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-   -   Something lighter that I usually do (http://www.notation.com/vb-forum/showthread.php?t=1970)

David Jacklin (dj) 03-20-2005 06:48 PM

I've been showing off my &
 
I've been showing off my "serious" music on this forum for a long time (Mark has listened to about an hour's worth of it), so I thought I'd post some things in a lighter vein.

BTW, Mark, there's no thread for Country music!

So here are a few songs from a country musical I wrote the book and lyrics for, and co-composed with a friend. He's an excellent guitarist and composer who has left performing to sail the wide accountant-cy, as Monty Python would put it.

The show is called The Day We Flipped Mike's Chev and it's about Mike, a country singer, who returns to his home town after ten years of, relative, success as a performer. He finds his old chums and his old love and they all try to sort out their thoughts. In the end, about the only thing they manage to do is wreck Mike's '55 Chev hot rod, but their relationships don't solve themselves that easily .

Here are three numbers.


David Jacklin (dj) 03-20-2005 06:56 PM

This is a number from Act One,
 
This is a number from Act One, called Make Mine Honky-Tonk. It's a duet between two women who are expressing their satisfaction with their laid-back life style. Before the end of the show, however, both have decided that "honky-tonk" is no longer for them.

It's a bright piece that has a lot of steel guitar pickin', one of the toughest things to get right in any kind of synthesis, most especially in GM mode, which doesn't even have a steel guitar voice. I hope my approximation gets the point across.

<center><table border=1><tr><td>http://www.notation.com/discus/icons...hment_icon.gifMake Mind Honky-Tonk
Make Mine Honky Tonk.not (230.7 k)</td></tr></table></center>

BTW, if you're playing these, please use Page View, as it shows off Composer a little better and there's some info that you won't see in Window View.


David Jacklin (dj) 03-20-2005 07:00 PM

Okay, so I should proof-read &
 
Okay, so I should proof-read "Make Mine Honky-Tonk should be the description above, not "Make Mind Honky-Tonk." Anyway . . .

The second one is a sort-of love duet between Mike and his old flame, whom Mike left abruptly to pursue his career and who has since married Mike's good friend. However, her first child is Mike's.

I particularly like the fiddle part in this one. It really lifts the number. Although the overall feel is bright, the tempo changes in the chorus make it a moving number.

<center><table border=1><tr><td>http://www.notation.com/discus/icons...hment_icon.gifWe Found Heaven (In The Back Of A Dodge)
Heaven.not (258.0 k)</td></tr></table></center>

David Jacklin (dj) 03-20-2005 07:10 PM

And, a last number. This is
 
And, a last number.

This is from Act Two and it's another duet (for some reason, these three are all duets; there are lots of other kinds of numbers in the show). This is between Mike's old flame and her husband, who have come to a parting of the ways and they sing "It's Funny I Fell Out Of Love With You".

Although essentially a comedy, the show has a serious intent behind it. There's no happy ending to this show. On the other hand, there's no unhappy ending, either. It's kind of like life: it continues.

This is a fast, country swing number with a walking bass and some funky organ. Although cleaned up a bit, the organ is pretty much as it was played in, so the glisses and fills are a little ugly looking. I'm betting that Composer Pro will be able to clean that up.

If you can, give the organ part a good Leslied B3 sound.

<center><table border=1><tr><td>http://www.notation.com/discus/icons...hment_icon.gifIt's Funny I Fell Out Of Love With You
Funny.not (308.6 k)</td></tr></table></center>

Sherry Crann (sherry) 03-21-2005 04:03 PM

Howdy David, Well, you'
 
Howdy David,

Well, you've certainly nailed the country genre quite well http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif You do a lot of things to capture that feel, and I agree that the guitar is one of the most difficult instruments to reproduce with anything other than a live one. Of course players of other instruments will also say the same of their particular instrument, I'm sure http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

I really liked how you used the bass drum for the "heartbeat" section of "Heaven" - I'm sure that could be made quite effective in your live theatre situation. And I also enjoyed the fiddle part - it does weave in and out with the lyrics quite well.

I'll confess to being a sucker for bass walking lines. I have a good Hammond B3 soundfont that I used for the third number you put up, and that along with the walking bass made it really fun musically.

