Krsyztof

I absolutely love this piece, it's exactly the kind of material I turn to on a daily basis. I am also quite a fan of Prokofiev, and this fits nicely in that idiom. (Though, refreshingly not as darkly sarcastic as Prokofiev can get) I will echo the comments above: The cadenza did feel premature. Great effort! I would love to do the piano part, and clarinet (especially Jazz clarinet and Bulgarian/Hungarian gypsy clarinet) is something I've always wanted to learn.

Hey Robin, great piece! Where are you guy's performing here, and could you tell me a bit about your group here? I'm around the Windsor area myself, but would love to see you guy's perform next time I'm in Toronto. (which is every couple of months) Krsyztof (Also, I'd love to get lessons in Jazz piano from you're pianist. Does he teach at all?)

Hello all! I have the fortune of being the "musical director" of a high school level concert band, of about 50 members. We've competed in Heritage festival, and received an average score of silver (84 I believe). Right now it's summer break, and I have a few questions. I'm debating on arranging Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto, into a 7 minute excerpt. Are the various parts feasible to play on standard concert band instruments? Piano Concerto No.3, Op.26 (Prokofiev, Sergei - IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library: Free Public Domain Sheet Music) There is the IMSLP listing for the parts. Are these phrases possible for a high school level ensemble? I will be delegating certain phrases amongst instruments to preserve the natural timbral contrast Prokofiev has, so even looking at some of these no matter what instrument you play, would be most appreciated. Thank you in advance, Krsyztof

A terrible reverb isn't going to come close to making it sound better. I play around with a lot of midi for fun (especially the midi.xp stuff meant for the Yamaha Disklavier system), and even a good sample isn't really needed to sound close, if the performance is realistic enough. I could outline this by using GPO's Steinway Grand patch. My GPO is from 2004, and the thing can sound pretty rough at times. But it'll still sound fairly good if I run one of the performances Oscar Peterson sequenced himself. You don't notice the lack of reverb when you're lost in the performance as well. When making self-stylized glorifying remarks, please, at least leave us with the impression you know an inkling of grammar. You attempted to justify your composition, (and your lack of knowledge concerning the use of contemporary composition tools) with an unintelligible ramble, whose content, after crafting a translation, was pseudo-poetic and pathetic at best. The response you gave illustrates the lack of understanding you have of your own composition, and your own musical philosophy. It does so to a degree much greater than anyone of us could possibly have explained. You sound (post translation) like you're regurgitating something an acolyte of John Cage might have once said, but you are missing the purpose of this point. Not only are you not satirizing or breaking any rules, you're just hitting random notes, with some major sevenths. The only doctrine it breaks from is that of common sense. It is no longer doctrine in today's classroom, but it is situations like this that prove it should be. My conclusion? You're lazy. You're too lazy to study the fundamental 'rules' you're breaking (satirizing you called it? No one is laughing). Too lazy to learn to use fairly intuitive contemporary composition tools correctly; you're even too lazy to correctly type you're hacked together philosophy that only exists to support your ego and justify such senseless ideas.

Is it supposed to be that fast? And it has zero swing to it. In Art Tatum's time, for it to be jazz, it did 'have' to swing. It was idiosyncratically part of jazz. Also, I'm sure most of us have some basic DAW knowledge and can sequence your midi, no need to download programs that play midi with reverb. Let me do it for you. Ok. So what I did, was run it through GPO as a VST in Ableton Live. I shifted all of the velocity down to which is about a mezzoforte. Tatum usually played a strict mezzoforte, and this allowed the accents to when he smacked chords and started his phrases to be even more pronounced. (The midi was compiled at a constant '110' in midi velocity, that's out of 127 (127 being sFFFF)) I slowed it down from 180bpm to 120bpm, so some of it is intelligible. http://www.sendspace.com/file/83uj23 It's still very mechanical, because there is zero dynamics. Simply the one flat rate of 60 I lowered it to, so you're not hitting getting the 'keys hit with a sledgehammer' sound.

Very well done, considering the time, and the people themselves not being performers. Especially well, considering they're the "math type". (I jest!) The writing was definitely in the musical vein, and while I feel that was nothing innovative in the writing itself, I do recognize that the story and the people involved were more the focus than just the music itself. You were presenting your class and classmates rather than an anonymous group performing your music. It may be somewhat redundant to say that it could be improved with more physical and facial expression, and stronger singers, but it is something to note. Also, the lack of hitting pitch in just a few spots. Did you use auto tune all? Also, I'm curious; how did you record the chorus in the first song?