Creating a classical music sequence.

[JohnG]

Hi guys and gals (as Jimi says!),

Just thought I'd bring you in on something that's been taking up a fair bit of my free time lately. Especially as I haven't posted for a while.

A few weeks ago I rediscovered a piece of classical music on an old cassette tape that I really loved. To let you in on an emotional secret, I played this a lot just after my father died, way back in the early seventies. Somehow it fitted my mood at the time.

It's called "Serenade Melancolique" and it's by Tchaikovsky.

I started entering it a few weeks back and I thought I'd share the creation process with you. This was what it was like approximately two weeks ago with the violin line entered to the end and a little of the orchestration started: www.box.net/shared/vha81pg80c.

I've been entering it using a notation program called Mozart.

A week or so later it was like this: www.box.net/shared/bkyuk4886c.

It currently looks like this: www.box.net/shared/sljk2tyurg and I've stopped using the notation program and switched to my favourite sequencing program, XGworks.

There's still a LOT more detailed work to be done on the file, so I'll add to the thread from time-to-time. N.B. it's a spare time project so don't expect huge leaps forward.

If anyone would like some more info on what I've been doing to the sequence after the basic note entry, just drop me a line here and I'll write a bit of a tutorial.

Hope it's of some interest to any classical music lovers out there.

As always,
JohnG.

Oh, and as a P.S., here's the original pdf: www.box.net/shared/3ettfdnx5g. It's 874KB.

[Emerald Midi]

Thanks for that, John. I really like the classics, nothing beats some Beethoven or Amadeus for getting ya into a relaxing mood. I love listen to our local classic radio station, Lyric FM. Great station.

[steveb]

I am definitely not into classical music at all, but don't that against me, however congratulations on your effort and persistence.

[JohnG]

Hi again all,

I thought I'd post an update for anyone that's interested. I've finished working on the piece in the original notation software and am, each day, modifying the file in XGworks. Steady progress is being made, but the file is far from complete.

For anyone that's interested here's a link to the mp3 of piece so far:
www.box.net/shared/90f30582pa warning, the file is a touch under 10MB in size!

Constructive comments are always welcome.

JohnG.

So just what have I done since the last .mid file I posted?

Read through the entire score and corrected a few incorrect notes here and there. I've still got the trills to sort out towards the end of the piece, they're not quite right.

Inserted various tempo changes to get the "feel" of the piece largely correct. There is still more fine tuning (sorry!) to be done here.

Entered the major changes in dynamics for all instrument parts. These are the changes to MIDI velocity. I still have to do the changes in MIDI expression. These will be drawn in later.

Added some reverb and changed the "room size" for a larger space. Still some tweaking to be done e.g. the solo violin is a little too "forward" upon reflection, and the cellos and contrabass a little too distant.

A first pass has been done in trying to create a balance between the various instrumental groups, although it's not always quite right, so I'll have to pull the channel volume up and down here and there.

All instruments now transmit on different channels, meaning I'm using 20 channels of MIDI spread across 2 MIDI ports.

Bank select MSBs and LSBs have been entered for all instruments.

All solo instruments are now using MIDI mode 4, i.e. mono mode. This means that when notes are overlapped, i.e. note off for one note comes after note on for the next note, then the sound generator doesn't sound the attack phase of the envelope for the next note. Does that make sense?

The pan position of groups of instruments has been fractionally altered so that e.g. the two flutes, two oboes or four French horns all have slightly different positions. I use two slightly different sounds from from the sound module for the flutes, oboes and horns for added realism. I may do the same for the solo violin in the cadenza.

In the string sections the written score alternates between "arco" and "pizz." so now there are instrument changes in each track between strings and pizzicato strings. Arco means "with the bow".

A significant amount of effort has gone into getting the legato phrasing of musical passages correct. But so far only for the wind instruments. Work in progress for the solo violin, and not yet begun for any of the string section. This is a long and somewhat tedious process.

So, next to do?

Finish legato phrasing of solo violin and then the strings.
Correct a few errors in solo violin trills.
Go back over tempos and fine tune a bit.
Enter the drawn dynamics for held notes using the expression pedal (cc#11).
Pull the French horn notes forward a little, they tend to play a little early and, at the moment, they sound a little late.

Now, I imagine for a few of you some of the terminology I use may be unknown. If so, please ask and I'll try to explain.