Alex_Murphy

For a composition I have to do for school, I want to write in an Oriental/Arabic style and I have been looking at the instruments and how it differs from Western Tonal Harmony etc. For my coursework I need to supply a recording and I don't know anyone who plays these instruments, so I went to Sibelius in hope that some of these rare instruments will be on there. Nope, so my question is does anyone know a program where I can use a computer generated sound to replicate instruments like the Oud, Rababa, Kanoun etc? Thanks!

Well say I have the pedals tuned to a D minor scale (as I have in my piece) Is it not easy to use minor seconds, alternating between the A and Bb strings? Thank you for your answers, they really helped.. one last thing that will be of great help is: 6) Can anyone tell me, let's say if a harpist stretched out their hands (average) size, what intervals can they get, like on a piano if I stretch all my fingers out and my RIGHT hand, my thumb is on C, I can get.... C, G, A, B, D so between my thumb and little finger I can get a 9th, if I know how far (about) harpists can stretch their fingers, it will make it easier for me to see if it's plausable for them to voice a certain chord? 7) Also: If I have (per hand) a 3 note chord that is in the same octave, a harpist shouldn't have any trouble playing it, right? (pedals according, of course) Thanks again for the help!

Ok, in my quest to get really high marks on a coursework piece I've decided to try and write an orchestral piece that focuses a lot on the harp (not like a concerto, but where it is a key part of everything) and I'm sitting here with my orchestration book infront of me, water + paracetamol at the other side and I am totally confused. I just have a few questions 1) If I have no chromatic notes I don't need to change any pedals, right? 2) If I do, how do I notate to change pedals on Sibelius? 3) If I want an arpeggiated chord do I use the normal arpeggiated symbol that the piano uses, or a different one? 4) Are there any pluggins for harp-writing in Sibelius, or any way to check if something is playable without actually having to ask a harpist? 5) I want to write this, and I'm not sure how it is notated for the harp, it's the left hand (lower strings) playing an arpeggio (3 or 4 strings I haven't decided yet) while the right hand playing the higher notes plays slow minor second intervals and slowly climbs a scale, any ideas? Thanks so much if anyone here can help me!!!! - Alex.

I know I know, but it's so confusing I had to open a new thread.. I gave up on it and then found out about this MidiYoke thing, and now I can sort of get it to play my score, so 9 channels all on in Kontakt (MIDI Yoke NT : 1-9) and in Sibelius->Play->Devices, all are selected to "Yes" in USE, and the normal microsoft one is off. Now it's getting to play my stuff right, In "Files->C:Program FilesNative InstrumentsSibelius PlayerSibelius librarySibeliusSilverlib.nks There are a load of options like French Horn, Flute, Oboe, Bassoon etc.. and I can drag them over to the other side of the program so they create their own little line with options on, and with the strings one, if I set the option "Midi channel" to "omni" then all the strings can play, but my French horn won't play, and combining them and loading and making channels is all confusing me I am not good with music technology, but I want to be, can someone just tell me what I need to do to get Kontakt to play my orchestral score, that's all! It shouldn't be this complicated!!!!!!!!! Messing about an now a string instrument is playing my Horn part! and the string part isn't being played at all. AHHHHHHH Oh god now the horn is playing the double bass part, what is going on. Please can someone give me a SIMPLE, STEP-BY-STEP guide, BELIEVE ME I've looked elsewhere, on the sibelius and kontakt forums, believe me and I haven't found an answer that helps me!

This is exactly what I was looking for, I'll put it here for anyone else who is interested: Klezmer Music

I was really looking for scales, and although wiki says : It has a link to "shteygerim", but wiki says it can't find the article, and the other one, I don't really understand, I'll surf around and find it.

Some time ago, somebody here posted 2 links to videos of Itzhak Perlman playing his violin on youtube, and after that I looked even more and found a video of him playing this thing called "Klezmer", I love the sound of it and looked it up and apparently it's Jewish music, and I found other people playing in this style, calling it "Klezmer", and I think the sound is fantastic. My question is, what sort of characteristics are there about this music, like what sort of scales are used etc etc? Thanks. - Alex.

Ok - not big on my knowledge of instrumentation but there is one thing that I've heard in pieces of music that I'd like to know how to notate. In Mussorgsky's Night on bare mountain there is this really big, hmm sweep sound on the violins, and it sounds more than a glissando, it's sort of the same in Wagner's flight of the Valkyries at the beginning, is it just glissando?

Me like, I think, I don't usually like major keys, one thing that is poking at me is the final chord, it's calling to me that it should be lower, the high woodwind sound unfinished in that register!

At 2:02 till 2:16ish, how does he do that effect, it comes again just before the end, he is bowing yet it sounds plucked. What is this effect? A violinist told me it was left hand pizzicato but she didn't know how to notate it? Is she right? and also how is it notated?

That's the first time I have ever seen him, though a lot of the violin music I have downloaded is usually by him (not a big collection) I do have a CD of Paganini's caprices, I've only watched the first 10 seconds of the video but am already impressed. Thanks for the post.

Going off on a tangent in one of my essays again, I found out about the Tristan chord. My first question: Why is it called the Tristan chord? I thought it was created by Wagner as it is the first chord of his "Tristan und Isolde", but wikipedia corrected me and told me it was used by loads of other people like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin (as my next question will show:)). Anyway, the question is, was it called the Tristan chord before Wagner wrote this piece, and it became famous through that and THAT is why it is called the "Tristan" chord today? Or did it have another name before this opera (if so, what was it:)?) Secondly... I found out it should consist of, well to avoid my own mind confusing me I'll use direct quotes: Ok, and next it shows two musical examples, one from Chopin and one from Beethoven, except I'm having REAL trouble trying to pick out actually where this chord is (I've gone for years hearing and reading stuff like this and automatically just agreeing with it without actually being able to see it, and I'm sick of not being able to pick it out with my own eyes, so I am determined now!) Here is the beethoven music (quoted from the same wikipedia page): Can't see it here, here is a musical quote from Chopin: I know I am probably retarded and it is obvious to you lot, but if you could explain and point to actually where this chord is in the two quotes, I'd really appriciate it. Here is the article on it I have been refering to in this post . Thanks!

The fifth is meant to be the fastest piece of music ever written, performance notes aren't static (unfortunately) but I believe the record is held by recordings. As for other caprices, #8 is amazing. And as for neoclassical, to label only yngwie in that category?!? Yngwie, in my eyes is a master, misunderstood by a lot (quite rightly, I should add, it's hard to understand him and I don't blame anyone for saying they do and he's scraggy, because it means they don't) his style of neoclassical is taking Bach and Paganini and adding the harmonic minor shredding he loves to do, and to my ears I think a lot of it sounds amazing. Once you truley get into his music, you can hear the extremely subtle differences in the tunes he plays that other fans and I have confirmed, non-existant to someone who doesn't know his music inside out, which is why someone saying "it all sounds the same", is also right, to an extent, through what they CAN know of it. Anyway off that explanation, can you poste the 24th for flute, I think that'd sound very interesting, how do you arrange the chord parts though?

Have to agree on C# minor being the best key.

Modes are really akward to put across with big sets of instruments, I can only ever try it with long pedal notes, and a few other instruments. I'm not a piano player but that looks so difficult, good luck finding an octapus that plays the piano.