General Music Chat

As I sit here in the dark, watching "David Gilmour Live At Gdansk," it hit me like a sledgehammer.

All my life I've wanted this, & I really want to set it up for myself before I kick the bucket.

Whenever I see a musician play with a mass of bowed strings, it always seems to me that that must be the coolest thing in the whole wide world to do, to play with traditionally symphonic instruments, all working together on one's own music.

Much of my music would lend itself to that format...& a whole lot of that which is in my head has always been, like, a BIG production.

I have much writing to do, before I could do an entire concert of it, but it's in this headbone, & I need to let it out, set it up, & perform it, if only one time.

Is that odd? Is it too lofty a goal? Would it come across that I'm just too ful of myself? Am I over-reaching things? Would anyone even like it?

Ya know what? I don't really care. It's what I want to do, & I am so f*cking sick & tired of trying to get a band going, & I'm beginning to feel that old inspiration again.

The odd gig I just did, the stuff I'm hearing tonight, the incredible boredom & general malaise I've been going through for what seems like YEARS, is all adding up to give me that much-needed kick in the ass, & I'm starting to feel really ALIVE again, for the first time in a long time.

I was just plooking around on my acoustic, & I'm getting in touch with my muse again...& it feels like coming home after a long long long trip that sucked in a very big way.

I need to be the real me, again...writing...pushing & wrestling with my hands & my mind & my heart & my soul at all hours of the day & night until I find that elusive IT...

How to do it? I have no freaking idea. Who to talk to? Who the hell knows. Hell, even if I have to cheat with sampled keys to get the ideas across, at least that's SOMETHING!

I'm outta here...gotta organize this rush of sound running through my inner ear...wish me luck! There's way too much to describe.

Well, I'm a very optimistic person, so I totally think you should go for it! Maybe start off by writing down little rough drafts as to what you need to do, and how to do it. That old saying "when there's a will, there's a way" rings true to me. You only live once my man.

I know that itch you're talking about. It's that musician in you that still has unfinished business.

I know I need to get a full band soon and do a minimum of ten years playing. Most of my bands only lasted me two years tops, and always broke up right before things got going good. I feel like I need a good final run as a player.

I know what mine is.
How long you got?

Not all that long, Chippy, maybe about 7...7 1/2 inches?

Why? Is it important?

"some men are longer than others.."

I would start with a chamber group, for example two violins, cello, viola. You can pretty much get the sound of a full suite of orchestral strings in the studio with this size of group. Or find a mellotron to get that weird strings sound.

Damn, jimmy! I haven't SEEN a mellotron in over 30 years.

I like that idea about the strings, though. Thanks.

I got two strong melodies going last night, started working on a 3rd before I quit & went to bed around 5:30...

sans - try this - tune your 1st string to a D, your 2nd to a G, & your 3rd to an F#, & noodle around for a bit. You won't find anything happy or uplifting there, but there's some cool melancholy & spooky bits you can do. You might even wanna try some finger picking in this one. It's pretty cool.

Philbuddy, Do you know how to read and write music notation? You can compose what you hear using computer software like Sibelius. This is how we produced music composition with orchestral arrangement at school. You can then publish your music and hear it back with the instrument simulation.

Hey Phil ... have a listen to Funk Mute in my profile it might be something like you discribed. It got strings, french horns, symphonic instruments.

This was all done on a synth keyboard except the drums and they were electonic. It was all done in Midi on Cakewalk back in the early 90's, so wave files back in those days were to big to be handled well by a computer and I didn't have a 4 or 8 track DAT recorder at the time. I'm not really happy with the over-all out come of the sound because of the midi thing ... some of the lead instruments sound a bit cheesy, but that midi for ya. Also back in that day it was all most imposible to mix midi and analog together, I understand it's way easier today but have never tried it. At the time I really wanted a real violin and flute for the lead and drove myself crazy trying to record them with the midi but had to give up.

I guess what I'm get at is the proccess is there for you to get all your ideas down, how the different instruments interact with each other and build on one another etc.

It might help you in your endeavor

Ron

Prevost - cool tune. I see what you mean. Yeah, "Heads Up" used all live-played disc-sampled stuff on my profile. I did sample a real wooden flute on that one, but it still doesn't come across as "real." That was done back in the 90's, too. Of course the old Korg DSS-1 wasn't the best thing to use, & these days it would be useless to even try, cuz the discs are fried, or the reader is...

jsantos - I had a program, once, that used the notation. I don't remember what it was called, but I used it a lot for teaching. (MuseEdit?)It's gone now, of course, been gone for a 'puter or two. I'll look up Sibelius. Is it 'spensive, & wonder?

Thanks, guys!

My son plays violin. My nephew the cello.
I'd love to have a set of tympani for the band.

Go for it!

Sibelius is a bit out of my range at the moment...though I may download their free trial package, once I have a bunch of stuff written...heh heh heh

Phil, in regards to Mellotrons, my engineer can get one when needed. They still make them in Canada, the Mark V is about $25,000.

YEE-OUCH!

Yeah, I might have to come to your guy's studio to use that...how much to rent it? Nevermind...I can't afford it...

I guess the company that makes them now has improved them quite a bit, they used to unreliable and prone to malfunction. But there's still a market for them; Pink Floyd and Genesis tribute bands need one to sound authentic.