Re: Voice loss

Hi Graham,

> Well, the player there is me. On an instrument that doesn't have to
> pause for breath. There are things I don't like about it, but I don't
> want to do the work required to analyze it, re-write bits, re-record
> them to sound like the surrounding material and then splice them in. So
> it stays as it is, imperfect but spontaneous.

Oh yes I understand. You feel that rewriting an improvisation may spoil it mightn't
it, lose the spontaneity. Maybe it is right too.

I feel the same and would prefer to start again with a new piece
rather than redo an improvisation. But perhaps that is just a mark of
inexperience. Anyay in the same position I don't think I'd rewrite it
either, and I find your Pelog improvisation delightful to listen to as it is.

> What kind of subtle changes do you mean? It's quite easy to move notes
> around and change their length in the piano roll view, which is how I
> always edit it. But I'm not sure what I'd be doing other than
> shortening the occasional note.

Shortening the occasional note is all one need to do to make a surprising
amount of difference.

> > I find that work on the phrasing helps the composer to think
> > more about the piece in terms of phrases and answer phrases and so on.
> > So as well as helping the listener, it also improves the composition
> > indirectly.

> Indeed, "question and answer" is something I often thing of playing
> with, but never do.

Ah but you do. It is a natural thing, any melody line has
question and answer (or whatever it is you want to call it).

E.g. in your Pelog piece your first four bars go:

a b a c

(a very common type of bars pattern in folk music)

I don't mean an exact repeat there, just that the
a bars are smilar in character to each other.

It then gets answered by another phrase in a similar
a b a c type pattern.

The a b there itself can be thought of as
a tiny question and answer, ending with an
unresolved answer, then the a c gives a
more resolved type answer (just a single note
in this case. But not completely resolved or
it would end the tune at that point. That then
leaves it open for another call and answer
type phrase to answer it. The a c also in the
a b a c also answers the a b.

The whole piece is built up mainly of four bar phrases
themselves building up into eight bar larger
phrases, with a few rhythmic kind of skips now
and again.

I hear the Pelog piece as full of call and answer
all the way through.

Bars fall naturally into two bar
patterns (rarely three bar patterns)

Larger phrases often fall into four bar pattens
built out of two bar phrases kind of question and answer type.

With your Lyonaisse song I hear the intro a bit like this:

a ... | b......| b...... | b a.....| a.....

The b is an elaboration of a I know, but also new in character.
One could hear it various ways I'm sure.

The | b a....| at the start of the fourth bar there
is the place where you get a bit of a pleasant mild
surprise. So that first b note could be made a bit shorter to
point out the phrasing. Just one of many possiblities I'm sure.

Now and again a composer will break up the phrasing with a
three bar phrase say. Or may do something exotic like
a seven or five bar phrase. It is suprising what a difference
it makes to have e.g. a seven bar repeating section instead
of an eight bar one.

However, a listener won't get bored even if a piece
is entirely four square type 2 bar phrases making up four
bars making up eight bars making up sixteen, all the pairs
answering each other. It can be varied by sometimes starting
phrases on the bar, on the down beat and sometimes on the up beat
and sometimes breaking a bar into smaller sub phrases,
sometimes going over a bar and so on, within the
expected larger beat pattern (which I think is
perhaps a type of natural fractal)..

I don't know if I'm using the term
correctly here, perhaps I may be stretching it beyond
the normal use of the word, in any case that's what
I had in mind and it is a natural thing you get in
melody. But working on the phrasing of a piece
gets one to notice patterns like that and the
way it is made up of phrases similar and differing
in character and other larger structures. At
least I find that wiht my pieces. Also when playing,
thinking about phrasing gets one to notice larger
structures. So in that way I find it helps with
the composing too, and is more than just a way
to help the listener to hear the details in the
tunes. I think that's it really - that adding phrases helps
the listener to hear the details - including oneself.
I think that is probably why it seems to help with
the composition process.

> It does if you do it right. I suppose I do it wrong and then get
> scared, and so go the safe route of having everything playing all the
> time. Thank you for these comments, it gives me an idea of how other
> people are hearing things, and what I need to work on.

Yes of course, very natural. In the places you use it, to my ears
it is done very effectively, so I think it would work to do more of the same
and to be a bit more adventurous in your use of phrasing.

After all - like programming, one can always put in a whole bunch
of changes to hear what happens, and if you don't like it, just roll it
back to the way it was before. I find that useful particularly,
with this sort of thing - phrasing, timing and tempo variation, dynamics etc,
after the main structure of the piece is in place. One feels freeer
to experiment if one makes lots of backups and can roll back to them at
any time.

Robert

Robert and Graham,

You are both making good progress in your discussion of G's work, and I won't intrude, except to comment on something of Rbt's:

{you wrote...}
>I feel the same and would prefer to start again with a new piece rather >than redo an improvisation. But perhaps that is just a mark of inexperience.

That is quite often the fact with me! I quickly want to add, however, that if one does more improvising, one can also get more of a feel to just slightly tweak things afterward and still retain the freshness of it. My particular thing is, whether it is my music or doing someone else's in the studio, I frequently find that my very first (or possibly second) attempt at something is best, even if we keep multiple takes. So I've gotten used to making that the very basic material, and just editing a tiny bit if I want to.

Naturally, if it is all midi then it is a slam dunk; if one is recording live audio it is more problematic to fix something. And I frequently would rather live with something that has a wart on it but is full of life than edit the very essence right out of it...

But it isn't inexperience, Rbt, I think it is just part of everyone being individual in their approach.

Cheers,
Jon