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Forums > C64 Composing > Composing music in general, techniques, hints and tips

2011-02-10 11:46

Hermit

Registered: May 2008
Posts: 208

Composing music in general, techniques, hints and tips

What I really miss is a topic about music composing in general. If I haven't found an existing topic regarding this, but if we have any, let me know about it.
(There are many topics in Composing section, thanks god there's a good seraching engine. However it would be great to have more categories inside 'Composing' for easier browsing.)

I want to start this topic about the music composition itself, which is always a mystic topic and there's no real perfect method of teaching it in schools even nowadays.
On one hand this is the beauty of composing, that it cannot be described consciously in its entire form, and one can never say he learned everything.

I want to write a book/article in the future about the logic and lexical knowledge behind music composition, as there aren't a lot of comprehensive books or webpages that give us a complete picture and directions to improve.
One good (and possibly a standard) is Arnold Schoenberg's 'Fundamentals of Musical Composition', which gives a lot of understanding to composition itself (not music theory!).

If you have knowledge and experiences which you want to share with composers all around, feel free post your replies into this topic... and at the end we will have something at CSDB which will be a guide to refresh the spirit and knowledge of musical composition.

What this topic would exclude:
-The music theory (literature about chords, staff, etc..) - many books and videos can be found all around on the net.
-The use of trackers and analog synthesis techniques of SID, which is another topic, bit related of course...and has been discussed already afaik.

I'm looking forward your contributions with tips as well as questions/replies - discussions :)

Hermit Software Hungary

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2011-02-15 14:35

jssr67
Account closed

Registered: Jan 2011
Posts: 33

Quote:

Nobody except composers, can really understand deep emotional pieces, like some from Jarre.
Its because we understand the notes involved.
Unconssious = not 100% knowing.

Good point you mentioned, Linus.
I also oppose this.

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, one day I spent the noon time at a friend of my parents who happened to be a visual artist.
She was making some pottery at that time, and on her stereo, some Klaus Schulze was running.
I was walking around in her flat, looking at stuff she had made, and pointed at one picture that she had painted earlier and said "You must have made this while the same music was running as of now". She confirmed that it was true, I have no reason to believe she lied. I definitely was no composer at that time, nor did I have any music theory background - I started learning piano with 10. I consider such events valid counter examples.

2011-02-15 15:13

Hate Bush

Registered: Jul 2002
Posts: 461

Linus: done. let's hope for some posting.

2011-02-15 15:49

Hermit

Registered: May 2008
Posts: 208

Hi, Guys.

I'm glad to see more participants in the thread.
Anyway, if you checked the latest posts, you could see we came to the same conclusion after theoretical discussion, listening and creation in PRACTICE is needed.

I'll summarize it so you don't have to read many previous posts:
------------------------------------------------------------
I found a good way: To upload good masterpiece tunes onto soundcloud.com, where we can comment on them in different time positions. If you find out better commenting ways, inform us.

We can put links for these tunes and comments here, so they would be reachable from this CSDB forum. I'd like to stay in this thread, but if other people would open a separate topic for listening/commenting practice, I'm up to it too...

On the other hand, we will create some example melodies based on Rambones's initial idea...changing examples, discussing them, competing in melody creation, etc., whatever we like to share musical knowledge and learn from each other...SDI or GT can be a good option for your example workfiles in order to show ideas to others.

2011-02-15 19:01

SIDWAVE
Account closed

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238

4mat:

you dont have a c64 in the cupboard, and drag it in and out, set it up, and move it away.

its a vintage music instrument, and you have it permanently set up in your sound studio :)

clapton would never sell his guitars, and install a really good guitar VST. its bollocks :D

neither jarre would disband his synths. he made one album with VST, Tao a Tea, and its his worst soulless piece of shit he ever made :d (but he did it to try it out)

anyhow, thats how i feel, and my arguments were: that a c64 is cheap to get.

consider it my 2 cents, not an attack. my way of writing is always to provoke people and make them react. to see what really ticks in them.

2011-02-15 19:23

SIDWAVE
Account closed

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238

Quote: Hell yes! I´d be very interested in a topic like that.

I don´t want to go into discussion about how I disagree with stuff like ...

Quote:
Nobody except composers, can really understand deep emotional pieces, like some from Jarre.
Its because we understand the notes involved.
Unconssious = not 100% knowing.

without giving examples.

Care to start a dedicated topic, dear Michal?

