StevieB? Its time... lol

S

SEDstar

Active member
I'm glad everythign got wrapped up with humor and diplomacy.

In the vein of "pure fun" Homerecording-style... here's 2 trax I spoke of....

I would have your, if you were wont to give it..... your unbridled opinion, straight from the shoulder to my chin, of whether or not I understand the rank basics of music theory...

the shorter one is classical acoustic guitar, the longer one a multi-movement classical piece.

both could be termed "experiments gone awry", lol... even if classical genre isnt "your thing", you could still get some "sense" of if I know what i am doing or not...

SpringRain(guitar) by sedstar on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
Something6v10 by sedstar on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

just in case classical isnt your thing, here's an "experiment" in me trying to get a sense of the "shred style" thingy on classical acoustic guitar...

Shred Etude No 1 Ver 2 by sedstar on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

NOTE: just click a link, and a embedded player will (should? lol) come up... nothing to download, just click the "play" button...
 
Well, sorry to keep you waiting. I JUST got out of the hospital, after a scare Saturday afternoon, which freaked me out- in the middle of a sight-reading session (which I usually enjoy) I got very drowsy for no reason I could explain, developed a slight tingling in my finger-tips, and then got scared about what the hell was happening to me. AFTER telling several people that I had NONE of the classic warning signs for stroke, I still allowed my GF to talk me into going to the emergency room. So, now, 36 hours and approximately $15,000 later I know without a doubt that I have high blood pressure- and no sign whatsoever of having a stroke. Gotta tell you, right now, she is NOT my favorite person.

But your post has cheered me up a little. Thanks.

So, I can't recall what thread I may have thrown down the gauntlet to you, nor what I said. Perhaps that is a good thing, as it allows me to listen to your recordings with less prejudice than I might otherwise bring. Only problem with that is I don't know what I am supposed to be listening for, so I will just shoot from the hip...

SPRING RAIN. Loving your guitar playing. I am hearing what sounds a little like backward playing, where the notes seem to swell a bit. Maybe it's just the harp quality you seem to have in that tune. I like the amount of reverb you have in it- natural (room) or synthetic? I have only one complaint- it's TOO SHORT. Really, I start to get into it, and then, suddenly, it's over.


"Something6vTime" is certainly not too short! Correct me if I am wrong, but that's mostly synths, right? I hedge a bit because some of it sounds darn close to "real" instruments, but I am betting your trust fund is not quite big enough for you to hire a full symphony!:) I like the composition, although it does become a bit repetitious at the end. Some piccolo (flute) or other "flight of fancy" instrumentation to add some aural color might have been helpful.

"Shred Etude..." Certainly the most risky of the three. Jackson Pollock paintings are not the kind of thing you "like" or "dislike," more that you respect the power they possess. Your third piece reminds me a little of an aural Pollock.

I like all three. I enjoyed listening to them, and listened to each at least twice, and could enjoy them again. On the other hand, I suspect that if I spent a rainy afternoon with only your stuff (or at least, your stuff that's most like "Something" and Shred Etude,") to listen to, I might shoot myself.:D

Really, dude, good stuff. Thanks for sharing.
 
sorry about your circulatory problems. lose weight, almost quit drinking alcohol, and start gettign exercise and eating vegetables and fruit mroe than anythign else, and... you'll likely feel a TON better a year from now... (like I'm one to talk, lol)

Glad I'm finally "fooling" people more and more... its ALL THREE completely synthesized on my home computer(s). The guitar, the orchestra, everything. (yah, the guitar does sound pretty realistic? lol) and "non musicians" that dont "know" a lot of times think its a real orchestra in patches.