Thanks for sharing some more of your work - it's always fun to listen to what other folks are doing, and to help get musical ideas going http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

ttfn,
Sherry


Mark Walsen (markwa) 03-21-2005 05:15 PM

David, You are quite right
 
David,

You are quite right that Country deserves its own section in the Share Your Music area of the forum. My wife, Celeste, would have caught that omission very quickly if she were browsing through this part of the forum. You've now earned the honor of starting the Country section of the forum.

These three country pieces are a lot of fun. Had you already sequenced them some time ago, and then recently imported them into Composer and then annotated them?

I really like how country grace notes not only sound but what they look like in notation. I know, only a notation geek cares about the latter. Did Composer automatically transcribe most or all of the grace notes, or did you have to convert the written-out short notes by hand?

Grace notes were just one of many country idioms that you convincingly used in these pieces. Another country idiom that particularly caught my attention was the rolled chord on a fermata at measure #21 in Heaven, and a few times after that.

Good job.

Cheers
-- Mark



David Jacklin (dj) 03-22-2005 12:20 PM

Hi, Sheri and Mark: These p
 
Hi, Sheri and Mark:

These pieces were sequenced into Cakewalk quite a few years ago, then a year or so back, I transferred them into an early beta of Composer, pre-grace notes. When I came back to them recently, they were already .not files, so I had to manually do the grace notes, which Composer handled admirably.

Getting effective fermatii is also difficult with most sequencers. Hand-drawing the tempo curves is always exacting, and, of course, the computer doesn't understand what a musician would intuitively do with a fermata. The lead guitarist in our band made good use of his amp's tremelo at those points, giving a nice suspension.

Our original band for this was guitar, bass, drums and myself on keyboards, with two of the actors in the play also playing guitar and piano as part of their characters. I had my hands full trying to cover violin, steel guitar, organ and such. Of course, all of that was, if not pre-MIDI, at least so early in the MIDI era that nobody could afford a MIDI keyboard. I played a borrowed Korg Delta and my own Fender Rhodes and Arp Odyssey keyboards.

I haven't done a lot of country, but it's fun, occasionally.

Maybe I'll post some blues or jazz next time.




David Jacklin (dj) 03-22-2005 12:26 PM

Mark: Regarding the organ g
 
Mark:

Regarding the organ glisses in "It's Funny I Fell Out Of Love With You":

With the new gliss and port markings available in Composer Pro, what I'd like to do is hide all the notes between the first and last ones in a glissando and connect them instead with a gliss marker. However, I don't think there is any way to hide notes in Composer, is there?

It might be a feature to think about, to go along with the gliss/port markings in Composer Pro, Mark.


Mark Walsen (markwa) 03-22-2005 03:41 PM

David,


 
David,

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

With the new gliss and port markings available in Composer Pro, what I'd like to do is hide all the notes between the first and last ones in a glissando and connect them instead with a gliss marker. However, I don't think there is any way to hide notes in Composer, is there?

It might be a feature to think about, to go along with the gliss/port markings in Composer Pro.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>The glissando feature is already available in Composer Pro, which you can download from the Composer Pro section of this forum. The glissando will also also be available in Composer 1.1, which will be released at the same time as the first release of Composer Pro.

This first implementation of glissando is not ideal. If you have a glissando across the span of a half note, the correct notation is to show the beginning and ending notes as quarter notes, with a glissando line connecting them. In general, the total duration of the glissando should be divided in half to determine the notated durations of the beginning and ending notes.

If you only do that much, then on playback you'll just hear the two quarter notes and no glissando. There is no intelligence in the glissando mark as there are in other marks such as trills, turns, and tremelos. For purposes of playback, you'll need to create a second, hidden track that plays out the glissando notes on the same MIDI channel. For a piano or harp glissando, you would write out the discrete notes to be played. For a continuous glissando, such as played by a trombone, you would use a pitch bend and, if the glissando covers more than 4 semitones, as a pitch bend sensitivity RPN. Only Composer Pro supports editing pitch bend sensitivity RPN. Finally, in the original notated track, the note velocities of the two quarter notes need to be changed to zero.

I'm not very happy with this hidden track approach to producing performances of glissandos. Many notation programs rely heavily on the hidden track approach, but I think that is inconvenient for the user. Composer has employed a different approach where you can toggle the display of as-notated and as-performed. For example, you can view the notated trill (tr~~~~~) or toggle to seeing the written-out trill notes (alternating 32nds, 64ths, whatever). I'll probably do the same thing for glissandos in a later release.

