Romance For Viola and Piano
 

I started this piece in Notation composer and then did a few exports back and forwards to Cubase, where I did the recording with East West VSts and also Sibelius where I "fine-tuned" the score.

I want to present the finished score on Box.

I think that Box is a really excellent means of file sharing. It is free (up to a file limit in gigs), it is clear, and most importantly it streams the file rather than the recipient having to wait for a download.

So I hope you like this latest offering::rolleyes:

MP3

http://www.box.net/shared/r24d92zj6g

Score

http://www.box.net/shared/7p6b8gdzld

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Hey that's great! Beautiful melody. Thanks for sharing it.

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

thank you for listening.

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Adrian - what a hauntingly beautiful piece. Your end product is phenomenal. I may have to get Cubase and Sibelius - something I thought I could avoid with Notation Composer. But it looks like you use all three effectively. Yamaha (my Clavinova manufacturer) recommends Cubase, but the price was so high, I decided to look for more reasonably priced software.

As I'm typing this, my wife, Cynthia, who has no musical training at all, prior to starting Recorder lessons with me last year, said to make certain that I tell you that she loved your Romance also. Her background is basically pop, rock, and folk, with some exposure to the big bands of yesteryear through her folks. Since we married, she's been exposed to a lot more classical music, so she's broadened her tastes considerably.

Back to your Romance - thank you very much for putting your music out there. It gives me great aspirations as well as great listening pleasure.

Ralph

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Hi guys,

Adrian, what a beautiful piece! It's really helpful to hear it with the instruments that you intended for it.

What you're doing with the various software applications you have is pretty much what they are each best at. Notation Composer is designed as a compositional assistant, and we've got even more goodies that will help that process in the next release. Composer's scoring is good enough for most uses, but if you want a really finely polished score, then Sibelius or Finale are the best choices. Sibelius is a dedicated score engraving application, for final "pro" polishing and does that well. Cubase is a great sequencer and can host VSTis (which we plan to do on down the line) and you can therefore get a great audio recording of your work.

If you don't want or need the final polish of Sibelius, Composer will work fine. If you have VSTis that you want to use but don't want to purchase Cubase, you can use a free application like VST Host and some virtual MIDI cables as explained here (the details are for Aria, but you could substitute VST Host) to play the instruments using Composer. You can then record the performance using any of a number of audio apps (even Windows Audio Recorder) to get an audio file.

There are lots of different ways to make lots of music. And they're good :) It's mostly a matter of your budget and what applications have the features you want and the ease of use you want.

Adrian, thanks for sharing about www.box.net. I've re-posted that here as well.

ttfn,
Sherry

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Hi Adrian, et al,
Your viola player is quite an artist.
I envy you all your sound engineering skills. If budget didn't block my way, the engineering still would. I spent hours and hours trying to write and edit in Composer and play through Synthfont (all so I could have a 17th channel for a tuba, instead of calling a second trombone such) and got absolutely nowhere.
I'm in the process of recording my first symphony, I will try it on BOX Lite. Like Zshare, it is clear, downloads, and streams, but the latter features a bucket full of ads, some with sound that has to be quelled before playing the music. BOX has a much cleaner look.
Oh, the Romance. You already know it is marvelous! An instant favorite.
all best,
mgj

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Ralph, thanks for the kind review.

I only sat down at the piano and started writing this from scratch last Saturday; but when I'm in the mood, musical compulsive disorder takes over.

In terms of the software, Sibelius is only really needed if you are planning to send your piece off to musicians and make a good impression. Notation gives a good working product.

Finale and Sibelius are the two products aimed at top-end scoring. Finale is more popular your side of the Atlantic, whereas Sibelius has more of the European following. Both are quite expensive and Sibelius is about $800. I think Sibelius is much easier to use and has better product support.

The full Cubase is not necessary. Ask for Cubase Studio 5. This is about $400. I use this and it's perfectly good enough. The full Cubase gives quadrophonic sound, which most people don't need.

Thanks again

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Thanks for listening.

I will share any useful info I find about music making on the Web and needless to say I think that Box is definitely something people will use.

I have found Soundclick quite difficult to navigate and it does limit the length of music for really long pieces, but Box really does have a beautiful presentaion and the scores can be presented if people use a PDF writer like CutePDF (which is free).

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

I am a beginner in this respect and other forums tell me so.