I dont play any pitched instruments whatsoever. yeah, I can drop a few chords on a keyboard, but, I have to sit and count semitones to plan out the chords I will drop, lmFao... I was a drumemr when young, and 6 or 7 years ago decided one day I was going to learn "music theory", lol... its all self taught, and its all done on a home computer.

from the point of view of "composing" in and of itself, nothign would be served by me learning to sight read and play really well the piano and guitar this late in life. ANy instrument i want to write a line for, a few mouse clicks allows me to "hear it played". I did not have benefit of any "ear" when I started out, and had to decide for myself what was going on with pitch distance, LMAO. (the first year or thee, was really painful to listen to, lol)

My "ear" for pitch and scale came along all on its own, over several years time, and I can now trust my ear somewhat as i write. I originally viewed scale and chord changes as mathematical "set theory", lol... about half my stuff is in "counterpoint", and now the other half I can finally compose "by ear" and wing it...

whats most funny, is that early on... legions of people are tellign me theory is useless, use your ears and play with pitches, etc etc... theory only leads to "bad cookie cutter music". Oddly, now I (sometimes, anyways, lol) hear that the stuff is good, I have obvious talent, etc etc... and its really funny because nothing more and nothing less than reading music theory online has brought me here, lmFao...

glad you enjoyed it somewhat. No, I'm not a trust fund baby, lol. I'm technically an out of work delivery driver at the moment, really, lol...

I love the computer... i cant get a human musicians to do anything whatsoever, and the computer just sits there and obeys me, lol... plus the computer doesnt need drugs and alcohol to "work"... lol.

some people say "your not a REAL musician" because you using a computer... I have to correcct them. I am composing, just instead of putting pen to paper, I am simply using the computer for the pen and paper to save the compositions. The fact the computer can PLAY IT BACK so I can hear what I am working on, well, thats a bonus.

thanks guy! moving closer to my "goal", though I have no idea exactly what that is...
 
I'm glad to hear you say the guitar was synthesized. I wanted to ask but was afraid of offending you. :) It sounds too perfect. The timing is rigid from quantization, and there are little or no dynamics, note to note. It's definitely passable though. Does your sequencer have a "humanize" function? That would help sell it more, I think.
 
I'd encourage you to find some real, live musicians to play at least some of the parts. Does your computer program allow you to print out the music in standard notation?
 
stevie: yah, I;d LOVE to find a musician to play one of the pieces from sheet "as written". Though, most would coome for me with a knife in their teeth in the middle of the night dressed like ninjas, LMAO... I'm working from a "piano bargraph", but, the keyboard is on teh side of the scren too, so I know what any individual note is...

I GUESS I could transcribe a piece from piano roll to standard sheet, but, using the bargraph for several years left me with little use for which "staff" gets the sharps and flats, lol... it could be DONE though, just be a study in slow tedium, and a gobs of doube and triple checking, working very slowly.

On the other hand, midi notes are midi notes... is there a program that would just print out the sheet from the MIDI file or some such? theres pitch, start, and duration to every Midi note, right?

on that note (pun intended, lol) every gtrack I could simply export to a separate MID track, and the program would prnt ou the sheet?

well, if there is a program that works like that. And if there isnt, there SHOULD be, lol... I'm not the only guy out there making instrumentals on a computer, you know... only the best soundtracks get written out in sheet for live musicians, the rest are a lot of them made entirely on the computer, and the individual WAV tracks sent out to a mixer for post processing...

I rather think I might DIE if the classical guitar 1 1/2 minute track was done by a real classical guitarist from sheet taken straight from teh MIDI... and he put the "real, live, feeL" he had into it... local musicians, even if I keep everything easy to play, wont touch anything... for divers reasons, among them...

1) whoa, I dont, like PLAY musc like that dude, I play my interpretation of it, dude, just give me the chords, man... (not a possibilty, lol, youve heard some of it...)

2) no way dude. AInt no way n h#!! I'm gonna spend MY TIME giving you benefit of ANY of my chops dude, anything I do, is like, mine man...

3) your schizz is GAY, dude. Classical is for sissies, dude... I like to WAIL, dude, you know?

4) Huh... you aint no real musician, dude... you have to JAM and, like, play an instrument dude... just writign music is for, like, losers, man...

5) a real basic piece once, I transcribed it for a guitarist... I'm sitting there trying to figure out why it sounds "funny" and isnt "working"... when i realized he's playing all my major chords with 4 fingers... he responded with: "like dude... chill OUT, you know? You like a note nazi? jeez man... I got, like, so many different G's i can play, I, like, you know, just FEL to play a different G everytime I play the G, you know? Lighten up... "But!... But!... it sounds COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! Its what I am pointing out the NOTES for!!" "Yah, this really sux when you finally play it, you know?"

