Just a wee sketch

• Sep 5, 2020 - 12:09

I've been "working" on this little piece for a while, and whilst it is still a bit rough on multiple edges, thought I'd share it and get some reactions to it.

First, to say: Musescore is simply amazing. If I had to sort-of perform the parts to get them into notation form, nothing would ever happen. Musescore is, for my style of creating polyphonies, simply the bomb. It is designed for people like me. Saying that, are there a lot of "people like me"? Anyone else creating quasi-"classical music"? Most people write pop or rock, seems like. Which is great: they're very creative, but can't help but wonder if there's a group who do this sort of thing.

Thing is: I'm never fully satisfied with my little musical doodlings... I've been bringing the exported-from-MS-MIDI files into a DAW (Reaper) and messing with the sounds of the instruments, messing with articulations. What incredibly amazing fun! The stuff you can do!

Anyway, here's a WIP... they're just sketches. The whole purpose to this particular sketch was the play with different instrument's sounds / articulations:

Sketch01a.mscz

You can listen to Reaper version here: http://www.tightbytes.com/music/Sketches/Sketch01q-Harp.mp3

Comments

• Sep 5, 2020 - 14:24

There are a lot of people writing new classical music and posting it on musescore.com. Just do a search for instruments you would expect to see in classical music and you find a mix of old and new in the results. Some of the young composers amaze me with their talent.

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• Sep 5, 2020 - 22:58

You make a good point, Mike. Most of the composers - of whatever genre they chose - are definitely much, much more qualified, more talented and write infinitely better music than I do.

I didn't explain myself correctly: when I said "quasi-classical", I meant this odd, doesn't-really-fit-into-any-known-style, clearly-made-by-an-amateur polyphony that I sort-of come up with. There was one person - wish I'd saved a link or a page - who wrote that he sort-of wrote what he thought sounded right.

I feel I'm sort-of a sub-species to true composers who understand the craft and all the rules and are precise and clean in their work.

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• Sep 6, 2020 - 00:36

I do think I understand what you mean by quasi-classical. I've seen scores with mostly classical instrumentation (meaning the overall genre not necessarily Mozart's era) with something like a synthesizer and drum set added to it in a very pleasing manner to me. The style is most definitely classical but the instrumentation is more.

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• Sep 6, 2020 - 05:11

I had a long wander through "Made with Musescore... you're absolutely right: there are some impressively talented people writing fresh, imaginative music. They have a strong sense of tone/sound/instrument colour. I would do well to study their work and thereby shorten the "reinvent-the-wheel" effort. Thanks again, Mike.

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• Sep 6, 2020 - 23:03

I did actually have a question about the best place for posting WIPs, which this most definitely is. Whether it's even a "piece" is still open for debate. It sort-of walks, quacks and poos like a piece, but still...

At this point, I sort-of feel I'm embarking on brain surgery based on my ability to identify a scalpel. The "piece", such as it is, sort-of organically grew out of a chord progression I was playing with, that then turned into an exploration of sounds: "wonder what a trumpet playing in a lower register sounds like coupled with a flute?" Some of which definitely don't work. I'd admire to have you have a look at it, if only for my education on how things are meant to work.

Here's the link: https://musescore.com/robynsveil/study-the-first

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• Sep 10, 2020 - 01:41

I like this. I like those dynamics changes, but I would suggest making the change from piano to mezzo-piano a little subtler. You can do this in the inspector. Bring the mp down a tad, so that there's still a contrast but not so much. Either that or bring the preceding piano up a tad.

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• Sep 10, 2020 - 05:41

Thank you Rockhoven. :)

This is very much still "under development", so to speak. I agree with your dynamic change suggestions. I find the piano in MS a bit too much like a mp, almost towards a mf, almost. I will make those changes as you suggest. In Reaper, the DAW I export the MIDIs to, control is a bit different... you've got volume partly governed by velocity, it seems. Which makes sense. I'm learning a bit more about ADSR (attack / decay / sustain / release) and how to manage those aspects of your instrument. All which can make the Musescore version sound a fair bit better.

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