But as I tell them, I am only trying to make a mock up. Many people who use VSTs are trying to make an end product, like a TV theme to be actually used. Most commercial/ TV/ film music is now made this way, and real musicians only used for top-end budget films; sad but true.

To do what I do with cubase and few VSTs really does not require all that much skill at all. East West VSts are designed to be able to unpack and get using straight away.

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Hi Adrian

This is a way of composing AND engineering a wannabee musician like me can only dream of.
Thanks for sharing and keep them coming

Regards

Djim

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Thanks for your generous comments.

Having never made a penny out of any of my efforts I'm as much a wannabe as the next man.

A friend of mine is doing a more professional mix of this piece using better samples like Vienna Special Edition and professional convolution reverb. I will post a link to this if it gets finished.

Cheers

adrian

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

My Friend's recording of this piece using much more high tech equipment is here:

http://www.box.net/shared/1gcefo7f0v

If people are still interested they might like to hear this.

He used:

Viola is VSL
Piano is Kawai EX Pro from AcousticSamples
Reverb is Altiverb Todd AR recording stage ER and Aether Piano Hall tail.

He's trying to point me more in the direction of production music libraries (he thinks it could work in a TV drama) whereas I've traditionally put the emphasis on the score.

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Hi Adrian,
Nice. Very nice.
all best,
mgj

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Hi Adrian,

Your new post of this piece is absolutely beautiful. Your friend has helped you take this piece to a very high level. Indeed, I could imagine this being the background music in a tender love scene.

I love the shifting tonalities and as you know from my scores, I also love the inner dissonances and close voicings in the piano accompaniment. Very nicely done.

Ralph

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Thanks for listening. Although we all benefit from this technology, the implication is that to have any success as a composer you now have to not only be a good musician, but also have ICT skills to match. I'm still learning both, but my priority is always for the music, not the ICT.

I some ways I envy the days when real musicians were hired for recording projects, but now you're expected to do it all; so it's actually a harder slog.

Most TV themes (apart from the very well financed) are done partly if not completely on sample libraries - the very best of which you'd be hard pressed to know it wasn't a real orchestra !

I'll keep my writing aimed at real musicians, but until anyone agrees to perform my pieces (that's a challenge in itself), it's nice to have an idea how they might sound.

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Well done! nice piece of music! I really like your composition. If I will rate this from 1-10 where 10 is the highest I would give you 10. Great job!

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Thanks

I have been asked to orchestrate it for solo viola and strings. I will post a link to that soon.

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Hi Adrian,
How in the world did you get more than one piece of music on the Box? For sign in, I put in my email, but when I start typing the password, the page expires. If I try to sign up for another free account, once I start typing a password, the page expires. If I try to reset my password, ditto. I have used about 23 MB of the free 1 GB. So I am missing something. Any ideas what?

Thanks,
mgj

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

I really don't know what's going on there at all

Try the main rival to box for instant streaming, soundcloud.

http://soundcloud.com/

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

I listened to your composition: Romance for Piano and Viola and I am very impressed. I like the version at sound cloud better. This composition sounds reminiscent of music I heard on the Arts channel. That was a piece by Ravel. i can't remember the tune, though. Sounds very Jewish. Nothing wrong with that. I love anything in a minor key. Some day I may rise to your level, but you have a long head start.

Your music elevates us to the heavens.

Ralph Sirvent


PS: Wouldn't change a thing.

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

thanks for taking the time to listen and your kind reply. I have not written anything for a while but your words may encourage me again.

If you liked that you may also like this piece for violin and piano that I more recently made

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMZ03e6Oqus

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Hello Adrian,
I downloaded the sheet music to your Romance for Piano and Viola. I'll be studying the left hand of your music. That's where I need the most help.
Wondering where I can buy a copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends. I tried to reply to you from my e-mail address but was unable to. So I posted this message here. Thank you.

Ralph Sirvent

I can be reached at ralphsirvent@yahoo.com

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Hi Adrian,

Good to hear from you again. I and my wife, Cynthia, just listened to/viewed your "Where The Sidewalk Ends", referred to below.

What a marvelous composition. Combined with the videos and imagery, you've created a very enchanting mood, filled with melancholy and whimsy.

I realize you probably have a lot on your plate, but please do consider writing more. It is much appreciated.

Ralph

Re: Romance For Viola and Piano
 

Hi Adrianallan,
Love the melodious music and thanks for sharing this with others also. Hope to see more music work from you in future so keep sharing. Thanks in advance for any input.