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  • Hey newbie with no formal music training

    I need to spend more time on this community site. Maybe I am misspeaking here.

    There are so many wonderful discussions from folks classically trained. And nuances are explored. Unfortunately my parents didn't have the means for lessons as a kid, so I taught myself, playing by ear (and heart). Although I marvel at discussion on Ravel. I can't fully relate. What I want is to add strings to my songs. A complement vs mocking up sounds and Sibelius scores. Anyone relate?

    Although I am pretty musically illiterate (read/play music slowly) I have a feel for it. I found a few gems by Bach...Arioso and Air. As a technical person in my day job, for much of what I care about (supplement with strings vs orchestra), these short pieces are a wonderful place for newbs to start. In my lingo, for my interests, a "minimal spanning set" of things I'd like to learn. Arioso is nothing short of amazing. Thought I'd share my first rough mix with you newbs.

    https://soundcloud.com/simitree/arioso

    As an engineer (degree in physics, software my 30+ years, inventing) I can find so many books that break down in detail about anything I am interested in. There are so many many books and resources that often I find I need to read several to get the full picture. So....I looked for the breakdown and books on Arioso. For as long as music has been around surprisingly sparse!! Shockingly if I am honest.

    I hired a talented pianist/teacher to help me read thru a quintet score (music above, but warning that I transposed it down to F because i am grafting it into a song, and I can barely reach F vocally. Not a real singer). As she played thru the score (I can provide that)...she was amazed at how Bach did things you wouldn't expect. She rattled it off...but I've yet to capture it. Like inversions etc.

    If this was engineering I could find 10 books that dissected it, explained all the quirks, section by section. There is amazingly very little that I've seen. Sibelius was able to parse it and find some interesting chord structure.

    Here is my wild ass thought. Why doesn't the community take on eg Arioso (all less than 3 min of it) and team tag it? Can experienced folks figure what I did? What tools I used? How I panned? Where I doubled instruments? What settings I made? So here is the deal. I assume there are many scenarios that sound great, by more experienced people than me the noob. If we could tag team "minimal spanning set" songs such as Arioso...that would help a different user subset than properly schooled musicians...I suspect there are others like me not as classically schooled...that would be a big help (this is where others chime in if I am not alone).

    So that's the thought...come up with a short list of classic/useful songs, and have the SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) comment. Of course there will be variants. I am considering setting up a wiki site...but only with links (to say soundclound) where the SMEs can share their wealth...show/explain setups...and for us noobs...with the SMEs. Show me what settings you do for Arioso (Air, or whatever)...what various tool settings...what mix...what pan (I tried to model the classic left-to-right stage setup. DB on right!). Perhaps completely obvious to you music majors..but trying ochestra, chamber and solo (quintet) setups was amazing. Depending upon what you are looking for....a lot of choice (maybe obvious to music majors. The Eastman School of Music is in my town btw...hoping to connect there).

    Off my soapbox. Happy weekend all.

    Paul


  • Hi Paul

    I was intrigued by your post since I am also a physicist with semi formal classical training But I had some difficulty figuring out what you are suggesting. What do you mean by 'team tag'?

    And are you suggesting that we analyze existing classical maserworks and post it on a master website? This would be an excellent idea, although there are indeed volumes of analysis of geat works over the centuries. You could search online for lecture demonstrations. One that immediately comes to my mind is Andreas Schiff's lectures about Beethoven sonatas.



    Another one about Beethovens fifth: 



    There are 100s of such videos on youtube, some even with greats such as Bernstein. And there is always wikipedia.

    But of course you may not find an analysis of a specific peice of music such as the Arioso, for which it would be good to have an expert commentary about the nuances.

    Anyways, not sure if I am even in the ball park of what you are suggesting.

    Cheers

    Anand


  • I am not sure what kind of information you are really after. You describe yourself as a person with no formal musical training, but when you give examples for possible analysis you only are referring to technical matters: panning, mixing etc. This has nothing to do with musical training but with sound engineering which might be more closely related to your own profession.


