A Piece; Of A Few Days.

[László]

I strung together a few hours a day last week working on a short orchestral piece, and brought it to this juncture over the weekend. It's a work in progress. It needs further development to come together as a fully-realized composition.

I also posted this in the Writer's Block thread, but had to post it here because - obviously - I'm an incorrigible attention-seeker...

Hey, who else is gonna toot my horn (plus the melody is carried by the French Horns in this one)?

Thematic Cue

Thematic Cue by Leslie Schefman

leslieschefman.com

There's something about this piece that resonates with several of my moods of late.

"Sounds like you're about to kick the dog with this depressing sh!t."

"I don't have a dog. You don't have a dog, either. And I'm not a dog kicker. Dogs deserve to be respected."

"Maybe you should get a dog. Might improve your moods and you'd be able to write something in a straight-ahead major key - just don't kick it if you get one."

"Please do not try to spoil my craptastic moods, or I won't be able to write anything ever again."

 

[Maertl513]

Les, what were your impressions, to compose this piece?
Closed eyes, letting the music flow, I see...
But first I would like to know your pictures you want to paint with music.

 

[László]

Les, what were your impressions, to compose this piece?
Closed eyes, letting the music flow, I see...
But first I would like to know your pictures you want to paint with music.

There were two lines of thought, both operating at the same time:

I got the Spitfire Audio Abbey Road Orchestra Strings, Flutes and Percussion libraries recently, along with their Air Studios reverb. I wanted to incorporate them into a piece and see what I could do with them, since they're very expressive. The cellos were especially sonorous with a lot of subtlety.

So part of it was the sounds I was hearing inspiring some of the harmonic and melodic content.

The other was to create something that could go with a camera pulling back from a close up of something or someone, to a reveal of something with a vista, like an ocean or mountain range.

 

[Maertl513]

From my consumer's/recipient's perspective my affirmation is close to your mountain range.
I saw a lonesome person riding a horse through rural areas of forests and open green fields, sometimes a little bit foggy, by the musical style this person looked more like a Roman centurio or midieval knight, maybe a Scottish fighter, than a cowboy. The person appeared to be positively excited - maybe driven by the expectation to return to beloved ones after a campaign/war elsewhere.
His ride has as a subordinated objective a hill with a good overview to his main objective on the horizon. As closer the person gets to the top of the hill, the more sceptic he is on reaching his goals. This impression is caused by the mood of your arrangement starting around 2 minutes. Like appearing very dark low clouds in sky, waiting to break in a storm.
The person is reluctant but continues the ride downhill. It's not a hasty anxiety driven chase to the objective, but foremost a strong gallop.
Finally the person reaches the objective safe and sound. The picture closes being in front of the pure objective. It's not wasted property. There is no interaction with the person's beloved ones, because they didn't expect the return (in this moment).

Your piece of music is - as always - very sophisticated, Les, with its dynamic and instrumentation.

 

[Greywolf]

Beautiful , lush and delicious!

 

[László]

Thanks, guys. You're very kind.

 

[MKI]

It is a very nice piece, thank you for sharing. It may be WIP, but IMO the core / mood is there, capturing the listener.
The effect I felt was not cinematic, more ‘temporal’, so to speak. It took me a good 7-8 years back to a local symphonic concert I attended with my wife and we both loved (these are cherished and rare events). After some guessing (obviously we couldn’t remember the exact piece), her bet is that it chimes with Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto. I am a bit less moody and going for Sibelius’ Symphony no 7.
Either way, it could help with the writer’s block you mentioned…keep it going

 

[László]

It is a very nice piece, thank you for sharing. It may be WIP, but IMO the core / mood is there, capturing the listener.
The effect I felt was not cinematic, more ‘temporal’, so to speak. It took me a good 7-8 years back to a local symphonic concert I attended with my wife and we both loved (these are cherished and rare events). After some guessing (obviously we couldn’t remember the exact piece), her bet is that it chimes with Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto. I am a bit less moody and going for Sibelius’ Symphony no 7.
Either way, it could help with the writer’s block you mentioned…keep it going

Thank you for the kind encouragement!

Strangely, I can't remember the last time I felt significant writer's block; if anything, I have the opposite of writer's block, it's more like writer's Tourette's syndrome. I can't seem to stop spouting off musically!

As I mentioned in that thread, there's a process I follow - sit down, and get started. I forget why I posted this piece there.

 

[Black Plaid]

Sublime.

Speaking of french horns, I ran across this person who is doing some really remarkable stuff with reverb processing for orchestral instruments. Hopefully it'll be a commercial product before too long. Check it out!