"well, it sux when you invent 7ths and 9ths randomly!!! wha exactly in the *&^%ing h#!! did you even WANT the tabs for? so you could IGNORE them and just take my root notes, and plop random tones and chords all over my given root notes? I thoguht TAB was sheet music for guitarists!!!" "Dude, like, I wanna PLAY it, not, like, take a TEST on it, you know? Geez, man... lighten up, have a beer man..."



and THIS was how I got to be a one man thing, on a computer, in my little computer studio, if yu can, like, dig it and all, man... lmFao...

i tried approaching singers, but, they all want me to write lyrics, and pencil in chord names over the words, cos thats "like, how you write a song, dude... dont yu know nuthin, dude?"

ARRRRRGH! I could som days just strangle guitarists and local musicians. I dont know HOW people work together in the real music industry... its like no one believes in writing anything DOWN and "codifying it" ? lmFao..

THEN i can buy SHEET MUSIC for any song I want to.... SOMEOne is writing it all down. Either I am xrazy, or all the local musicians are crazy? I dunno... I rather gave up on the whole concept, lol...

editors note: keep in mind, though... 99% of them have "PERFECT PITCH" though, eh? Riiiiiiiii-iiight..........

I offered one slow easy piece a guitarist expressed interest in using? I brought over the software, to let him HEAR it, and SEE the notes, at any speed slower he WISHED... I get nothing but his strummibgn on the downbeats..... I mean, I got to start to think NO ONE in the entire music industry, EVER, wrote down a piece of standard notation, EVER, to hear all of them tell me iim some kind of "nazi".

I FINALLY located a singer that wantyed to tery to write lyrics over a short piece of music... he asked for the "chords", so, I wrote the bubble gum melody down fro him, and wrote down the "dpwnbeat chords" each portion of the cadence was in... I got exactly *nowhere*...

I got to thinking theres somethign wrong with me, or something. None works like this, I guess...??




NOW, stevie B is telling me "real musicians expect sheet music", LMAO... (that would be a novelty, I've tried everything known to MAN to indcate what notes get played where, lol, on even simple pieces, lol, I once reverted to pointing at the frets.... still got nowhere... lol)

so, if theres some software that prints out standard sheet music from the MIDI, I'd probably die a happy man if someone ever played something... lol
 
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Man, your prose writing is HARD to read.

Yes, there is software that will convert what you have to sheet music. I am sure it's not infalible, but it's better than a sharp stick in the eye. I don't know names, but I am sure you can find it.

As far as for "which 'staff' gets the sharps and flats," unless I am missing something you said, they BOTH do. I am so far off from you on this point- I just sat still for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out how to explain this to you, and I came up with nothing. Don't know where to begin. Sorry, dude, it's just the way it's done.

I meant "real, live musicians" to mean actual people who play a particular non-virtual instrument, rather than digital synths. Example: a classical guitarist to play the, er, classical guitar part. I failed to notice that your recording was of digital synth source, but I'd bet it would sound GREAT if you did get a classical guitarist to play that. And, i didn't say that only "real" musicians read standard notation. Dunno what I said that might have implied that, but I certainly didn't mean anything like that.

There are, indeed, several ways to make any particular chord on a guitar. That's one of the coolest things about guitar. It's also one of the things that makes one guitarist sound different from others. Squash that at your own peril- if done well, it usually is a reflection of the guitarist's creativity. IF you really just gotta have a chord made a certain way, I'd suggest you supplement your standard notation with TAB, but know that you may get a certain mechanical quality if you are too heavy handed about how you want your guitarist to do his job. Let the man (woman) have some input.
 
sorry stevieB...

I just kinda live and exist in a "vacuum" musically... I dont play guitar or anything though I USED to be a drummer many moons ago...

because I dont play and jam with musicians, I just dont know how musicians "work" with one another, and it is extremely frustrating.

I make some stuff thats fairly cool, here and there, but... *shrugs* I'm in a creative vacuum and cant "work" with anyone no matter how I try. I work, well, "like I work" however THAT is... I start with a bubble gum melody and go from there, and some f them turn into half decent instrumentals. People occasionally ask me to try to add "classical backing" to something, and i cant "do it"... or worse, I ASK to be allowed to try, and the same result...

what I AM capable of doing cant be THAT bizarre theres not *some* way to work with someone else, but I obviously have no idea what/how/who... and am in a small steel town, and options are limited.

