Showing posts with label accompagnement MIDI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label accompagnement MIDI. Show all posts

Thursday, June 16

video #2, recording #4 - MIDI Accompaniment and Faith in Music

Well over 8000 visitors: BRAVISSIMO! 65 countries: AUSGESEICHNET! To honour all you visitors, I will keep the list of countries in another tab. Eventually, I will put your flags next to your country’s name.

Blog: over 6 months

I started this blog for 2 reasons:

  1. to track my progress as I attempt to regain my former skills on the oboe, now that I am a software engineer living with chronic pain;
  2. to communicate with people of all descriptions and, hopefully, encourage others in similar situations to mine.
Interestingly, Blogger Statistics shows me that people actually get here by Google Searching topics which include:
  1. oboe reed cases (the single most popular post by far),
  2. MIDI accompaniment and sound recording techniques,
  3. general oboe playing topics,
  4. IMS and physiotherapy concerns,
  5. playing with an extracted tooth!

I wish to express my gratitude to all of you for taking the time and making the effort to visit here. I really enjoy when people leave comments or send e-mails. All contact with people from several continents and from home is a real treat and I hope the favour is returned!

2nd video:

O Souverain: oboe & MIDI orchestra

Apart from a few sagging notes, undecided phrasing here and there and a bit of hasty rhythm (all predicted in this previous post), pretty good improvement in 4 months, if I may say so myself! If this trend continues, in a year, I should be a decent player again. My apologies for the bad picture quality: I have a lot to learn about lighting… nah, I’d rather spend my time practicing oboe! On the other hand, I really should have spent more time on the MIDI accompaniment…

A cute thing about making recordings at home is that I have to contend with my dogs not understanding that silence is more important than the cat running on the other side of the street! 5294752263_83eb41f392But, how can I get angry at such a cute little thing? (Dog face Dogs are great! I truly love them! Dog face) I could have just cut-out my interjection “Popcorn Down!”, but you see my mouth moving in the video….. and because the opening recitativo is never played at the same speed, it’s really hard to use the video from one take with the sound-track of another!

One thing that really amazes me is how much the choice of speakers and/or head-phones (ear-buds) change the quality of my oboe sound. On my real sound system, it sounds like I hear it when playing, also true on my desktop computer and an old head-set that came with a waterproof Sony Walkman tape-cassette player! But the high-quality new Sony ear-buds I just got or my lap-top speakers…. much brighter and a little buzzier.

MIDI accompaniment AND multi-tracking.

This is not the first time I use MIDI as accompaniment for a recording, but I’m glad to have found a file ready-made with dynamic expression already included. I’ll add links to MIDI sources and free sheet music to my page on great places as I come across them. I did use software to add some orchestration a little bit, but thankfully, most of the work was already done for me (thank you Aria-Database!). For this recording, I had to “clean up” the MIDI file before it could play well with instrumentation other than the piano. The only dynamics are done by adding or removing instruments and there is no rubato apart from the opening recitativo. I found it curious that playing the file without rubato or dynamics at all still conveyed an inspiring quality. I guess this is the evidence of an extraordinary composition.

Music is faith… in my point of view!

Ô Souverain, sung by Ben Heppner.

I must have already mentioned that I consider music to be more than an art form, more than a mathematical equation; in fact, I consider it a full-fledged expression of the living soul. I consider music to be the closest direct language of Divinity that humans are capable of understanding. Some songs, a small handful, seem to speak to my soul very directly and stir something that I cannot describe in terms of emotion or psychology. In fact, I don’t even understand what effect they produce, only that I can’t sing them because my throat gets a lump! “Ô Souverain” is one of these.

Music, greater than song!

I believe that songs are music with a handicap; that is, because words convey a clear meaning, they severely limit the potential panorama that we can experience from a melody is restricted to the meaning of the words. Some melodies, however, seem taylor-made for the words. These songs usually loose much when they are translated. In the case of O Souverain, the link between French words and the melody is so strong that I would play it with one pattern of dynamic phrasing and articulation, but would be disappointed when playing back the recording. When putting the words back on the notes, it became clear why my phrasing was wrong.

I’m really not a fan of opera, but I have to admit, Jules Massenet wrote an powerful song as part of his opera Le Cid. It might be an overstatement, but Radio hosts have said that the Metropolitan Opera would not have been able, at the time, to perform Wagner without Ben Heppner. So it is a privilege for me to include a You-Tube of this amazing Canadian Tenor. The performance I give does not follow his style. Apart from the fact that I play the oboe in my study rather than singing at the Met, one of the the miracles of music is that it speaks differently to everyone with a Cartesian product of different messages from each performer and at each performance.

I usually consider lyrics to severely restrict the meaning of music. But some melodies seem custom tailored around words that are especially meaningful on their own right:this song is one of them. Translation is a very difficult thing because a language is much more than a vocabulary and grammar, it is a whole mind-frame  and worldview; it reflects the deepest characteristics of the culture that uses it in the unique way it uses it. So here is the original French and my best attempt to translate it.

