And now, for something completely different...

[dafduc]

Your response to me brought me back to my conservatory days!!

Our Friend Roel is going to the conservatory, we had many long emails on this stuff.

IMHO, your reply said it all: It is clinical, which is what I hated about conservatory.

Musically, it doesnt work for me. I personally like the dissonance, but if you dont have a recognizable form, it is not dissonant, it is borderline atonal. Check out some of Schonbergs versions of the Blue Danube, where he puts in a lot of blue notes.

The problem I have is that this is a well-known tune. I like jazzing up tunes, but I need more of the basic chordal structure FIRST, and then you can go to town with all the hocus-pocus.

Thanx for posting something different, I like having discussions on this level.

Thx for the postback, David!

My **explanation** was clinical. Creation process was way more right brain than that.

I'm really not going for atonal as much as polytonal, and I think some technical issues are in my way right now, especially the synth "mutation" lines, which are coming out at the same volume as the tonal ones. I know how to fix it - 3 separate instances of the same synth, instead of 3 tracks controlling the same synth - but I'm considering replacing them with a pipe organ sample (digital Allen, recent vintage) 16' Bourdon and Gedackt with a Mixture IV in the pedal, principal 8' on the great, salicional 8' on the swell. I'll lose my b6 parallel that way, unless I write it into the left hand, but turning this whole thing into something that gets played real time might make it worthwhile.

Just thinking out loud. Sorry.

I hope you'll all tune back when I fix my baby up here. And I wanted to share a post from a composer on another forum - really made my day yesterday. I'll put the whole quote up, but his last sentence made me smile:

Jay -- Given the specific, non-arbitrariness of the words, you need to
ensure they're always able to be heard. It would be annoying to try to
follow the argument of the text only to have the sounds get in the way. If
I were sitting in church on Good Friday and this were presented, you'd have
my rapt attention, but I don't know that you're going to be able to
re-create a church-like ambiance on the CD, no matter where you place it,
first or last song. Might be nice to do the non-cinematic version first and
the cinematic version last and everything else in-between. But that's just
one guy's opinion.

Would that most church music, when it decides to go over the top, be so
delightfully over the top.

Peace, y'all. I L O V E this place!

 

[DavidK]

I hope you'll all tune back when I fix my baby up here.

I could fix this tune in five minutes. Put in a few 1 and 5 chords, and the dissonance will become icing on the cake.

 

[dobro]

You could fix it for *you*.

 

[chrisharris]

Okay, I haven't read the rest of the thread, b/c as soon as I listened, I realized that this is so unique as to practically REQUIRE me to respond "uniquely," lol.

The vocal performance was stellar. I think there might be too much high end in her vocal track, but I honestly forgot about it pretty quickly.

Now, if you've ever listened to anything I've ever done, you know I'm kinda' HEAVILY stuck in 1-5-7, but I listen to a pretty wide variety of music...so here's my hillbilly 2 cents.

I totally appreciate what you're going for, and it works very well up to a point. My brain wants some resolution prior to the very end of the song. If you've ever watched a movie where the director is obviously shielding the audience from seeing one character, then the following might make sense. I was watching a movie last night where they kept showing this guy's feet, then they'd show him driving a car, but right when you were about to see his face, a reflection on the windshield would prevent it, etc...Kinda' cool, created tension for awhile, but then it starts becoming distracting...and you start thinking about it like "how many ways can they come up with to ALMOST show his face," and right when it was about to get to that annoying point, *BINGO*, they showed him...distraction resolved.

Bear with me, but I'm trying to make a crappy analogy. I think this tune needs a *BINGO* before the end of the song...in fact, I think it would help a ton to throw in some resolving, harmonious parts sporadically throughout the piece. That way, you get the tension without the distraction. Wow...that probably made no sense at all...lol.

Mixwise, the synths get pretty dominant in some places and wash out the vocal a bit, so I'd watch that.

Having said all of this, I'll say one more thing. If you like this as is, more power to you, LOL.

This is a totally ambitious piece, and I respect that a lot...I just think it could be equally ambitious with a few 3rd's and 5ths thrown around.

Peace and harmony, (lol)
Chris

 

[dobro]

Yeah, I know what you mean. The piece works as is, but the part that works less well than the rest is the ending, for the very reason you mention. I have a hunch the whole thing would have worked even better if either:

a) there'd been a few more of those thirds and fifths you mention

b) the ending didn't suddenly resolve into heaven

I mean, he was in heaven before he died, right?

 

[chrisharris]

Yeah, I know what you mean.

That shock's me, LOL...but it's a relief. Maybe the daf man will be able to decipher it.

I just read the thread. Except for me, you got some pretty heavy-hitters who know a lot more about music than I do...this is a good thread. What DavidK said at the end, that's what I was thinking...only he said it in one sentence, and I said it like I was getting paid by the vowel.

 

[Toki987]

I like the concept, theatrical arrangement, the basic song, the voice recording, clarity of the effects, but the desparity in harmony between melodic instruments and the voice didnt work for me. I would have maybe done it with bagpipes wayyyyyy back on a hill. And maybe kept some of smaller subtle incidents of melodic instrument expression.
But then again I dont know that much.. it was a cool experience.