Notation Software Users Forum

Notation Software Users Forum (http://www.notation.com/vb-forum/index.php)
-   Share Your Music (http://www.notation.com/vb-forum/forumdisplay.php?f=3)
-   -   When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again (http://www.notation.com/vb-forum/showthread.php?t=3559)

rrayner 02-04-2011 05:40 PM

When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
1 Attachment(s)
I would like to dedicate this score to the memory of Mark Walsen, the creator of the amazing Notation software.

This score is the offshoot of a duet of the same name that I had posted on the "Learning and Teaching" pieces Forum last year. If you're interested in that background, please visit that thread.

This is a break in my original intentions. I had planned to put into Composer all of my previously written pieces from my USAF Band days. However, after having written the Recorder Duet and playing it a number of times with my wife, Cynthia, I decided to develop my jazz band version of the song.

One anomaly on my PC's sound card -- the drum roll in the intro sounds like a swish. However, it plays as a drum roll on my midi device.

I've tried something new in this score. I've always enjoyed rhythm guitar in a big band, particularly as played by Freddie Green in the old Count Basie bands. So, I think I've approximated the sound here, at least for electronic music. The letter-form chords are included also, as the written voicings, while musically correct, may break the guitarist's wrist in moving from one to another. I dabbled many years ago with guitar, but I have not tried out the musical flow of these voicings. I hope to improve my knowledge in this area in the future. So many songs to write....

I feel like I've captured the spirit of this song, at least to my liking. I hope you find something of value here to help to expand your musical horizons.

In closing, I'd like to thank Mark Walsen for providing me a means of expressing myself in music and a special thanks to Sherry Cran and all of the forum respondents who have encouraged me along the way. Hopefully, we will continue on.

Ralph Rayner

Sherry C 02-04-2011 06:52 PM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Howdy Ralph,

Fabulous!

I really enjoyed listening to this piece, and hearing how you used so many tools that really enhance the performance. Mark would be proud of that. And the arrangement - wowza! Now on my playlist :)

As for the drums, I have a feeling I know what's up. When I checked the staff settings for the drums, it was a "manually entered" bank. I suspect your Clavinova has a "special" drum set/bank that has that drum roll "instrument" (pseudo-pitch) in it, which is not a part of the General MIDI specification. Thus, that same pseudo-pitch which gives such a nice drum roll on the Clavinova gives only a swish (or in my case, squelch) in GM (general MIDI). I used Staff/Split drums, and set that particular drum instrument to a simple acoustic snare, and it's much more fitting, though not as nice as the drum roll I'm sure you have in mind for that.

Thanks for sharing this piece with us. I love hearing your arrangements, and they do inspire me personally to learn new things. I noticed you left the piano open to the player. Mark was working to learn how to improv, and he really wanted to learn how to play jazz, so it's a fitting bit there, even if it's not what you really left the piano open for ;)

It is also my desire for Notation Software and our community here to continue. I'm a part-owner of the company (Mark was the majority stockholder), and Mark's family has indicated that they want me to figure substantially in the decision about what to do with the business. I will do my best to ensure that support and further development do continue - Mark was always concerned about ongoing support for our customers in the event of any changes. I'm praying for wisdom in all this. Any decisions will not be for a little while, though, as Mark's family are dealing with a lot of items right now, and I'm trying to give them as much room as they need for that. I'll keep everyone posted in the announcements section as to what transpires.

Peace to us all,
Sherry

rrayner 02-04-2011 08:33 PM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Hi Sherry,

As always, thank you for your kind comments. You're right on the drum point -- I have taken the approach of finding what sounds good instrument-wise on the Clavinova, and then I peer under her covers to see what midi device settings she uses. I carry that back to my Notation Composer PC and plug in the midi device settings, which, of course, don't always agree with my PC's sound card.

I thought about attaching a .wav file, but I see that it is not one of the acceptable file types -- plus, it's almost 58MB.