I used to be frustrated I couldnt make anything that was a little bit "pretty", now that I am startign to, I am frustrated I have no idea how to work with anyone... Its rather like I am learning to sculpt all self taught, in the middle of the forest... I carve on trees, and here and there, a really pretty face gets on the tree... i cant get anyone in town to come see the tree, and I cant take the tree to the bar the artists hang out at in town...

and MOST frustrating for me, when an artist sends me a piece of wood and asks me to add to their carving, I cant... and its like I cant work with anyone else... I just "keep on keeping on" and figure either nothing will ever happen, or, someone somewhere will wonder WHO made THAT, and would figure out "who" needs to do "what" to make some use of it...

I'm getting more "satisfied" and able to enjoy listenng to what I make, but ironically more frustrated at the inablity to work with anyone else... I suppose THIS is why I was "supposed to" learn to carve in town in view of people, with other wood carvers, so I was on the same/similar page....

I'm not real sure where I am GETTING to, but my car is picking up speed, and I may end up in the middle of nowhere... *shrugs*

there might be a trailer park or even a palace out here somewhere, but, I dont have a GPS... and though anyone I talk to seems to speak english just like me, they end the call with "okay the fish is ON the bicycle... gotcha!" and hang up...

I just feel like SOMEone SOMEwhere could make some use of SOME of this stuff in SOME fashion, but... *shrugs*

(I shrug a lot and just keep plodding along...)
 
I must admit, it would be "neat" to see a MIDI file sent to a software program, that would "spit out" standard notation for a instrument line... I wonder if it would look complex or not... I've been working on "bargraph" fo so LONG, I "see" bargraph in my head, sort of, instead of staff lines...
 
I swear such software existed, at least once in time. I just don't know what it was called...
 
I found "such software" actually a plethora of it...

the thing is that they all "work" differently, and nothing seems to make EXACTLY the way you would write it down normally...

I'm consiiderign trying one, in the short future, as if I feed it ONE track (instrument) line at a time, iit would likely do better that way...

I will naturally POST (all excited too, lol) when I finally get sheet out of a MIDI...
 
This sort of software often does not work as advertised. I wouldn't pay for it until I was fairly sure it would do what I really need it to do. Even if one gets you close, you will probably need to do some manual tweaking, too.

Good luck. I'll be watching for the results.
 
Good work as usual, SEDStar. My favorite of the three tracks I listened to was Spring Rain (the first track). As I have mentioned before, I could easily imagine some of your songs used as film scores. Have you ever contacted any indy film producers?

I have heard the second song once before. Did you update it? It has a strong science fiction flavor to it. Good stuff.
 
hey icy...

no, not updated. Odd you said "science fiction" because a new listener and her hubby said "reminded them of star trek somehow", lol...

sorry I failed repeatedly to do something with the midi you sent me... I have to eventually figure out how to "work" and "add to" a given track, but its not yet, I see... *grumble*

indy film: I oddly enough HAVE a film school near me. I contacted a student there, and they said no one s getting back to me, because they have a "snob thing" as they called it, where they want everything done "in house". IE, an outsider letting them use a track for free isnt normally done. They usually just make projects off of "the students favortite songs", *shrugs*

I woulda figured something ORIGINAL might be a neat thing, apparently not.

"P0rn" uses mainly "stock" tracks and sound clips available for a small fee per... not interested in original tracks for that either.

that leaves "hunting videos", some of which have horrible soundtracks, but, I bet there no one wants anything either, LMAO

you would think someone would want to use something original for free, but, I dont know where to go next. Might as well just get "better" in the meantime...
 
SedStar,

Finally got a chance to listen to this.
Overall I'm really impressed.
If I could make one nitpick.
Spring Rain is very staccato. Note, Stop, Next note. On a real guitar, as you go up & down the strings, the last string played tends to ring on. Even lifting the finger tends to make the string vibrate (the heavy metal guys call it hammer off).

As for midi to staff. If you're on Linux, I think it's either RoseGarden or LilyPond that does this. Don't know if either has been ported to Windoze.

Amanda
 
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