Aaron.Smith

what does VSL and EW stand for? VSL is the Vienna Sound Library, EW is EastWest Sound Library. Just to help you out, I use Sibelius and Sonar to do my composing and sequencing. The composing starts on either Sibelius' crappy built in sounds OR if I have time I will load the sounds either via PLAY (EastWest) VST or through the standalone PLAY Program and virtual midi cables. (I know this sounds complicated, but if you find yourself with the PLAY library, it won't be so bad. When I'm done writing in Sibelius, I export it to midi and open that midi into Sonar and do the sequencing. I'm still new at this, but the produced sound is of a very high quality (six-four.net). Hope that helps ya.

I agree. My plan IS to get a little experience, hopefully make some connections, and after I have a reel to demo begin to charge for the service.

Yes but the point is the director is not making any money. One of the stipulations I am putting forth is that the film cannot make any money or else we need to be payed at least the nominal fees.

I really appreciate your thoughts on this matter. I completely understand the dilemma as far as composer compensation goes, and the last thing I want to do is create a hole for myself in the future. This particular venture is a new one for me, we just started up the group, and it is mainly for experience, screen credit, and portfolio addition. We are talking undergrad here, by the way. I think once we get going and get some report with the professors I will change the business model up a little bit. If you'd like to check out just how we are running this, feel free to look at our site: six-four.net. Thanks again for the post.

I would love to participate in this

I launched a small company at my school to offer free film scoring to non-profit student films. We are starting to get requests, and I want to be prepared in case a group is making a film that is designed to make money or has an explicit budget for original music. What is a fair price structure for students writing music for student films?

Great read! Thank you. As a side note, we are playing "Strange Humors" this semester in the San Diego State University wind symphony. Great piece, fun to play... now if those darn woodwinds wouldn't drag...

Jean Sibelius Sibelius' ability to perform huge romantic gestures to the scope of Mahler or Wagner places him among the greatest Romantic Composers. But, it is, in my opinion, his strength in development that places him among the all time greats. It is well known that Sibelius writes from the "back to the front." This means the sweeping, giant endings you find in his symphonies are the culmination of all the music prior to it. This keeps the listener interested and keeps the music moving forward through time. His tone poems are fantastic, and as a nationalist composer he gave international attention to Finnish music. Listening to his symphonic works, there are clear instances where modern film composers have taken his themes or progressions. (For an example of this, see the end of the First Movement of his ?fourth symphony and you will hear lord of the rings. His 3rd symphony contains the spiderman theme.) And to top it all off, his music is so much fun to listen to and play, he is my favorite all time. Second place is a tie between Stavinsky, Beethoven, and Brahms. The best Germans were Schoenberg and Bach. Russian: Tchichovsky. American: Ives is #1, then Copeland, Bernstein, and Barber. The fact is, there is SOOO much amazing music out there, listen to everything you can and never stop asking questions.

Enharmonic spelling is all about voiceleading. You can spell a diminished 7th chord 4 ways to resolve to four different tonics even though it sounds the same on the piano. As far as the octatonic scale goes, I would find the harmonic implications (C Eb G, or D# F# A) and use sharps and flats depending on which is more prevalent in the piece.

As far as crazy goes, this isn't too far off the chart. The end of my first symphony is written to emulate the sound of a thunderstorm with a classical orchestra, so we have trombone fortissimi, gong and cymbal hits and crashes, but most importantly, the Violins, Violas, and Cellos are all instructed to play random col legno notes at random spaces for random durations. All of this happens and dies out, with no "harmonic" ending. The symphony is on my profile page if anyone wants to see what I'm talking about.

Maybe it's just been a while since I've used Finale. I switched to Sibelius about a year and a half ago, but I seem to remember it coloring high or low notes... I could be wrong though. Not confusing it with layering, lol... I'm not that dumb.

I very much like the Kennan book on Orchestration.

I like to think of the harp in a different sense. Instead of thinking of it as an instrument native to Cb Major, with all the pedals pressed down, think of it as one in C major with all the pedals in the "middle" position. The harp pedals can either be raised (#), resting (natural), or lowered (b). So, to play a C major scale, all the pedals would be in the middle position and the harp player could do it with ease. Now, to play say, A C minor scale, we would have to lower the E, A, and B strings. To make it harmonic minor, just make the B natural. To make things more complicated, the harp is all about enharmonic spelling to get what you want out of it. If you want to have a scale as such: C D E F G Gb A B C, you couldn't because to acheive the Gb you would either have to lower the G or raise the F, eliminating the ability to use whatever note you altered. Chromaticism on the harp requires planning, but it can be done. Now I do agree with Flint in that the harp naturally is a Cb Major instrument, but that complicated things a bit. A harp player reading a part will begin with the pedals all at middle position and adjust from there, not with them all pressed down. Hope that helps.

Try and use this as a rule of thumb when it comes to woodwind doubling. When doubling at the octave, 2 on the lower pitch and one on the higher pitch. When writing a doubled part, always use odd numbers of players. The easiest way to understand this is to ask 2 flute players to play at the octave and try to stay in tune. Then, add another player on the bottom note, suddenly it doesn't sound so bad.

On the topic of multiphonics, always write the sung note higher than the played note, and try and keep the played note relatively low. If you write the sung note on the overtone series it makes it easier and it's more vibrant. As far as the niente ins and outs go, the clarinet is the only wind instrument with the capacity to do real fade ins and fade outs to and from nothing. It's a spectacular phenomenon when a pro does it on the clarinet. With brass, you can pretty much guess they won't be able to do it. Brass players, as mentioned earlier, need an attack. Fade outs are much easier. Multiphonics get easier, as far as brass instruments are concerned, as the length of tubing increases and the mouthpiece size increases. Tuba, therefore, is the easiest to sing into.