This long response is not intended to side-track further replies about your country music pieces.

Cheers
-- Mark





David Jacklin (dj) 03-23-2005 12:07 PM

Hi, Mark: I never thought o
 
Hi, Mark:

I never thought of putting the gliss'ed notes onto a hidden track! That'll do it.

However, as you suggest, the optimal approach is "intelligent" glissandii/portamentii markings, as you've done so well with ornaments and grace notes. I don't think you could have auto-transcription of them though, as it might be very difficult for Composer to tell the difference between a fast 32nd note run and performed glissando.

I've been challenged by one of the members of the pit band for my current show to write some Dixieland stuff, so trombone portamento may be an important feature for me for a while. http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif



Don Roth 08-03-2005 01:38 PM

Sherry Might you recall my
 
Sherry

Might you recall my midi "out-of-tune" hysteria of a few months ago?
If you're interested in what happened and this is the right forum, let me know and I'll tell you an interesting story.

Best Regards


Don Roth 08-03-2005 02:29 PM

David Heaven indeed. My vi
 
David

Heaven indeed. My violin almost jumped off the couch.

What is "The Day We Flipped .........." ?

DonR


Mark Walsen (markwa) 08-03-2005 03:54 PM

Hello Don, I certainly woul
 
Hello Don,

I certainly would be interested in hearing how you solved the out-of-tune mystery.

Cheers
-- Mark

Sherry Crann (sherry) 08-03-2005 04:02 PM

Howdy Don, Me too! Me too!
 
Howdy Don,

Me too! Me too!

ttfn,
Sherry


Don Roth 08-03-2005 04:45 PM

Hi Folks, Please bear in mi
 
Hi Folks,

Please bear in mind that I remain a USER of midi and I am a Physicist by education but my knowledge of computer inner workings is limited. I will certainly say things that would be expressed much better by a computer maven. (humor me).

Midi files are out of tune (2-4 cents) because the instruments can be out of tune. Better put, the fundamental frequency of an instrument may not be perfectly symmetrical with its harmonics. The net result is that the complex waveform becomes musically skewed. Different instruments act differently in this regard.

All of this isn't very important until midi is used as an accompaniment but then it's a beast.

For diagnostics I'm using G-Tune which includes a nice spectrum analyzer. I simply slow the midi to a crawl for data collection.

For violin purposes I'm sporting an incredible concert quality model that I obtained by sheer luck and it would have me banish the computer entirely if I didn't find a fix !!!

I make my adjustments via BIAB with the GM sound card tuning function which provides a precise readout in cents. I have found some cases where the instrument registered as low as 5 cents out but 2-3 is more typical.

P.S. I had mentioned earlier that I could readily hear 3 cents in tuning and I come to find out that this is not so unusual. The hearing for a typical piano tuner is 5 cents or BETTER. (How come I can never hear my wife when she's talking to me?)

And Mark, the "Share Your Music" section is a FABULOUS innovation!

That's All Folks !




Mark Walsen (markwa) 08-03-2005 05:55 PM

Hi Don, I'm impressed w
 
Hi Don,

I'm impressed with your excellent sense of pitch! And I do believe you have it.

Your theory about the harmonics seems reasonable. I wonder, though, why the creators of the synthesized instruments did not take that issue into account, and skew the harmonics accordingly.

This problem will all be history in not many years, when we will all be using real sampled instrument sounds, such as those of the GPO library, rather than using synthesized sounds, except for intentionally synthesized instruments.

Cheers
-- Mark

Don Roth 08-03-2005 09:29 PM

Mark, The person who questi
 
Mark,

The person who questions my hearing the most is ME !!

Maybe I'm learning why MIDI was never "too bad" or "very good" ?

Bring on the sampling.

Don


David Jacklin (dj) 08-04-2005 01:09 PM

Hi, Don: The Day We Flipped
 
Hi, Don:

The Day We Flipped Mike's Chev is a country musical I wrote (with a chum) quite a few years back, now. It's had a few successful productions, but any show which depends on a specific genre of music for its sound is likely to become dated quickly -- look at Hair and Godspell.

However, I still do like to listen to it once in a while. It's got some toe-tappers.



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