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    Hi Anand & MassMover,

    Thanks for both of your responses, and for pointers/links/suggestions. I apologize for not explaining myself well. By choice of Arioso I was looking for something that was both rich and short. Without classical training longer pieces would be overwhelming, for me. As has been said many times by others, you can't approach strings with samples in a two handed piano style. Arioso has 2 violins, viola, cello and double bass parts. The interplay/interactions/lead handoffs...playing say the cello in a higher register...the more typical violin range (if I am saying this correctly)...so many interesting things going on. What is the music theory behind this? The mind of Bach as it were.

    By team it is more to break it down into significant parts and talk to what is being done. But also - to MassMover's point - how to realize this in various ways in the VSL toolset. Not just the mechanics of the tools, but in the context of creating a song everyone works on as a team. I know that I have some pumping sound issues that surely an experienced person could explain how to fix it. I am soon to start working with Beat Kaufmann's tutorials...but the idea was to have a shared piece that folks get mentored on. And by that, I mean the less schooled folks as well. Some music theory across the quintet score...and how different folks would setup their tools. If I forgot to attach the score I will now. So community mentoring based on a shared song.

    But again, thanks for the thoughts/feedback.

    Paul

    ArosioF_v2 - Full Score.zip-1696263783278-pdk86.zip AriosoFmidi.zip-1696263783278-1zndk.zip

  • Also just to be clear...converting from midi to music wasn't perfect...but what makes this even worse is that I intentionally transposed it down to F...which makes the music more ugly. I can probably find the original or map it back to the original key....I used Sibelius which did its best to convert to music notes, but that's the reason it isn't visually very nice...and you have notes not in quite the right place. But the arrangement, musically, is the best I've found...and I have seen a number of them. They tend to have most of the music in the first violin...this has a good amount of handoffs of the lead.

    And perhaps I was hallucinating, but playing around with placement in MIR Pro 24 I got the sense that there is a 3D layout implicit in the parts - spatial. If you have headphones and listen for that, you'll hear it in my mix. I generally placed classically according to violin on left, DB on right...but there really seems to be quite a different feel depending upon where the musicians are seated. I can't prove it, but my gut says Bach arranged the lead handoffs and pairing of parts to give a real spatial dimension to the song. Also, to be entertaining to watch. But what do I know. I will say I made multiple arrangements/mixes in MIR Pro based also on spatial layout.  In any event the music link is from this midi file.


  • As mass movers says you are talking about two competely different aspects, one is music theory and composition and the other is digital audio reproduction using software samples. Not to mention there is another important aspect, which is the world of musical performance and instrumentation/orchestration, which is in principle different from composition (I am quoting ravel here) If you'd like to work on improving the rendering of the Bach example, you are in the right place. I am not an expert in any of the above, unfortunately,but others can comment. The one quick comment I do have is that I felt that the transitions in you rendering were a little abrupt, at times. The VSL samples are like an orchestra that has to be told EXACTLY what to do, for every single note. If not ,it will sound like a synth. It helps to listen to recordings of real musicians performing the piece as much as possible, so you know how each instrument is supposed to sound.

  • As mass movers says you are talking about two competely different aspects, one is music theory and composition and the other is digital audio reproduction using software samples.
    >> Yes, that was me being unclear. I am reminded however of how mathematically oriented textbooks have changed over time. Back in my day the books were extremely terse, and it was hard to see how the math could be applied. Today there are many more real-world applications in texts so you are learning the math more easily by tying it to realistic scenarios/challenges. That is sort of the duality here...not just learning the tools, but with the context of the application (song in this case, with some music theory intermixed).

    Not to mention there is another important aspect, which is the world of musical performance and instrumentation/orchestration, which is in principle different from composition (I am quoting ravel here)
    >> Good point.

    If you'd like to work on improving the rendering of the Bach example, you are in the right place. I am not an expert in any of the above, unfortunately,but others can comment.
    >> With product development we usually have to consider different "actors" and "workflows". It is pretty easy for me to see that many folks here are classically trained, which is wonderful. But I am wondering if there are others like me earlier on in the journey that could benefit from a more collaborative project to learn the basics. I see I can save out settings...but I'd be curious eg to download a more seasoned musician/producer's settings to learn from them.