There is such a thing as absolute music.
its the cosmic endless vibes that all people react the same to.

it has something to do with biology and how we evolved, and what sounds we learned to know as danger, or as good and so on.

no matter how rational and intelligent humans have become, we cant escape the reptike brain that we still have, it still has a lot of control, its what makes people afraid in the cinema when the sound artist has made the sfx, so you get really physically scared and your heart races for a bit.

first point: most people dont know this
second point: certain frequencies and harmonies, awaken instinct in people, as per the explanation i just gave, but they have no awareness of this, or of which chords are diminished, what tremolo is and all this stuff.

they just say "i like that, its fucking good".

they cannot make a small music without training (well, some can), but the majority not, BUT if you have a preset sound on a synth, and tell them to turn those 4 knobs, and you say "make it sound happy, or scary", they can!

again, because the reptile brain knows these things, since dawn of mankind, when he was battling tigers and other predators, while learning to become a hunter.

absolute music is when you hit the cosmic nerve that all people are born with unconssious knowledge about.

and for the record it was me who wrote what was quoted, and once again is trying to make and ass out of my claims.

well simple i know these things because i talk to other musicians, and i have read tons of biology and science, and i have asked people about these things, to make my own investigations, and this is what i have found. so i am all quite well with saying it, believing its close to the truth.

I do research, i take the train, and i play some tunes of my own for various people, and talk about stuff, and i ask how they percieve things, and thats how i know stuff. and also some very good musicians you know, know the same, at x one of them said "you dont have to explain it to me jan, i know".

about making people link "this is the best music ever" tunes from anywhere, this is gonna be fail.

there is no such thing as best music.
there is just "not so skilled rockband", and "40 years of playing rockband".

some play like gods, and are bad composers, some are good composers, and play badly. and some are good at everything.

if "billie jean" is one of the best tunes ever, then yes, in THAT style, in THAT situation. it is horribly simple, and therefore easy to like. thats the secret about hits and top chart music. if you ever sit down and try to play on the kb what they are actually building the tunes on, most of them are in the simple end where a schoolkid with 3 years og guitar learning could have made this music. and im not kidding.

doing absolute counterpoint music like jeroen tel does, where each track is linked to another, you can regard the whole composition as one big harmonic chord. simply everything fits together. this in some ears is better music, where others think its too complicated, and therefore rather will buy the latest lady gaga cd.

there is no best, there is just as forrest gump said "life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you gonna get" - everybody has own taste. music is subjective.

i think if you wanna break down and analyze some tunes, then take some from the sid library. not 80s hits and so on.

taking some tracks, and break them down, find out what they are made of, and define what makes the thing work, is a very good thing to do.

2011-02-15 19:24

Hate Bush

Registered: Jul 2002
Posts: 461

i know a producer who is famous for his 'soulful vintage guitar sound', whilst one of his main tools is ampfarm (digital guitar amplifier emulator).
i know a guy recording excellent rhodes parts on a supposed-to-be-shit ni elektrik piano emulation of it.
a tool is soulless by definition, be it 1974 minimoog d or 2010 arturia minimoog v. but the operator...

2011-02-15 19:36

SIDWAVE
Account closed

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2238

well, it happens to be that both guitar and rhodes are in such a way, they emulate perfect very easily :D

i know some guitar cabinet plugs, and guitar rig.
its good.

its just, that some instruments emulate well, and others dont.
and sample based instruments, requires an inhuman amount of programmed modulations, to sound "real".

my orchestra music sounds very good, but it pops in my head all the time "it sounds synthetic", and we cant escape this, before a stradivarius is emulated 100% in a computer..

2011-02-15 19:37

chatGPZ

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11351

word :) most guitarists actually use something like guitarrig atleast in the studio. no more shitty amps to deal with, crystal clear sound with much less effort than before.

and yes indeed. if someone made an album with just VSTs and the album turns out crap - it only means the guy is uncapable of making good music with these VSTs, certainly not that you cant make good music with them at all. the instrument isnt crap because you can not handle it - give me a violin and i demonstrate that problem to you :o)

2011-02-15 20:09

jssr67
Account closed

Registered: Jan 2011
Posts: 33

Quote: word :) most guitarists actually use something like guitarrig atleast in the studio. no more shitty amps to deal with, crystal clear sound with much less effort than before.

and yes indeed. if someone made an album with just VSTs and the album turns out crap - it only means the guy is uncapable of making good music with these VSTs, certainly not that you cant make good music with them at all. the instrument isnt crap because you can not handle it - give me a violin and i demonstrate that problem to you :o)

Not that VSTs or other simulations necessarily are crap.
But: a good guitarist has numerous options on how to express certain things on his instrument, just by slightly differently moving fingers.
Even if the simulation offered all the same options, the "user interface" makes it more difficult to achieve it.
It may have other advantages though: it may offer perfect reproducability, for example. Or experimenting with the same sequence all over thousands of times, slightly changing parameters, until it's perfect. Still, from the player's point of view, it may be a perfect electronic instrument but (owed to the user interface) a crappy guitar.

2011-02-15 20:32

Linus

Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 639

Rambones: I am not trying to make an ass out of you, I just disagree on certain points, please leave it like that. Let´s not turn this topic in another flamewar again, please :) Let´s smoke the pipe, ok? :)

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