Andrei_Ghiaus

Composed in the autumn of 2009. The actual key signature is E dorian. Chanson d'Octobre

Why would any key be hard to compose into? Even if it has all the flats down to C. For instance take this example. D minor, it appears easy, only B flat to worry about. What if you have Db minor? You get the Db, Eb, Fb, Gb, Ab, B double flat, and Cb. This makes it all sound so much more complicated then the nice clean D minor, but in fact it's only hard if you look at it compared to D minor. Meaning, the Db is a D altered downwards by a half-step ... which it is. But you can also look at it as being Db. A normal Db, unrelated to D by half step, or B double flat by a a major third. It is only Db. What would the difficulty be in doing anything? Say, you write tonally. Ab is still the dominant degree. If you look at the note itself and ignore the flat alteration, you can easily construct a v2 chord. It's G, A, C(third), E. C should come to your mind instinctively as being the third of A. Now note that the key is Db and not D so the notes are Gb, Ab, Cb, Eb. Nothing complicated there. If you want a V2 chord, than the rule of the harmonic minor applies just as easy as it does in A minor. You alter a half-step upwards the third of the V degree. It does not matter if it's B, G# or C double flat. It can be treated as simply the note mentioned altered. In this case it's C natural. So the chord would be Gb, Ab, C, Eb. Let's say now you want the relative of the dominant's subdominant. (a little joke here, it's actually simple since the dominant's subdominant is the initial chord. :P ) It's B double flat. And we want it in 4/3. The notes names are F, A, B, D. And the actual notes are Fb, Ab, B double flat, Db. Following this type of thinking ( I hope it was understood), if a note has no alterations or 3 sharps, it makes no difference in the difficulty to compose or read or understand the music. As far as it goes for "best key" or beautiful, these are subjective choices, but I'd say Db major or Ab major for flats and F# major or...hm I don't really like the sharp keys very much :p. As for the worst, it's any mode that starts on B natural. The only black white key. :p

I'm sure a Sibelius user is able to help you, still... If it's as in Finale, you have to use arco "text" beginning with the measure where you want to return to normal play.

As you can see from my score, the dynamics and articulations are there, it would be too much time consuming to move every note of an arpeggiated chord a few milliseconds to the right to achieve the effect in a sequencer (here Sonar). The best way to work and have a realistic output is to have the Human Playback set up to custom in Finale and have mostly every option fit your preference of the respective piece's interpretation. Also, don't forget to apply the human before exporting the file to a midi. Here is an example of a midi imported after having no Human Playback applied prior to being converted to a midi file. No HP trill.mid And the one that had HP applied before the export to MIDI. HP trill.mid There is a clear difference in the actual notes that are written, though they were all just a whole note with a trill expression assigned to it. The conclusion is that the HP data alters the MIDI output, so the best way to achieve realism is have all the articulations and expressions interpreted by the HP (do not use default HP presets, they are rather dull and sometimes have over-emphasized rhythmic accents at the start of each measure) Of course, the midi with the HP trill still isn't as good as it should be. Here is where Sonar comes into play. What we achieved though is save some time and have the notes be more realistically arranged already, so that in Sonar you have to change less. What you should do in Sonar, for the sake of the example, is emphasize the density of the notes related to time, even more than the HP can handle. Since HP is customizable but only intuitively, Sonar allows for full control, letting you control in fractions of seconds when each note will be played with how much velocity, thus making a trill almost as real as it gets. I hope this insight helps you achieve the realism you seek. :thumbsup: Fixed. :thumbsup: You're right, I should have notated the times when the left hand plays the treble staff. That will take some consideration, thus time, so it won't be so easy to fix as the arpeggiated chords. I will though do that later today and post an updated score.

Chanson d'Octobre The cleaned up score :thumbsup: You could try and give a listen to Rhapsody in A-flat Major. Let me know what you think. :) It has simpler harmonic language, :blush: but you might still find it enjoyable... P.S. Apologies for the double post, but they conveyed different subjects.

Any Producer Edition 8 or above should be able to handle almost anything you can imagine. :thumbsup: I would stay away from the LE version though. You can tell that the Home Studio editions are stripped of even more functionalities.

