the VI plugins.

OK - so part of my interest in this was to find out how to get VIs into Reaper, which can be somewhat confusing, to say the least. I had already done that some while back - using help from this video (also by Repo Music) with a piano VI - also free - https://youtu.be/RSuO0V9ZKUo

I don't normally play, or have much interest in drums, but this was quite interesting, and does work. So now I should be able to play music by Van Eyck, with a recorder - possibly a few other recorded tracks - and a 21st Century drum backing!!!!!

Don't laugh too much, though, I have done that kind of thing before.

This kind of technique can be very helpful for practice purposes, and it's possible to put the recorded music (Midi and audio) into a loop, and also to do multiple takes of sections to practise using a microphone.

I have done multiple takes with other DAWs (Logic and the one which ANother doesn't like ...) which work well, and I have recorded with Reaper before, but I've not tried doing multiple takes with Reaper - yet. Hopefully it'll be fairly simple. With Logic (+) I can just leave the DAW running and recording continuously, and providing the loop is long enough it's easy to get the new audio inputs set up. I'm not quite sure if I can do pretty much the same with Reaper. Ideally I really don't want to have to interact with my computer keyboard once I've started recording - until I've laid down (say) at least 5 takes, which I can review and edit later on.

This kind of looping technique might be helpful to others for instrument practice.

Reaper is available as a Free Trial for most computer platforms - and although it does "expire" it will probably continue to function afterwards and simply nag you if you find it useful and haven't paid. As I couldn't get it working for a very long while I didn't pay, but once I eventually figured it out, I was happy to pay.

An alternative approach at the moment for Apple users is Logic Pro X, which currently has a 90 day fee trial - though after that Apple will almost certainly want to charge.

[BBMmk2]

What very interesting contributions these past few posts make. Thank you.

[Dave2002]

There is a new version of Logic Pro X - now 10.5. Enthusiasts of drum beats seem to be more excited than I am. The sampler is now changed - and I think the EXS24 sampler is now taken out and replaced by a couple of new ones. Apparently there are also things called Live Loops, which seem to have been a feature of Garageband on iOS tablets, and which are similar to features in Ableton Live. I may install the latest version on one of my other computers - I'm not sure I want to do it on the laptop yet.

As this is veering towards technical stuff, I'll put more on the Tecchie threads later on, but I thought this and the post a couple above were worth putting on here.

[Dave2002]

I am still exploring sounds, and I wondered if I could make up an "artificial" recorder sound using additive synthesis. I didn't have a clue how to do this with the tools I may have, though I did think I could to something using mathematics. However, I found this video which explains how to make up sounds using the additive synthesis method, and the minute or so of explanation of how the Alchemy sampler/synthesiser can analyse sounds, and even try to reproduce them by making a whole bunch of harmonics, is really helpful - and, perhaps more to the point, makes this feasible for me.

Alchemy is a component within Logic and Mainstage, though I expect that other DAWs will also have similar synthesisers whcih can work with additive synthesis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8J1FwGZnhw

I think we had a very brief discussion about synthesisers a few days ago, but I can't find that thread now. It'll probably surface eventually.

[Joseph K]

This is 'Billie's Bounce' by Charlie Parker. A couple of takes. I wanted to record myself today because it's been exactly a year since I stopped playing classical guitar and returned to jazz guitar; that meant learning to use a plectrum again - although, I wasn't a great plectrum-picker first time round and while I've put in a lot of effort this past year, there's still some way to go before that is adequately developed. But, while that is the case about physical technique, how much more so about improvisational technique! (If the two can be separated.) I admit I find the jazz-blues a challenge, certainly doing it idiomatically and melodically is not easy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChoxxqDsdKI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWtr1knp0Kk

[MrGongGong]

Today's gig was a concert from a young composers course I ran last Friday
BUT
tomorrow i'm doing a live streaming thing with beehive recordings, gamelan gongs, bass clarinet improvisations and Carnatic singing.
So tweaking the live / pre-made things and getting in control of it all enough to perform.