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-   -   Light operamusical (http://www.notation.com/vb-forum/showthread.php?t=1987)

Tim Fatchen (flyingtadpole) 02-25-2005 02:31 PM

The attached three files are a
 
The attached three files are all the same piece, "Bobsprit's Hornpipe", out of The Internet Opera. This song is intentionally a parody on HMS Pinafore, and intentionally the most Gilbert & SUllivan piece in the opera. The files are the "map", the orchestrated version developed from it, and the vocal score reduced and tamed from the orchestrated version.

The "map" is the original piece of music input via keyboard. The music was composed at the piano, and a sufficient piano accompaniment input to allow subsequent embroidering and orchestration on the fly, either by playing along or by simply copying big chunks of the "map" onto the relevant stave. <center><table border=1><tr><td>http://www.notation.com/discus/icons...hment_icon.gifBobsprit's Hornpipe "map"
Tim_Fatchen_Bobsprits_Hornpipe_map.not (216.7 k)</td></tr></table></center>

The orchestrated rough, which I've set right (?) for General Midi, sounds good but when one looks at the notation is all over the place. This is not so much to give a "live" feel, but because it was input live! If ever I get this produced, there's a lot of slog to re-arrange and clean up the orchestration, especially the strings where I cheated and put them in as if I were playing a pipe organ:"more volume? hit more notes!!!!". <center><table border=1><tr><td>http://www.notation.com/discus/icons...hment_icon.gifBobsprit's Hornpipe orchestral
Tim_Fatchen_Bobsprits_Hornpipe_gm2.not (490.5 k)</td></tr></table></center>

Most of the preceding was done before Composer came available. I had a then desperate need to try to develop a clean vocal score, which is how I came to find MidiNotate. The last file is the clean vocal score of the song: you're licensed to print a copy for personal study and to get the slightly risque lyrics! The vocal score has been strictly quantised to ensure the printing is wholly correct, and accordingly sounds absolutely terrible. But it reads well, other than the absence of expression marks... The accompaniment was reduced from the orchestrated score, much pain and effort until Composer came along. <center><table border=1><tr><td>http://www.notation.com/discus/icons...hment_icon.gifBobsprit's Hornpipe Vocal Score
Tim_Fatchen_Bobsprits_Hornpipe_vocal_score.not (331.5 k)</td></tr></table></center>

The orchestral notation file and the vocal score notation file make quite an interesting contrast. I still enjoy this particular piece of music immensely, which is not the case for much of my output!

The Internet Opera has its website at http://www.internetopera.netfirms.com

Regards
Tim
http://music.download.com/timfatchen
http://music.download.com/internetopera
http://www.soundclick.com/flyingtadpole


Mark Walsen (markwa) 02-25-2005 04:21 PM

Hello Tim, This is fun and
 
Hello Tim,

This is fun and interesting to see and hear how your arrangement and notation of your light opera piece evolved. It is indeed very Gilbert &amp; Sullivan like, charming. The GM version is a fine example of good GM orchestrating, and demonstrates that satisfying sound can be achieved with an ordinary sound card playing General MIDI.

How much work did you do on the composition before you recording the "map" on your keyboard? Did you sketch the notes on paper as crib notes for recording? Or, did you work with the composition for a fairly long time so that it was in your fingers? Or, did you use a MIDI sequencer to record lots of short portions of the composition as it evolved into a completed composition.

Many years ago I wrote a 2-piano piece by this last method. I used a MIDI sequencer to play back what I had already written, and then with a "running start" I'd punch in a few more measures, improvised in real time. There are lots of different ways of composing. I'm interested in learning how others compose to make sure that Composer accommodates different methods of composing.

Cheers
-- Mark


Tim Fatchen (flyingtadpole) 02-25-2005 10:50 PM

Hi Mark, ____________ How mu
 
Hi Mark,
____________
How much work did you do on the composition before you recording the "map" on your keyboard? Did you sketch the notes on paper as crib notes for recording? Or, did you work with the composition for a fairly long time so that it was in your fingers? Or, did you use a MIDI sequencer to record lots of short portions of the composition as it evolved into a completed composition.
_______________

I've put a general "how I use MidiNotate" in the thread at http://www.notation.com/cgi-bin/disc...=6403#POST6403

Specifics of "Bobsprit's Hornpipe" itself: there were stage directions of sorts and two important lyric lines "We float around Long Island Sound/But not too far from shore". Those lyrics set the tempo and whole verse structure: the "pom-pom-pom-pom" stay-on-the-same-chord style from HMS Pinafore (and the Modern Major-General's song, which was also in mind) just begged to be used. So I sat at the piano going "pom-pom-pom-pom" and fiddling with the right hand, occasionally recording a chunk on elcheapo tape recorder.

