i Need someone's opinion

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i Need someone's opinion

2006-09-10 02:31 am

i have this piece of music that i am not quite ready to publish, i would like to get a second opinion before i do anything with it

Re: i Need someone's opinion

Reply #1 – 2006-09-10 02:45 am

oh and this one too (note: it will only work correctly on a standard sound card

Re: i Need someone's opinion

Reply #2 – 2006-09-10 03:23 am

Re: i Need someone's opinion

Reply #3 – 2006-09-10 03:36 am

G'day Christian,

Motorik

The poor bass player, almost no relief from that constant riff

Just kiddin..

Without knowing whether you're wanting a visual or audio critique I have to guess...

The long "hairpins" at the start and finish - I think I would use cresc. and decresc. directives here. The long hairpin is visually somewhat distracting even if it is unambiguous (written {de}cresc. directives can be ambiguous unless you are diligent about other dynamic markings)

Ths bass riff is very effective and I like the way it is picked up by the Charang at bar 62. However it becomes a bit monotonous for my tastes, but that is my tastes and shouldn't be considered an applicable comment for everyone else.

I found some of the panning early in the piece a bit abrupt - This could easily be deliberate so I only mention it in passing.

An interesting work but not quite my "cup of tea" (I'm biased, I like Big Band Jazz/Swing over just about everything with the exception of some of the modern Gospel we do at church)

Song

Again, very effective bass riff's (I appreciated the change at bar 31) but again they became a little monotonous for my tastes. Just dif'rent strokes for dif'rent folks, please don't take it as a specific criticism, I know there are plenty of people who like exactly that form.

I did like the way different instruments came and went, along with the vocal line. Added some nice variety.

Visually, dynamic markings, "hairpins", tempo marks etc. could be better placed. Try to avoid having things cross over each other, it makes 'em hard to find/see. Tempo markes especially should be outside the staff. Thes things are important if anyone is going to read the score.

I think that for their target audience they will be well received.

Lawrie's AUD $0.02.

Re: i Need someone's opinion

Reply #4 – 2006-09-10 03:39 am

About Motorik.

When you say you're about to publish it, I assume you're going to print it out as sheet music? If that's so, you need to give visible commands to the performer to do what the hidden MPCs are doing. Use some dynamic markings, and dynamic variance markings, too.

Your MPC commands all show up as invisible but white, because they have preserved width attributes. If the person reading your score doesn't need to see them, why not unpreserve the width?

Finally, you have several events where you slur one element of a chord into the next chord:
!NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.0,Single)
|Chord|Dur:Whole|Pos:1^,5^,8^
|Bar
|Chord|Dur:Whole,Slur|Pos:1,5,8
|Bar
|Chord|Dur:Whole|Pos:-9^,-6^,-2^
|Bar
|Chord|Dur:Whole|Pos:-9^,-6^,-2^
|Bar
|Chord|Dur:Whole|Pos:-9,-6,-2
!NoteWorthyComposerClip-End

The effect of the slur is lost if the other notes in the target chord are not slurred to the chord too. I'm not sure how to slur all the elements of a chord - doing it just now it seems only one slur comes out of the originating chord, but I thought you should get one slur for each note in the originating chord. I've been wrong before, and likely am now, too.

Anyway, keep up the good work. It was fun to see and hear it play.

Re: i Need someone's opinion

Reply #5 – 2006-09-10 10:30 pm

Nice work with combined use of effects and mpc in the second song. Had the distinct feeling that bats were flying overhead with a bit of realistic doppler effect. I wish I could figure out how to use that functioin correctly:)

Re: i Need someone's opinion

Reply #6 – 2006-09-11 11:47 pm

Thanks for all the advice, i would never had thought to Cresendo and decresendo marks instead of hairpins. I have one more piece which i thought probably wouldn't need revision (but one never knows) do not worry it isn't as wierd as the other 2

Re: i Need someone's opinion

Reply #7 – 2006-09-12 06:53 am

Hi Chris,
Nice stuff, again. I think the bass part could use a little tinkering in the middle and the end, but that's just a thought.