Ralph

Sherry C 02-04-2011 09:53 PM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Hi Ralph,

Re. the .wav file - here's a WAV to mp3 converter that just came up -
http://download.cnet.com/Free-WAV-to...-10851477.html

It's free, and is supposed to give you options for converting .wav files to .mp3 files. If you have any problems getting an upload to the forum, just let me know.

Peace,
Sherry

rrayner 02-05-2011 10:12 PM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Thanks, Sherry. I tried the conversion, and the resultant MP3 file is less than 10% of the original WAV file. As would be expected, there is nowhere near the depth of sound on the MP3, but it is still a fairly good representation of the MIDI/WAV files. However, when I tried to attach it here, the upload failed. The compressed file is about 5.2 KB.

BTW, I'm very relieved to hear that you are talking to Mark's family about continuing on with his legacy. Losing Mark is devastating. Losing the product, that he so lovingly created, would be very sad. I, and I'm sure, others, have spent a lot of time, with your help, learning how to use Composer, and I for one would not look forward to having to start over again with a different application. Or, for that matter, losing the wonderful support that you have provided.

Ralph

Sherry C 02-05-2011 10:44 PM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Hi Ralph (and everyone else),

Ralph, please try the mp3 upload again. I've just added that extension type for uploading. (We'd had issues in the past about filesizes, but from what I can tell now we don't need to worry about that so much these days.)

I agree that it would be a tremendous thing to be able to keep Mark's legacy alive in at least respect to the musical vision of his software. There are a number of possibilities at this point, and one of the things that we (his family and I) will be looking at in the coming weeks and months is how we can best achieve that. I'll certainly keep everyone posted about what's happening as I find out.

Peace,
Sherry

rrayner 02-05-2011 10:58 PM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Sherry -- I still get an "Upload of file failed." message. RRR

Sherry C 02-05-2011 11:42 PM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Hi Ralph,

Ok, tweaked (I hope) - please try again.

Sherry

rrayner 02-06-2011 01:00 AM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
1 Attachment(s)
The MP3 file upload still failed for me, Sherry. However, I am reposting my original file, as I discovered that in my haste to post after hearing about Mark, I had not completed the notation of the ending, to indicate where the ritard starts. I also added the missing fermatas.

While I was doing this, I noticed that the "swallows" in the sax section F (measures 84, 85, 88 & 89) had migrated away from the notes that were supposed to be marked (the swallows are the slightly diminished volume places). I guess I was originally on a smaller font when I included them. This raises the problem of using Free Text to add these adornments, as they are not anchored to the notes.

Ralph Rayner

Sherry C 02-06-2011 01:31 AM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Hi Ralph,

What kind of error message are you getting when you try to upload the mp3? Perhaps that will help me to figure out what the issue is from this end.

Re. the "swallows" - I've written that up for adding to the Notes and Rests/Articulations and Expressions palette. Are there other commonly used annotations like that which brass or other wind instruments use that should be included there?

Thanks!
Sherry

rrayner 02-06-2011 03:55 AM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Hi Sherry,

I'm still getting an "Upload of file failed." message, after the upload works for a while. Perhaps it has reached a limit and terminates. That's what the behavior looks like. Can't take anymore - abort!

In regard to other markings, there are a number that would be used in a jazz band, but they would also need to have attendant sound support. The ones that come to mind are: 1) the drop - the downward glissando to nowhere after a hard attack on a note, which diminishes in volume to silence; 2) a scoop, in which the player loosens the lip and approaches the correct tone from a quarter-tone or so below; 3) a shake, which is kind of like a trill, but slower and with varying speed; and 4) a doit, pronounced doy-t, which is somewhat like a drop, however, the direction is an upward glissando to nowhere -- primarily brass, but used by reeds also. I hope this helps.

Ralph Rayner

rrayner 02-06-2011 03:54 PM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
I thought I'd add a little background color to this thread. I am particularly pleased with the way Sections K through the start of Section M (measures 160-183) came out. The germ of the idea for this interlude came to me on the morning of a travel day. We had a 70-mile trip for a mid-day Doctor's appointment, to be followed with a visit to Cynthia's parents. So, I had no time to write down any of my thoughts, and I was very concerned that by the time I could write it down that the memory would have faded. My memory's not the best anymore. After pleasantries were exchanged with Cynthia's folks and the conversation had settled down, I was able to excuse myself for a short period of time and get my Laptop out and capture the basic idea, while breathing a sign of relief that the germ hadn't evaporated.

