Thanks Goran. When you say spatial, do you mean reverb or panning?

-B

Music inspired by a screenplay I've written. Most of it is VSL, there's some Mellotron and actual live instruments as well as random VSTs that I've scavenged. Let me know what you guys think. It's been a while since I've posted on here.

The Uncanny Valley

Thanks!

 Hey Tanuj,

I've had good luck with finding people to record with. What I did was, wrote a bunch of demos with VSL, then posted it and looked for people on craigslist, myspace, etc. Once we started rehearsing, some people would stay, some would leave. I would fill empty chairs usually from other people knowing other musicians. If you're going to the US, I would suggest Chicago and New York, followed by Los Angeles.

I've had bad luck with students because they are usually so involved with their studies that they don't have time to rehearse. It really depends on what you want to accomplish. Let me know if you have any other questions.

-Bw

 Yes please +1.

 Awesome, thank you!

I want to get the Percussion DVD but the discount appears to be not active, even though today is April 15 and the offer "says on or before April 15" (unless of course this is on Vienna time, though it should only be 7:00 pm in Vienna).

 William, thankyou glad you dug it!

-B

http://music-for-films.com/crime-jazz/

These are pieces I wrote for a large ensemble that I play in. I wrote these without really knowing a lot about each individual instrument's range and physical characteristics (I'm self taught mostly) and thus, there was some notes that were out of the average range (altissimo for saxes, trumpets jumping consecutive octave eighth notes back and forth, the clarinet crossing the break over and over, etc. textbook no-no's). I also scored stuff for strings not knowing that a string quartet will get completely buried by a group of saxes and brass, even after being amplified. I even scored stuff for contrabassoon, as if I'd find a contrabassoonist who would play for free in a group where you probably wouldn't be able to hear them!

So what I would generally do is mock them up in VSL, export the midi to Sibelius, print it out, and then pray that it would sound good at rehearsal.

Here's a link to a realization of some of them.

http://www.watts-ensemble.com/

and the myspace page has a couple more (though lower fidelity)

http://www.myspace.com/wattsensemble

The final line up was...

Drums

2 Basses

Piano

Vibes

2 Trumpets

2 Trombones

3 Saxes (Alto, Tenor, Bari)

2 Flutes (1 doubling on bassoon, clarinet)

cheerz,

Bw

 Why not score the film simply as practice? 

Thank you! Looks like a good resource.

Hello, I use VSL to compose music to be played by an ensemble. I have very little formal training, and since VSL sampled the complete range of the instruments, I sometimes write out of the instruments' "comfortable" range (this is not a big issue as this information is widely available). However, there are things I've learned from feedback from some of the players in the group that are not so easily available, such as repeatedly jumping octaves on a trumpet are hard to pull off, jumping 7ths on a trombone are tough, 2 trumpets in unison in the higher register will often times sound out of tune etc. While the music sounds fine going through VSL, having real humans play it is another matter.

So I'm wondering, if anybody out there can recommend a good book that's full of useful info like this. I have rimsky-korsakov's book and strauss' treatise on instrumentation, but both of those aren't really suited to my needs (the strauss book refers to saxophones as a new instrument and has little less than a page of info).

My group is mostly brass, winds and percussion with 2 double basses, no strings other than that. Any help will be very much appreciated!

Thanks!

Bw

I write for an ensemble using VSL and I have to take this into account. Since VSL is so thorough with what they provide, you have to realize that not every baritone sax player can play 9 eighth notes at 180 bpm, and not every alto sax player can play in the altissimo range, and not every bassist has a C extension. I wrote a lot of this stuff before I knew what every instrument was actually capable of, and what your average player was capable of. I've been told that what I've written is very difficult to play, and I blame that on my lack of  knowledge concerning each instrument.