A couple of things on notation.
Be kind to the guys who will be playing your parts.

You should use a time signature and show the tempo on each part. You can set the tempo visibility to "top staff only" for printing. Here you have it sitting at the top line of the staff, and it would be easier to see if it was moved up a wee bit, perhaps to vertical position 7 or 8.

Your beaming of 8th notes should be consistent with your time signature. If you're in 4/4, then your beaming would be 4 groups of 2 8th notes. If you're in cut time, then it's 2 groups of 4 8th notes. That makes it easier on the person who will read the chart.

The octave shift indicated at bar 17 would be better shown with a text marking "8va." The reader won't see the tiny 8 above the clef, and likely won't understand it anyway.

Don't place your performance instructions too far ahead of the notes they effect. For instance, in the 4th staff ("Staff 3") the legato in bar 3 should be placed at the beginning of bar 5, and moved above the staff instead of sitting inside it.

The repetitive figures in the bass and drum lines would normally be hidden, replaced with the single measure repeat sign (looks like a slash with a dot on either side - use the Boxmark2 font, text entry = backslash). Then display the figure again every 8, 10 or 12 bars. The person reading it will find it less difficult to visually keep his place.

Use bar numbers or rehearsal marks. The piece is extremely long, and people will need to know where to start from if they rehearse together. Boxmark2 and SwingDings are good user fonts for rehearsal letters.

Some suggestions about the music itself

In the bass part, you start with staccato on the first beat of bar 2, but then discontinue it. It could be effective to extend the staccato further in the bar, or into other bars as well.

Around measure 28, the bass line gets buried. I would suggest cutting it out in bars 35 to 37 because it gets in the way of the rhythms going on in other staffs. Then if you bring it back in very quietly in measure 38, perhaps at a mezzo-piano, and build (crescendo) to your double forte again at the first beat of measure 41, it will be very effective.

You need to emphasize the bass part in measures 56 to 58 a little. You could use marcato there, or staccato? I can't hear beat two in measure 57.

In the bars where your melody lines move, such as bar 61, you might consider cutting out the bass because it doesn't add anything (at least on my setup).

That's enough of that. I took the liberty of replacing the last 3 bars of the bass part (the fifth staff, but numbered staff 1) to this:

!NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.0,Single)
|Rest|Dur:Half
|Dynamic|Style:mf|Pos:-9
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:n0|Opts:Stem=Up,Beam=First
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:n0|Opts:Stem=Up,Diminuendo,Beam
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:n-3|Opts:Stem=Up,Diminuendo,Beam
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:n-3|Opts:Stem=Up,Diminuendo,Beam=End
|Bar
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:#3|Opts:Stem=Down,Diminuendo,Beam=First
|Note|Dur:8th|Pos:#3|Opts:Stem=Down,Diminuendo,Beam=End
|Dynamic|Style:mp|Pos:-9
|Note|Dur:8th,Dotted|Pos:n0|Opts:Stem=Up
|Rest|Dur:16th
|Dynamic|Style:f|Pos:-9
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:n-2^
|Bar
|Note|Dur:Whole|Pos:n-2
!NoteWorthyComposerClip-End

Once again, keep up the good work.

Re: i Need someone's opinion

Reply #8 – 2006-09-12 10:56 pm

Re: i Need someone's opinion

Reply #9 – 2006-09-12 11:29 pm

G'day Christian,
bar (measure) numbers are easy when you know how...

You can:

Go directly to any bar by pressing <Ctrl-G>, type in the number and press <Enter>
Show bar numbers on the top staff by going to:
- File
- Page Setup
- Options tab
- Measure Numbers (select style)

I haven't listened to your latest offering yet - will do so when I have time to scratch myself...

Re: i Need someone's opinion

Reply #10 – 2006-09-15 10:04 pm

In addition, when you're somewhere in the middle of the score and can't see the bar numbers, which only show on the top staff, you can always find out what bar you're in by pressing Control - G.

Re: i Need someone's opinion

Reply #11 – 2006-09-15 10:49 pm

thank you
that really helps editing alot