Sampled Violin

An exciting moment!  I made my first sampled instrument.  A violin no less (never seen a free one of those out on the net)!



I had a friend play each legato note on the violin first quite, medium then loud and compiled the recorded notes into a program (Kontakt) and can now play those sounds on my electric keyboard.  It is a rough experiment but it only took like 30 minutes and I am sure if I spent a little more time I could get something usable.  What is amazing is that barely anybody knows how easy it is to make your own sample library.  People spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on instrument sample libraries. (Some of the best are $10,000 dollars!)  This whole endeavor was actually inspired by Hans Zimmer who said in an interview that it was easy to make your sample library and he was surprised more people didn't do it.

It just occurred to me that since you have to buy the Kontakt sample library in order to be able to make your own samples, then most people don't bother making their own having already bought a high quality, professional instrument library.  I used to be one of those people scrounging the internet for free, homemade instruments.  There wasn't much out there but maybe I can change that...

 Clayton

Film Scoring Course

I am into the 4th week of my online college course with Berklee, Music Composition for Film and TV.  It is cool to see how far I've progressed in such a short time.

The first week we were learning some general stuff about film scoring, watching film clips, analyzing the underlying emotion, figuring out where there should be music or just silence.  Our assignment was to score the trailer to the movie Troy.

The second week was focused on romantic and positive ballads.  We learned about the orchestration, melody and harmony specific to that kind of scene.  Our assignment was to score a romantic scene from Sense and Sensibility.  Oh!  I must warn you that the music starts after 24 seconds of silence (that is when the music was supposed to start in the scene.) I'll try to fix that later.

Third week we worked on sad ballads which are very similar to romantic ballads (as far as orchestration goes) but tend to hang out in minor keys.  Assignment was to score a scene from Ahkeela and the Bee.  I was worried I wasn't going to come up with anything for this score, having started from scratch three times.  But on the day the assignment was due I started with a blank slate once again and in a few hours of inspiration I ended up with my best orchestration yet.

This week we are working on action scenes which includes a lot of rhythm and dissonance study.  Our assignment is to score a clip from Iron Man.  It looks like a fun one!

Here is the music!


Clayton

Cubase

I bought Cubase in preparation for my online course, Composition for Film and TV, with Berklee. It is not that different then Mixcraft except that it has a lot of nice tools and tons of features that have only aided and inspired my attempts at composition. The first piece I composed in Cubase during a wonderful spell of inspiration. It always seems to be that one moment of inspiration that I produce good work. I have hundreds of musical doodles, beginnings of compositions I will never finish. Yet the hours I spend producing nothing are worth it for the rare moments I do. (I feel like there is a quote out there that sums up what I am saying.) The important thing is that I can see my compositions improving and I am learning what conditions bring on those moments of artistic inspiration.

The second piece I composed a while ago. It is a collection of separate ideas partly to practice working with my virtual instrument libraries, getting the solo violin to sound realistic. The last idea is kind of a mock, Ed Howe, electric fiddle riff.

Farmer's Market

 I played at the Belfast Farmer's Market last Friday for four hours.  I enjoyed watching friends and strangers pass by on their way to buy the fresh produce, free range beef, goat cheese, honey, homemade baskets, wooden spoons, and more from the stalls around me.  Some would stop and listen for a while, sitting on the sidewalk, backs pressed against the brick storefronts.  Willy, my brother, came a couple hours into my street gig and joined in with his fiddle.  He is greatly improving as a musician and we have been playing nearly every day since Fiddle Camp, building up a repertoire of tunes and our own compositions.  And of course we improvise.  The nice thing about playing with my brothers is that their whole lives they have been marinated with my musical preferences and playing style making it easier to improvise as he knows what chords I'll probably go to and I know where he is going with his melodies.

Neal Parent, who's photo gallery was only a couple doors down from where we were playing, came by and took a couple photos of us.

Fiddle Camp week 3

Here are some of the recordings from my second week at Fiddle Camp.

1) A Waltz written by Madeleine Stewart.  Her and Katie Allman on fiddle, Fiona Shea on drum.
2) A Waltz written by Sarah (a young cellist) and I at Fiddle Camp.

I had a wonderful time at Fiddle Camp this past August week.  It was easily the best I have ever attended in my six years of going and I am leaving tomorrow for another week.

Neal Pearlman, an incredible pianist and great teacher was instructing the pianos along with another teacher and so, for the first time we were able to have both a beginner and advanced piano group which was awesome!  In the advanced group we went over all kinds of crazy chord substitutions and funky rhythms.  It didn't quite push me out of my comfort zone so it could have been a little more advanced but I learned a lot nonetheless.  I also did some jamming and played for a couple contra dances and performed with a couple fiddle groups.  There is a growing demand for me as an accompanist which is great as I am starting to really get into that style of music.

I did some jamming with some talented musicians.  The track below is two tunes that Duncan Hall wrote.  We put together a pretty awesome arrangement which we performed for the Coffee House. Duncan is on cello, Noah Fishman on bass and me on piano.  I spent much of today composing some tunes which I hope to finish and be able to play with Duncan this next week of Fiddle Camp. Noah, unfortunately, won't be going as he is heading off to college.



I played with Chris Moriarty again this year.  We performed a new tune that he wrote.  I'll post it later.

Clayton

Film Noir Score

Hey,
Thought I'd give an update on how the Film Noir scoring is going.

I have been listening to lots of Jazz and watching some Film Noir movies (Double Indemnity and The Maltese Falcon so far, though I have listened to the music of more).  So far the best example of what David wants the score to sound like is the music for a video game called L.A. Noir which I came across on YouTube.  The films I've watched have all had old fashion, scratchy orchestral scores.

Since the movie isn't actually finished yet I have been experimenting with the genre and composing themes and melodies to use when I create the full score.

Clayton