FAWM le Moulin du Bruel

[Tim Fatchen (flyingtadpole)]

Amazing! THe board's let me back in after a long exile! Ok, for sharing, there's nearly an hour of music from FAWM (February Album Writing Month--or 14 songs in 28 days) With moving house, selling house and lots of work on, I thought it would be good bit of self-imposed pressure to finally put to music our time at the old mill at Ginals, Quercy, France in March 2006. There are 20 songs resulting (all instrumental), most easily heard at http://www.fawm.org/writers.php?id=493
under Tim Fatchen, not Flying Tadpole

Songs are in the order they were posted. Each link comes with it's explanatory notes.

Because they were all done in a rush, there are still editing and production issues to sort out.

Almost all were done using Notation composer, playing in as piano or piano with pads, then arranging as desired. Exceptions: Market, St Antonin Noble Val is acoustic piano, direct recording, and La Seye was recorded on the Medeli's own sequencer--which sadly I can't translate to MIDI... The Spring House/La Seye is a mix of Notation Composer and Cakewalk, latter used to combine the MIDI and audio halves.

I'm currently working on post-production, in between local disasters, and should have a CD out in about weeks (unless songs get placements) (well, I can always hope, can't I?).

[Fred Winterling (harbor1)]

Hi Tim,
You've been away too long! I've been a fan for quite some time, often listening to your music on Sounclick. Now, if someone asks me if I have ever been to Ginals, Quercy, France, I can tell them Yes!, I have been there. That is what your music does. I won't try to describe the feeling your artistry provides because my words just are not pretty enough. The music perfectly matches the scenery that inspired it. That's pure genius. Thank you!!

Cheers,
Fred

[Tim Fatchen (flyingtadpole)]

Thank you Fred. (If it takes me a long time to respond, or I don't, it means the board has barred me again. I had a long heartfelt with my ISP--upshot is that the problem is actualyl with the board software, and the author keeps getting prodded to remove the particular overzealous bouncer at the door but hasn't...)

Some of the Ginals music is up at Soundclick, but the reason for giving the http://www.fawm.org/writers.php?id=493 FAWM website is that it allows non-subscribers to access the music stored at www.broadjam.com/timfatchen (http://www.broadjam.com/timfatchen), which I don't think you can get at without being a subscriber. Half of it isn't on SOundclick and won't be going there.

19 songs in 28 days (and 20 songs in 31 days -"La Seye" the river song jumped the starting gun) all on one theme was an interesting experience and a great confidence builder. OTOH I didn't have to worry about lyrics!

FYI, I selected (before the month began), the most evocative photos I had and pritned them out, decided what I wanted to write about, organised into folders, then had them on the keyboard after the starter's gun went and doodled until I had something, then went at it. Now I'm in the misery of correcting all the note errors, timing mistakes and bits that shouldn't be there, and also using better or different samples in some cases! I'll notify when clean versions are up.

[Tim Fatchen (tim_fatchen)]

Updating: almost all the FAWM songs have been cleaned up, other than "Najac" and "The Piper". Get to them via http://www.fawm.org/writers.php?id=493

"Cleaned up" means I've plugged in reasonable soundfonts such as a decent boys' choir and a Steinway, got rid of obvious errors, also cleaned the sheet music up, and done adequate production on them.

Notation Composer makes things sooooooo simple when trying to get readable sheet music AT THE SAME TIME as keeping the idiosyncrasies of performances in place. None of this pressing the "quantize" button and turning a reasonable piece of music into something that sounds like a cheapo wind-up toy, tic-toc!

(I'm trying another login as the board won't let me on again otherwise! No logic to this doorman, Mark!)

[Sherry Crann (sherry)]

Howdy Tim,

I'll have to go take a listen to these pieces as soon as I'm good to go at home. I listened to all of them before, and if they're even better now, I'll be in for a real treat!

ttfn,
Sherry

[Tim Fatchen (flyingtadpole)]

(Hey! I've been let in again!!) THanks Sherry. THe board dropped its Tadpole portcullis on me again before I had time to send my condolences on the fire, and relief that it wasnt worse.

[Tim Fatchen (flyingtadpole)]

The FAWM music is finally getting cleaned up and re-produced. All were initially composed (played in) on Composer. Subsequent editing has been time cleanups, wrong note removal, cuts, rearrangements, tempo changes and plugging in Garritan Personal Orchestra.

Four are up for this month on www.myspace.com/timfatchen (http://www.myspace.com/timfatchen) : The Freshet, The Spiral Stair (both GPO Steinway piano), The Mill Pond (piano, flute, strings) and the New Age- sounding The Kitchen and the Sketcher, also GPO but I'll leave you to guess which instruments. I've yet to add percussion to the last BTW. If you really want to hear the originals for comparison of the effects of both editing in Composer and GPO, the first three are still up at www.taxi.com/timfatchen (http://www.taxi.com/timfatchen)

Editing in Notation Composer is amazingly straightforward and comprehensive. Especially allowing both a clear-to-read notation while tweaking the absolutely performance-critical real-time attacks and durations. And the ability to simply draw in real-time dynamics alone is worth the price of admission, never mind all the other editing at your fingertips!

[M G Jacobs (mgj32)]

Hi Tim,

Just listened at MySpace. All four are quite captivating, but "The Kitchen and the Sketcher" and "The Spiral Staircase" especially got my attention. For some reason both evoked the feelings associated with nostalgia. I'm not going to try to analyze myself to figure out why--it was a general feeling, anyhow. All four were excellently done.

all best,
mgj

[Tim Fatchen (flyingtadpole)]

The next four songs from Le Moulin du Bruel are temporarily up at http://www.myspace.com/timfatchen

All GPO settings. At the Broken Bridge (harp, strings, piano, clarinet), a two-chord piece which needs a bit more reverb http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/sad.gif, The Limestone Woods, straight New Age harmony on GPO's super Steinway (yes I have played on such grand instruments in my murky past but no-one now invites me!), The Bridle Path as a happy jog-a-long using GPO's lite piano, strings, clarinet, bass, flute; The Cross, pensive cor anglais, two cellos, viola, harp.

Good fun. Another two months and the CD might be together. Right now it's back into the desert for a week...

[Sherry Crann (sherry)]

Howdy Tim,

Sweeeeet! Using Composer with GPO is a bit addictive, after one gets all the GPO Studio things worked out. The plays sounded great - the CD (with even better audio quality) should be a real treat!

Keep up the great work...

ttfn,
Sherry