Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic Gene Ward Smith, His Musick

Gene, you wrote:

"Talking about production values is pretty depressing for me as everyone
says
mine suck."

I have a challenge for *you*. I would like you to compose a piece
specifically for me to render. It should be 5-7 minutes in length (I
won't carve that in stone, it can be somewhat shorter or longer, as your
Muse dictates), scored for a small ensemble of instruments (or synths),
and be in a tuning of your choice but no more than 12 pitches, to keep
things simple for me.

Send me a Scala file of your chosen tuning & a MIDI file with each
instrument assigned to a different channel; specify a tempo & any other
parameters (ex. which instrument is most prominent, if any).

I think people would love a chance to hear your music in a context other
than that of a piano rendition. I'll do my best.

What say you?

Regards,
jls

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "jsmith9624@..." <jsmith9624@...> wrote:

> I have a challenge for *you*. I would like you to compose a piece
> specifically for me to render. It should be 5-7 minutes in length (I
> won't carve that in stone, it can be somewhat shorter or longer, as your
> Muse dictates), scored for a small ensemble of instruments (or synths),
> and be in a tuning of your choice but no more than 12 pitches, to keep
> things simple for me.

I'm not a fast worker, and I prefer more than twelve pitches, but sure, we could do this.

> I think people would love a chance to hear your music in a context other
> than that of a piano rendition. I'll do my best.

Most of the time I'm not doing piano music in any case.

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

I can do tunings greater than 12 notes - if needed.

Kontakt and Garritan Personal Orchestra.

I'm not trying to best Jon's offer - but if you run into difficulties I'll
be glad to help.

Gene, One way you can do it with Jon is to split your composition into X
number of 12 note subsets.

Chris

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 12:36 PM, genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...
> wrote:

>
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "jsmith9624@..." <jsmith9624@...>
> wrote:
>
> > I have a challenge for *you*. I would like you to compose a piece
> > specifically for me to render. It should be 5-7 minutes in length (I
> > won't carve that in stone, it can be somewhat shorter or longer, as your
> > Muse dictates), scored for a small ensemble of instruments (or synths),
> > and be in a tuning of your choice but no more than 12 pitches, to keep
> > things simple for me.
>
> I'm not a fast worker, and I prefer more than twelve pitches, but sure, we
> could do this.
>
>
> > I think people would love a chance to hear your music in a context other
> > than that of a piano rendition. I'll do my best.
>
> Most of the time I'm not doing piano music in any case.
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

🔗Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@...>

I think some of Gene's work would be really great with a kind of early
electronic (I'm thinking Dutch school: Kid Baltan, Raajimaakers, etc.)
aesthetic, so square and sine waves, maybe a little touch of sci-fi
vibrato....I'd love to hear it go the other direction than "orchestral
realism", b/c it's more futuristic music, to me, but maybe futuristic with
retro-kitsch? ANyway, ba strings, soundfonts and choirs ruin it for me,
whereas naked mad scientist lab waveforms and a cheap spring reverb perhaps
could make it really fun. My 2¢.

AKJ

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 12:03 PM, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>wrote:

> I can do tunings greater than 12 notes - if needed.
>
> Kontakt and Garritan Personal Orchestra.
>
> I'm not trying to best Jon's offer - but if you run into difficulties I'll
> be glad to help.
>
> Gene, One way you can do it with Jon is to split your composition into X
> number of 12 note subsets.
>
> Chris
>
> On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 12:36 PM, genewardsmith <
> genewardsmith@...
> > wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "jsmith9624@..." <jsmith9624@...>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I have a challenge for *you*. I would like you to compose a piece
> > > specifically for me to render. It should be 5-7 minutes in length (I
> > > won't carve that in stone, it can be somewhat shorter or longer, as
> your
> > > Muse dictates), scored for a small ensemble of instruments (or synths),
> > > and be in a tuning of your choice but no more than 12 pitches, to keep
> > > things simple for me.
> >
> > I'm not a fast worker, and I prefer more than twelve pitches, but sure,
> we
> > could do this.
> >
> >
> > > I think people would love a chance to hear your music in a context
> other
> > > than that of a piano rendition. I'll do my best.
> >
> > Most of the time I'm not doing piano music in any case.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

--
Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.akjmusic.com
http://www.untwelve.org

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

🔗chrisvaisvil@...