I think of this part as my "Hoorah Chorus", reminiscent of the lyrics I remember from childhood -- "When Johnny comes marching home again, Hoorah! Hoorah!" The trombones start the transition from G Minor to D Minor with a paraphrasing of the main theme. The paraphrasing motif continues with the trumpets as all the brass join in the shout ("...the men will cheer, and the boys will shout...") and the saxes add their Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah! -- jubulation! All in all, a fun piece of music to put together.

Ralph Rayner

Sherry C 02-11-2011 04:04 PM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
1 Attachment(s)
Hi friends,

I'm posting this here for Ralph as we've had some technical snafu that I'll have to work out when I get home (I'm in Bellevue now with Mark's family).

Attachment 601

Grace and peace,
Sherry

rrayner 02-11-2011 05:02 PM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Due to technical difficulties on my end, I've asked Sherry to upload the MP3 file for this song. The reason for adding the MP3 file is so folks can hear what the arrangement sounds like when using the midi choices I made for my Clavinova. I have finally come to understand that if I want you folks to hear what I hear, I should be using General Midi (GM), not changing to midi sounds I want to hear on my final target for the song.

For this score, the only two non-GM tracks are the flute, which seems to play okay on my GM sound card, and the drums, which, on my PC, sound correct except for the drum roll in the intro and closing. The flute, in my Clavinova midi selection, is much breathier.

So, the MP3 file, whereas not as full as a WAV file, produces a more true sound of what the song sounds like on my Clavinova.

Ralph Rayner

Sherry C 03-04-2011 03:59 AM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Howdy Ralph,

Due to a lot of things I've only just now been able to sit and really listen to your mp3 rendering of your piece. Wow!!! If the mp3 version is that good, I'd love to hear the wav version! Better yet, this would be an awesome live piece - I do hope someone picks it up :)

You did a fantastic job with the playback capabilities of Composer in getting a really good performance out of the file, as well as some (to my humble eyes anyway) excellent sheet music for it. Kudos on a piece well done!

ttfn,
Sherry

rrayner 03-15-2011 12:41 PM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Sherry has put together a very nice video of this arrangement, and posted it on You Tube. My wife Cynthia and I provided a number of the pictures and Sherry added some more pictures and put the entire piece together for online. She used the WAV file (converted to MP3) that was created on our Yamaha Clavinova (CVP-405) from the Notation Composer MIDI file as the audio. We hope you enjoy it.



Ralph Rayner

floyd84s 08-03-2011 08:55 AM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
I like songhttp://www.ywseo.net/zhu.jpg
http://www.ywseo.net/gongsi.jpg
http://www.ywseo.net/ht.jpg

amhoff 12-07-2011 06:40 AM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Ralph, a great arrangement, thank you for sharing with us.

Sherry, thanks for putting the video together and on You Tube.

Al Hoff

mgj32 12-10-2011 07:01 AM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Ralph,
I've heard this in so many arrangements over the years that I thought surely there was nothing more that could be done with it. It is a pleasure to be proved wrong. The song is fresh again. The pictures in the video all seem appropriate, which like the music neither over nor understate the sentiment of the anticipated celebration. The ending, too, is just a statement, but the change in tone serves as a reminder that it has all been about anticipation of celebrating Johnny's return.
The song lives again for me thanks to you, and thanks to Sherry for the video.
all best,
mgj

rrayner 12-11-2011 11:58 PM

Re: When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
 
Marv, Al & Floyd,

Thank all of you for your kind words. I would love to hear Johnny played live, but so far, I've not been able to generate any interest. And, of course, I've limited myself a little bit in live performance, as I wrote it for sax players who double on flute and soprano sax -- not a common practice.

Ralph


All times are GMT. The time now is 07:09 PM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Notation Software Germany GmbH www.notation.com/Imprint.php