Autumn Nocturne Septet

[Sherry C]

Hi Ralph,

Very nice "goodevening" piece - I like it. Any chance you'd want to score it for big band? (wink, wink)

Originally Posted by rrayner

I am trying to build up my Clavinova repertoire where I will have a meaningful number of charts to play along with, so I have started entering in some of my old playing-days scores.

Thanks for gracing us with these

I have notated it as “Easy Swing” as most of the sections have a swing feel. There are a number of places where I intentionally use straight eighth notes. I marked these notes with the dash over the note head to indicate “no swing”.

Is that a "jazz standard" notation form? I'm asking, because I see tenutos sometimes on my bass charts for the big band, but have generally understood them to be more in the way of added emphasis or "fullness" as opposed to "straight" vs. swing. In my little Alfred "Essential Dictionary of Music Notation" it does say that the tenuto is "flexible in its application". Is this one of those 'flexible moments'? I'm asking in ignorance, because my main musical background is a play-by-ear musician, so I'm not as familiar as more seasoned musicians with some of the finer nuances of articulation markings.

My only regret is that I can’t find a way to smooth out the legato phrases, like at letter A, where the three horns play a spread voicing background. This problem is not as noticeable in the ensemble (soli) at letter D. I have tried reducing the Velocity, and that helps, but the transition between notes still sounds very “chuggy” to me. I have lengthened the duration of the notes in these legato phrases to the full time value, and this also helps, but it still doesn’t smooth it out enough.

Have you tried lengthening the notes so that they overlap by a tick or two? There are caveats of course (1) you'd need to do the duration adjustments with the Piano Roll/"Edit as-performed" "ON" and (2) you can only do it for adjacent notes that are different pitches (ie. you can't make such overlaps with adjacent notes that are on the same pitch). That "chugginess" will also differ depending on the MIDI playback device. The note-on "chuff" is fixed for some devices, but can be manipulated in other devices (eg. Garritan libraries, and others.)

By the way, this lengthening of notes to their full value is something I have started to do for phrasing. I know this is not the way that Mark designed Notation, but I contend as a horn player, the sound of any individual note does not end when the player changes to another note, be it by pad or valve, therefore, I do not want the gap between notes, unless it is for phrasing and breathing.

You're right Ralph - the default note lengths were actually determined by the analysis of many "live recorded" MIDI files, and the average lengths for each note value was used as the default table. Fortunately, the table is editable (as are individual notes), so Composer has the flexibility to accommodate most needs/desires

I noticed that you used Free Text to put chord names in for both the Piano and the Bass (I noticed that in the Conductor's Score.) I don't know if you know it or not, but just for others who may be looking, the "real" Text/Chord Name tools will allow you to show or hide chord names for each individual part of a score as well as show them transposed for the particular instrument on that instrument's printed Part.

For example, if you used Text/Chord Names to add chord names to the score, it will show the concert pitch chord names for the conductor's score, and any other instruments that play concert pitch (eg. that first "C" chord for Piano and Bass parts). For other parts (eg. Trumpet) for that Part, the chord names will show up in the instrument transposed pitch (eg. that first chord is a "D" for the trumpet), or you can choose to hide the chord names for the Trumpet part if you don't want the chord names printed on the Trumpet part.

ttfn,
Sherry

[dj]

Hi, Ralph, Sherry:

Actually, "Nocturne" makes a good "Good Morning" as well. A very nice accompaniment to the morning's first coffee!

I'm thinking about small jazz combos myself at the moment, so it's nice to see and hear an accomplished take on the subject.

Your Conductor's Score is also very nice to look at, Ralph. Mark, being the notation nut that he was, would have appreciated it.

Thanks for this.

David

[rrayner]

Hi Sherry,

Wow! What a lot to think about. This is an instance where it would be nice to pull up a comfy chair, a favorite beverage and chat about "stuff" for a couple of hours.

Originally Posted by Sherry C

Is that a "jazz standard" notation form? I'm asking, because I see tenutos sometimes on my bass charts for the big band, but have generally understood them to be more in the way of added emphasis or "fullness" as opposed to "straight" vs. swing.

I don't remember specifically being taught to use the tenuto symbol to indicate that eighth notes should be played with even value, but so much of what we did at Berklee was swing feel, we had to have a way to say that in this case, play these eighth notes as legitimate straight eighth notes. Particularly in a piece like this where the feel flip-flops back and forth between swing and legit.

Originally Posted by Sherry C

Have you tried lengthening the notes so that they overlap by a tick or two?

I have experimented a little in this area -- overlapping adjacent different pitch notes by as much as 7 ticks, but I haven't been really happy with the results. My problem is that with a horn or a keyboard, you can vary loudness and attack independently. You can have the obvious: hard attack with high volume; or soft attack with low volume. The subtlety of human musicians is that they can play a soft attack on a relatively high volume, which is the part that is missing (to me) in the computer-generated sounds. My layman's guess would be that a computer-generated sound starts immediately at the loudness/velocity you choose, whereas a horn sound would grow from nothing as the air column starts to flow to when the player reaches full intended air flow for the note. Therefore, each note at the start of a phrase grows from nothing to full. It seems the computer-generated sound starts at full, therefore making it very difficult to try to smooth out legato phrases. This first note of a phrase is not as much a problem as the notes within a phrase. I would like to reduce the velocity (hardness of the attack) without reducing the volume. Additionally, a horn player can play a legato phrase with little or no tonguing, just allowing the pad or valve to smoothly make the transition to the new pitch, i.e., minimal velocity.

Originally Posted by Sherry C

I noticed that you used Free Text to put chord names in for both the Piano and the Bass...

I am waiting for the enhancement where you can tie the Text/Chord Names to a specific staff. I am also looking forward to the ability to replace my quarter note rests with appropriately-sized slashes in the open solo or piano, bass, and guitar parts. Using the rests for spacing is contradictory and doesn't provide the capability to say "don't play for 2 beats", etc.

Originally Posted by Sherry C

...or you can choose to hide the chord names for the Trumpet part if you don't want the chord names printed on the Trumpet part.

Okay -- can I hide the chord names in the Trumpet part throughout the part except in section where there is an open solo? I would want the chord names to show in every designated measure for the piano, bass, or guitar, but I don't want chord names to be showing in the horn parts, except where an individual horn has an open solo. This is why I am using Free Text, which is nowhere near as flexible as Text/Chord Names. My wish list includes being able to combine the positive attributes of both features.

Originally Posted by David

...Mark, being the notation nut that he was, would have appreciated it.

Thanks for the compliments, David and Sherry. I regret that Mark and I never really got to know each other very well. I know I was a pain to him when I first became a Notation Composer user. I am certain that Sherry played an effective shield between us in the early days. I think we had smoothed out our relationship before he passed, but we hadn't yet reached the point of bouncing ideas off of each other.

Ralph

[rrayner]

I reposted the file today with the Working Score as the default. This shows the Drums (silent) and the Drums Work (real sound). The Conductor's Score does not show the Work parts, which are only for sound and not for printing.

Ralph