I got microtonaalsynths as well. A lot of us on this list do of course.
-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@...>
Sender: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2011 12:08:44
To: <MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [MMM] Re: Gene Ward Smith, His Musick

AKJ

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 12:03 PM, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>wrote:

--
Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.akjmusic.com
http://www.untwelve.org

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

🔗jsmith9624@...

Gene, you wrote:

>
> I'm not a fast worker, and I prefer more than twelve pitches, but
sure, we could do this.
>

Take your time, Gene. The 12-pitch thing is mostly to avoid distortion
issues with soundfonts of acoustic instruments (in case you wanted such
for your rendition) -- usually the larger multi-sampled soundfonts do OK
with lesser/greater than 12, but at some point *may* sound like
constipated banshees.

Also, Orion Pro seems to ignore things like tempo/pitch-bend messages
when importing MIDI files; I'm looking into this issue to see if I have
overlooked some configuration parameter, since I only rarely have loaded
MIDI files into Orion. A re-tuned MIDI file will work (I think) if I can
find a way to import it without losing PB data. I'll keep you updated.

> Most of the time I'm not doing piano music in any case.
>

Do you have links to other renditions online?

Best,
jls

PS Gene, to keep the list from technical clutter, please send me an
offlist note from an e-mail address to which I can direct queries &
such.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "jsmith9624@..." <jsmith9624@...> wrote:

> Take your time, Gene. The 12-pitch thing is mostly to avoid distortion
> issues with soundfonts of acoustic instruments (in case you wanted such
> for your rendition) -- usually the larger multi-sampled soundfonts do OK
> with lesser/greater than 12, but at some point *may* sound like
> constipated banshees.

Did the suggestion you might be better able to handle 24 notes than, say, 22 have merit?

> A re-tuned MIDI file will work (I think) if I can
> find a way to import it without losing PB data. I'll keep you updated.

What about a Scala seq file?

> Do you have links to other renditions online?

There's this:

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%28Gene%20Ward%20Smith%29

🔗jsmith9624@...

Gene,

You behold me here, chastened & humbled. Having listened to the first
few works of yours at the link you provided, IMVHO you should tell the
rest of us to kiss your arse.

Your demonstrated composition & production skills are excellent. I was
under the impression from "Pianodactyl" & the general remarks here on
the list that, perhaps, you didn't have the tools needed to properly
display your music.

I stand corrected. I'm vastly impressed, and will download the works you
have posted at archive.org for study and edification. I only fail to
understand why you didn't submit something like these to the Un12
competition..? Also, what on earth are you using to render these pieces?

I'm still up for a collaboration, because it would be nifty to hear your
music in electronic timbres (as mentioned in a previous post).

My respects & best wishes,
jlsmith

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith"
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> There's this:
>
>
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%28Gene%20Ward%20Smith\
%29
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "jsmith9624@..." <jsmith9624@...> wrote:

> Your demonstrated composition & production skills are excellent.

Thanks for the composition part. For the production part, I don't have much confidence, and you are the first person I can recall who called them "excellent'.

> I stand corrected. I'm vastly impressed, and will download the works you
> have posted at archive.org for study and edification. I only fail to
> understand why you didn't submit something like these to the Un12
> competition..? Also, what on earth are you using to render these pieces?

I'm using sf2 soundfonts with TiMidity++. As for why I submitted piano to the contest, it's because I liked the sound. I liked the way Michael Harrison used sustained chords in just intonation. I liked the fact that you can get some nice piano soundfonts. But for whatever reason, pianodactyl wasn't a big hit; it sometimes happens that something I like is rated rather low, and something I thought was pretty minor draws lots of compliments. I can't predict other people's reactions from mine. I can't even assume people will hear things I think are obvious.

> I'm still up for a collaboration, because it would be nifty to hear your
> music in electronic timbres (as mentioned in a previous post).

I'll email something.