 

[László]

Sublime.

Speaking of french horns, I ran across this person who is doing some really remarkable stuff with reverb processing for orchestral instruments. Hopefully it'll be a commercial product before too long. Check it out!

I watched the whole video. Pretty impressive!

In my work I use most of the reverbs he demo'd, like the new Spitfire reverb, Inspirata, East West Spaces II, the Waves convolution reverb, etc.

I also use a couple of new algorithmic reverbs by iZotope (it has the ability to remove masking), and Plugin Alliance.

Finally, there are interesting room-specific reverbs from Universal Audio that are pretty cool - Ocean Way and Sound City.

One of the things that Inspirata has done is address this problem: A space doesn't just add its reflections, the room makes the instruments themselves sound different when they're in the space. There are resonances, there are frequencies that are absorbed or doubled, etc. Inspirata was created to make the instrument sound as though it's really in the space itself. It's very good at it, though of course, not perfect.

The company Acustica Audio has been on the cutting edge of audio for some time, and they have a reverb that also incorporates machine learning technology called Silver; I don't own it because I had some of their early stuff (2010s) and it seemed to be a bit Mac-unfriendly at the time. They've probably fixed that and it'd be worth trying out. Acustica pioneered IR technology that changed over time instead of being static. I forgot the name they gave it.

But all this reverb stuff aside, the elephant in the room is sampled instruments themselves.

Yes, they are getting very good indeed, but they are far from perfect. So regardless of the reverb space you put them in, you're only getting an approximation of the real thing.

As my mixes show, the results are quite good, but compare it with a real orchestra and its limitations are clearly audible.

I think it's great to have wonderful reverbs, but more work needs to be done on the instrument creating end.

 

[Black Plaid]

I watched the whole video. Pretty impressive!

In my work I use most of the reverbs he demo'd, like the new Spitfire reverb, Inspirata, East West Spaces II, the Waves convolution reverb, etc.

I also use a couple of new algorithmic reverbs by iZotope (it has the ability to remove masking), and Plugin Alliance.

Finally, there are interesting room-specific reverbs from Universal Audio that are pretty cool - Ocean Way and Sound City.

One of the things that Inspirata has done is address this problem: A space doesn't just add its reflections, the room makes the instruments themselves sound different when they're in the space. There are resonances, there are frequencies that are absorbed or doubled, etc. Inspirata was created to make the instrument sound as though it's really in the space itself. It's very good at it, though of course, not perfect.

The company Acustica Audio has been on the cutting edge of audio for some time, and they have a reverb that also incorporates machine learning technology called Silver; I don't own it because I had some of their early stuff (2010s) and it seemed to be a bit Mac-unfriendly at the time. They've probably fixed that and it'd be worth trying out. Acustica pioneered IR technology that changed over time instead of being static. I forgot the name they gave it.

But all this reverb stuff aside, the elephant in the room is sampled instruments themselves.

Yes, they are getting very good indeed, but they are far from perfect. So regardless of the reverb space you put them in, you're only getting an approximation of the real thing.

As my mixes show, the results are quite good, but compare it with a real orchestra and its limitations are clearly audible.

I think it's great to have wonderful reverbs, but more work needs to be done on the instrument creating end.

I can't agree more.

I would love to see some double blind listening tests of live vs. sampled performances of orchestral instruments, I but I don't even know it it would be possible.

I am fairly confident that I could pick out which was which in tests, especially with woodwinds.

 

[László]

I would love to see some double blind listening tests of live vs. sampled performances of orchestral instruments, I but I don't even know it it would be possible.

With your sophistication I'm pretty sure you wouldn't need double blind testing. It's not hard to hear the differences.

I am fairly confident that I could pick out which was which in tests, especially with woodwinds.

You could 100% tell. Spitfire just came out with a new clarinets library to go with the other higher-end Abbey Road studios releases (last month was flutes).

They're very, very good, and easy to play, but only the real thing takes you 100% of the way down that road.

Sadly (for me, because once I got started with this version of the Abbey Road libraries I want the whole set), it's going to be the largest and most expensive orchestral library I own. So in addition to a high initial cost, I need to buy another of the very fast 4TB OWC Thunderblade SSDs I got for the rest of their libraries. I currently have two at around a grand each. It's almost crazy that I need more but this is the price of doing things the best way I can given the available technology.

 

[Moondog Wily]

Great job as usual László! Thanks for entering it and your other latest piece in the Challenge ;~))