I don't remember how long it took to get the basics, but there's a solid hour of actual tryout-tape in archives, so perhaps 16-20 hours of actual piano spread over three weeks or so? Plus listening to tape late at night and thinking about it. Plus lyrics getting written in the process and themselves starting to alter the music. But no scoring as such got done until there was a good prototype not only "in my fingers" but also on tape, and then the scoring was melody fragments and chord sequences with proto-lyrics.

The prototype was played in real time at the MIDI keyboard, with the taperecording playing loudly into one ear and the synthesiser input looping back into the other. With many stops and starts. Short bursts (phrase at a time) were absolutely necessary because the non-click-track plain audio tape and the midi metronome will never quite match, no matter how carefully one tries, and too long a playing burst ends up way out of strict time. I would love to be able to input in varying time, say "I know the tempo goes up and down, but these are the beats, here is where the barline should be, now clean it up". Perhaps next year...

When I'm on a roll inputting I'll keep going, even where I totally mangle a bar. Then I'll erase that bar's contents, and "punch in" a replacement recording. That's when the "in my fingers" comes into play most, I think.

The resulting apparent MIDI shambles was edited into better shape, and then layering of instruments started, those carrying the "voices" first. In the meantime, lyrics had evolved and resulted in large chunks being cut out of the original MIDI file, and one new large chunk added.

The choice of instruments was determined by my Yamaha PSR310, which had lovely strings but severe limitations in almost all other directions. eg in the whole opera as it stands at present, there's not a line of clarinet or flute, for the simple reason both sound appalling...and the trombone originally doubled for trumpet and so on. OTOH, it led to a very individual, indeed idiosyncratic sound.

Some further cleaning up of the midi-file, and relabelling, was needed to move to General Midi.

The vocal score accompaniment was a combination of all the instrumental parts and the map, bravely edited back to a sparse piano, then checked and modified by playing at the piano.

Sounds more complex than it seemed at the time...what I really need now are singers. Singers!

Regards
Tim

http://www.internetopera.netfirms.com
http://music.download.com/internetopera

Mark Walsen (markwa) 02-26-2005 05:06 PM

Tim, Let's see if this
 
Tim,

Let's see if this summary of your steps in composing Bobsprit's Hornpipe is fairly accurate:
  1. The staging and lyrics for this light opera piece determined the structure of the piece.
  2. The structure of the piece suggested the chord progressions, which you laid out fairly early.
  3. Once you had the chord progressions, you improvised the melody notes to fit the chord progressions and the lyrics.
  4. You cobbled together a MIDI recording of the the melody and accompaniment, but the MIDI performance was imperfect.
  5. You manually cleaned up the MIDI performance using a MIDI sequencer (you'd probably used Composer to do that today).
  6. You orchestrated the parts with different sounds according to whether you were rendering the sound on your Yamaha PSR310 or on your GM sound card.
Is that a pretty good summary? What important steps am I leaving out, or have misordered?

For others reading this post, I think Tim's method of composing illustrates how you can compose satisfying music without necessarily having Mozart's ability to go out into a field of flowers, dream up a symphony, and write it down when you get back to your study. You can incrementally compose music rather than hear it perfectly in your head all at once. (I'd consider selling my soul to the devil for that ability.)

Cheers
-- Mark

Tim Fatchen (flyingtadpole) 02-27-2005 11:31 AM

Mark, for this one add in 3a:
 
Mark, for this one add in 3a:

"3a. You scrathced around at the piano ending up with a mixture of live tape recording and odd jottings on paper before attempting the initial MIDI recording which cobbled all these together."

But just to be contrary, "The Bold Navigator" on http://music.download.com/internetopera was MIDI improvisation, fiddling and cut and paste from start to finish. The lyrics were written to fit the music. The music started off as nothing to do with the opera, indeed predated it, but was nicely suited to the "arthritic jig" called for in the developing play!

Regards
Tim

Mark Walsen (markwa) 02-27-2005 04:39 PM

Tim,


 
Tim,

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

But just to be contrary, "The Bold Navigator" on http://music.download.com/internetopera was MIDI improvisation, fiddling and cut and paste from start to finish.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>That's how I usually compose. Before I had MidiNotate Composer, I also composed by improvising. But the improvisational method of composing depends on one's having a good musical memory. Alas, my musical memory is not as good as I would like. (Actually, in general, my entire memory is rather weak. Last night my wife and I saw a glimpse of the movie 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' that we saw some years ago. My wife recalled all of the intricate details of the relationships between the characters. I would barely remember having even seen the movie.) Anyway, my poor memory, and specifically, my poor musical memory, is to your and every Composer users' advantage. It was my poor musical memory that motivated me to develop a tool that would capture my improvisations, so that I didn't have to remember what I played.

I realize that this "capture one's improvisation" method of composing is just one of many methods of composing. Composer is particularly well-suited for that method. But, I've tried to design Composer so that it suits other methods of composing also. For example, 'Sherry's Method' is an excellent method for folk who have some music keyboard skills but don't improvise fluidly.

... We've talked about this before in another thread several weeks ago...

Cheers
-- Mark




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