Actually, Pianissimo is the worst library I have for piano. The lower octave keys sound quite good, I have to admit, but that annoying pedal sound... not to mention the hammers, they sound so unreal...and annoying. :ermm:

This is all played by the computer. What I mean about using Sonar is that i write the whole piece in Finale because it's easier to think musically having the notes at your glance then staring at a bunch of geometric figures in a sequencer, export the complete midi file and record it in Sonar. That way, if a pp or a FF or a note is held longer than you'd like to, you have a lot more control using Sonar. To make things clear, Sonar can record the sound of a digital keyboard that has it's own library or it can only take the midi input from the keyboard and play a VST that you loaded into Sonar. Or, eventually, it can play a .mid file or it's own projects using a sound library that you load in. I would strongly recommend using a notation program to write the actual music over a sequencer, and a sequencer over a notation program to make the actual sound render and fine tune the interpretation. As a side note, I will have a cleaner score in a few days, I've been busy with my final year of university and working on a new project, but I will have it done. :thumbsup:

I was gasping at the fact that I like D dorian. :blush:

Hmm, I never thought of making it a duo since it has a simple theme, some chromatic replies and an accompany figure that shouldn't be at all troublesome for a rather good pianist. If it's the fast part's speed that is picky, it can be interpreted slower in a 3/4 of the original tempo, with a stretched ralentando at the end of the passage leading into the next. It's a piece that can depict an abstract space, so a subtle tempo change wouldn't be noticed as not intended if it helps the interpret pull it off better overall. Although, I would prefer it be played as it is, worst case, the lower octave doubling in the right hand can be dropped. I would rather have the slower tempo then the octaves dropped if I was the pianist. Still, it's only one 1-voice arpeggio for each hand, with some chords when the arpeggios breath, I think it can be done. As for the sound, yes, I use Sonar to record and tweak with all the interpretation variables. The sound library is Boesendorfer 290 with a dry Dark sample loaded, though originally it was a dry 8-layer long release one. I just thought it matched the atmosphere better.

A little inside joke about the banality of D dorian. On a personal note and not the theory stuff. I could expand if you'd like :thumbsup:

I particularly like the sound of -Major: Db, Ab, F# and Bb -Dorian: C, D, :O and E -Locrian: G -Minor: C#, G, D and Bb -Mixolydian: F -Aeolian: B and sometimes the grace of D and C major and brilliance of E major. You could call them all the same, they are really all relative and it doesn't matter if it's A minor or F double sharp minor, they just sound higher or lower, but personally, I do find a certain character to different keys. My favourite "key" is F# sharp :thumbsup: ...or B-flat...

The thing that bothered me really was the use of the words "but", "and" :ermm:....and "so"....:ermm: So, I know they are there to keep the measure even, ...but if you could find a way to work around and lose a couple of them it would be great. Another word that instantly puts me off in poetry is "just". Such common grammatical conjunctions shouldn't appear or at least be as sparse as possible in quality lyrics, even more poetry. This is ... just personal taste. It's possible that by now the words might started to sound bad for you too. Or not. :whistling: On another note, you had some nice assonances, particularly with the words "as" and "adore" which I ...:ermm: adore and some decent alliterations. What I would change: "Your moonlit gaze"...the z sounds too harsh for me to use near the moon word, i would change it to "Your moonlit glare". Also "to the dream that we started" I'd go for "to the dream that we've begun." "And the ocean could drown us out" - here i would change and with sand but that would create a problem of meaning and measure so it would have to be changed prior to the respective verse. All in all: "Your moonlit gaze leaves me to die And the ocean could drown us out You know odds are against us, but I have no doubt" would become Your moonlit glare meets me to lay Sad the ocean could drown us out We now know against us, they will hide their silent shout ." ...or something like that. "And we

The reason i didn't post the score in the first place is because it is very messy, since i write/re-write/modify in a desperate state of mind, it's like a chase and, naturally, it doesn't make any sense to make final touches on the looks of the score until it's completely done. It is still readable to some extent, so here it is. I will try to make the time in the next few days and come up with a score more pleasant to the eye :) Chanson d'Octobre.pdf

After a break due to lots of stuff going on at the same time and being in well over, I managed to finish a piece that I started this summer. Take a listen and let me know what you think. Chanson d'Octobre Enjoy.