So if you have this knowledge I would employ it :)

-Bw

No problem. Music notation is just another language (and easy to learn when compared to English!), and it really just takes some time to get proficient at it. A good way to think about it is, right now as you are reading this, you're reading each word, and not stopping at each letter. Each of these words are so familiar in your mind that you don't need to R-E-A-D L-I-K-E T-H-I-S. The same goes for music. It's just a bunch of lines and dots just like what you are reading now! At first you'll have to say "Good Boys Do Fine Always" and eventually you'll go GBDFA, and then you'll just know that's a G, that's an A, etc.

-B

Here's a good resource for the interweb.

http://musictheory.net/

And like my previous reply to your other thread, get a piano / theory teacher. Try a couple of 'em, find somebody who is on the same page as you. When I first started writing I could only read notation rythmically (I had studied percussion in my youth) but once I got a theory teacher she began to teach me the fundamentals of music theory, and she usually blew my mind at least once during each lesson.

Also, buy sheet music of compositions that you like, and listen and try to follow along.

-BW

Nothing beats a good teacher.

-BW

 Ha, thanks! Will do!

 Hey Noah, thanks for the kinds words!

95% of this was done with 

Vienna Instruments -

Special Edition

Saxophones

Solo Strings

Upright Bass.

Some of it was done with Opus 1 and 2 (when I needed the flattered flute for example.)

The bongos came with Kontakt I think...and the drums came from my arms and legs!

-Bw 

 Hello everyone,

I've put together some
tracks using VSL and live drums. I'm trying to form a band with all
real players, so if you or somebody you know who lives in the greater Los Angeles area might be interested, please let me know!

http://watts-ensemble.com/

thanks

Bw

 

Actually, I meant you should simply take inspiration from the introduction of also sprach zarathrusta as opposed to including the actual introduction. Come up with your own original intro, if you are able to create something as iconic and triumphant, people won't (hopefully) care. This way it accomplishes what it intends without having to rehash something verbatim.

And incidentally I'm a snobby purist and find the original ending much more rewarding to the listener. The ending of the introduction is so engrained in all of our minds that we anticipate it from the very beginning of that opening chord. To change it to something different in a sense ruins the whole piece. It's like picking up a glass of beer and expecting to taste the beautiful essence of guinness and drinking luke warm milk instead. No offense of course! It's hard to mess with the Strauss.

-BW

I would say that instead of doing "also sprach zarathrusta", you should just take inspiration and come up with something completely new, but similar enough to evoke the same kind of emotion.

-BW

I hate to complain, but I suppose I'm inclined to agree. A simple tutorial, where they guide you step by step and show you how to put together a simple 12 bar phrase using each performance tool or something might be nice. The problem I see with that is that there are so many different ways to accomplish the same thing and it all really depends on your personal methods which develop with time and experience. But I suppose a tutorial of either the simplest or most common method would be nice.

-BW

This was how I felt, and now that I'm exploring more of his music, I'm finding more that I like. It's just that he was so prolific, so there's a huge body of work to explore, and my favorite types of work tend to be symphonic (I have to admit that I loathe opera), I will listen to some of his quintets though upon your praise!

-BW

Incidentally, of his symphonies I only have his first 5 and his last 5, it's interesting to sit down and listen to all of them back to back.

He's growing on me. Maybe it's because I just re-watched Amadeus for the first time in years. I went out and got his bassoon and clarinet concertos, not too shabby!

-BW

I'm hoping that after the years it takes me to learn how to do a somewhat almost, not entirely awful composition with VSL that they will hopefully have a way for Kontakt users to take full advantage of the cubes....

-BW

Yeah, I'm sure this is just a phase. Actually I think I'm overreacting, because I've been listening to Schubert's later symphonies this morning and even though I'm still separating everything, it's actually not a bad thing because I'm learning to just listen differently. I'm hearing things I never heard before, so it may not be so bad afterall. Just being a tad melodramatic as per usual!

I used to listen to nothing but rock and roll, and it's somewhat similiar. RNR is intrinsically visceral, and while it's easy to simply listen to a song as a whole, it isn't too difficult to listen to just the bass, or just the guitar or drums, etc. So I suppose I just need to get used to hearing classical music in the same way.

-BW