    >> Another analogy would be blues guitar. You don't have to listen to many songs to see patterns (licks, riffs) being reused. The thought was experienced folks could point out some of the interesting "moves" in a song, Arioso just one that was short/sweet ("Study Bach: there you will find everything." - Johannes Brahms). In software, if it is done well, there are comments in the code to explain the various parts. If some things are really tricky or deep/complex, I'd split them out into a "white paper"...where I had a narrative/analysis of what is going on. I'd happily pay good money for this sort of "breakdown". I turned here because after searches...I was stunned not to see more that I could buy. Seems a real gap. For example, the piano teacher friend who worked thru some of this music would often say comments like "you'd expect it to resolve here, but he (bach) did this...that's really interesting". There are real gems lurking in an under 3 minute song here....

    The one quick comment I do have is that I felt that the transitions in you rendering were a little abrupt, at times. The VSL samples are like an orchestra that has to be told EXACTLY what to do, for every single note. If not ,it will sound like a synth. It helps to listen to recordings of real musicians performing the piece as much as possible, so you know how each instrument is supposed to sound.
    >> Thanks all good suggestions (and I had seen one of the links you sent before, good stuff). I actually listen to a lot of classical music...why I hear there are problems with my "mix". And yes, abrupt is right! That is the sort of kind feedback that is helpful. I also live near the Eastman School of Music...and they have free student rehearsals on some weekends I plan to take advantage of. In any event....I shared my midi file in case other newbies would like to learn from this little gem. THANKS!!


  • I'd like to encourage you to look for good literature on music theory. There is no gap, as you suppose, quite the opposite is true. While you might not find a detailed analysis of every work Bach has ever written, there are still plenty of them though. So maybe you should go the other way round: look for available analysis articles, and after that, listen to the respective pieces and decide, which one is most to your taste.

    Further: While every piece is unique there are the general rules of the baroque era which are explained in a large variety of books. The ability to understand "how on would expect the resolving" is crucial for detect the spots where bach decided to diverge.

    So, instead of putting the cart before the horse by tagging some "special moves" before understanding the general principles, why don't you look for a good old fashioned "study group" where you focus on one good book or online tutorial on music theory and discuss your progress with others?


  • >> All sage advice MassMover - thank you.

    I'd like to encourage you to look for good literature on music theory. There is no gap, as you suppose, quite the opposite is true. While you might not find a detailed analysis of every work Bach has ever written, there are still plenty of them though. So maybe you should go the other way round: look for available analysis articles, and after that, listen to the respective pieces and decide, which one is most to your taste.

    >> I am not entirely new to music theory, and do have a few good books (incl The Study of Counterpoint that I've not gotten to yet). All you say makes sense. I have searched. There are some analyses on large pieces. My goal is modest, to try to learn how to compose string arrangements to a basic proficiency. Most of what I find is one extreme or the other - a bit fluffy or something for music majors / pro schooled musicians. I will keep looking.

    Further: While every piece is unique there are the general rules of the baroque era which are explained in a large variety of books. The ability to understand "how on would expect the resolving" is crucial for detect the spots where bach decided to diverge.

    >> Yes, that makes perfect sense. One interesting part of the work thus far (with help from a pianist) is that she would sort of play the chord across the parts, and treat it like a chord progression. Of course there are many other nuances/notes/changes, but it was a good approach to get sort of the backbone structure out of the piece.

    So, instead of putting the cart before the horse by tagging some "special moves" before understanding the general principles, why don't you look for a good old fashioned "study group" where you focus on one good book or online tutorial on music theory and discuss your progress with others?

    >> Sure i would say that is the traditional approach (complete with carts/horses). If anyone has other suggestions on this topic (links, books, random thoughts) feel free to send a note to me offline at galois@rochester.rr.com 

    Thanks again MassMover for your great suggestions.   /paul


  • PaulP Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on