Ah! tout est bien fini. Mon beau rêve de gloire, mes rêves de bonheur s'envolent à jamais! Tu m'as pris mon amour, tu me prends la victoire, Seigneur, je me soumets! Ah! It's all over now. My wondrous plans of glory, my beautiful dreams of happiness are all now dust in the wind! You have taken my love, You now take my victory, O Lord, I do submit.
Ô souverain, ô juge, ô père, toujours voilé, présent toujours, je t'adorais au temps prospère, et te bénis aux sombres jours. Je vais où ta loi me réclame, libre de tous regrets humains. O Sovereign, O Judge, O Father always veiled, always present, I adored you in prosperous times and bless you still in troubled days. I go where your law commands, free from all human regrets.
Ô souverain, ô juge, ô père, ta seule image est dans mon âme que je remets entre tes mains. O Sovereign, O Judge O Father, Your image alone fills my soul which I commend into your hands.
Ô firmament azur, lumière, esprits d'en haut, penchés sur moi, c'est le soldat que désespère, mais le chrétien garde sa foi. Tu peux venir, tu peux paraître, aurore du jour éternel. O Firmament, azure blue light, Spirits on High leaning over me, it is the soldier that despairs but the Christian keeps his faith. You can come, you can appear dawn of the eternal day.
Ô souverain, ô juge, ô père! Le serviteur d'un juste maître répond sans crainte à ton appel, ô souverain, ô juge, ô père! O Sovereign, O Judge, O Father! The servant of a just Master answers your call without fear. O Sovereign, O Judge, O Father!

Tuesday, May 31

Piano with computer AT LAST! … and melting reeds!

I finally got my laptop to communicate with my Yamaha Clavinova (CLP-150) NoteParty smile. I did so by installing a 2nd operating system on my computer (Ubuntu Studio) Hot smile. For those who don’t know about dual-booting: I can use either Windows 7 or Linux (Ubuntu) on the same machine Computer. studio_setupWith a powerful computer, you can even use both operating systems at the same time (I do that at work)…

The great advantage of Ubuntu Studio over other Linux distributions is that the most important “behind the curtains” packages are already included. For instance, because MIDI is an international standard (decades old), it has a module that detects MIDI connections and allows you to connect them to your performance/recording/printing software. mscoreThis is how I only needed to plug-in my Piano and “ta-da!it works: no drivers no nothing! If you have ever tried to install hardware drivers on Windows, you’ll appreciate the value of this. But more still (for frustrated Windows users), booting up and shutting down are lightning fast and the updates hardly ever require restarting the computer…. they certainly don’t shut down the computer when you’re turning it on for a presentation! Smile with tongue out And for those who really know how to use the operating system, program crashes don’t break anything else!… really not as easy on Windows.Linux is what I use at my job: it’s built solid, dependable and fast. Any task (any at all) you do on Windows or on a Mac can be done on Linux.

Unfortunately, the really powerful (and expensive) software is for Mac or Windows. Ubuntu studio comes with a selection of programs for recording, composing and so on and you can easily get some much better ones (all for free – legally! Open-mouthed smile). However, almost all programs can export/import in MIDI format, which means the heavy work can be done on the big programs in Windows and the performance and recording work can be done in Linux using the same files!

I still have a bit of trouble getting these files to make the piano play and record what I play on the piano directly to a musical score writer. But that should not be too hard to figure out: the really aggravating part is getting the computer and the piano to communicate: blueReed_meltedas I said, completely automatic in Ubuntu Studio.

Dog days for oboe reeds…. a bit early this year.

In an earlier post, I mentioned how cool dry weather can ruin reeds. Well, hot muggy weather is not any better! Reeds that were playing well enough have now “melted”: they don’t respond until I blow hard, but if I blow harder, they also want to stop playing!

Some reeds do play well, those that were made with hard cane. They are hard to play, but they are responsive and they do allow for a good dynamic range… they are just murder on endurance. The fantastic reeds from a few weeks ago are still playing very well… but you know what? I think I’ll save those and protect them from potential aggravation!

Tuesday, March 15

First Video: Musical Offering to #BachChat

45 Countries have visited my blog for a total of over 3 500 visits! StarC'est la fêtePouce levé 
The bottom of this page has the list: please let me know if I missed yours!

The Twitter event #BachChat is on Monday, but I'm getting a wisdom tooth pulled out on Friday: I won't be able to play for at least 2 weeks after that. I will spend my "practice time", during those 2 weeks, gouging cane, shaping cane and tying reeds.... I'll get to try out that new Cane Guide gadget.

So I had to hurry-up and get my video together on the weekend and today. This is the 3d movement from Bach's Sonata for Flute in E minor BWV 1034.
First “public appearance” in about 15 years!
I call it "le corps humain" (the human body) because it was the theme song and background music for a documentary series (named "Le Corps humain") by Université de Montréal in the 1980's.
 
RECALL:
I have only been practicing an average of 30 minutes a day for about 9 months now, after a near total absence of 10 years (average 30 minutes a month).... my apologies for trashing this beautiful piece!

My endurance has somewhat improved since the 1st video: two months ago, I would not have been able to perform this piece at all (practice, yes – perform, no), let alone do several takes for the video! In the take used for this video I'm already tired, so the tuning went off at times, otherwise I think my tuning has actually improved compared to 15 years ago. This might be due to the revoicing done on my oboe and better reeds.

Explanation of oboe reed crowing.
The reed I used in the video was very good, not amazing, but very good: satisfactory concert reed. There were questions on the Oboe BBoard about crowing, so here’s a demonstration using the reed I used in the video.

This time, I did a little bit of a warm-up (maybe 5 minutes worth) before the first take. More warm-up would have been good: I noticed my reed got easier, better sounding and simply played better after the 3rd take.

I did the MIDI accompaniment and managed to get rubato and dynamics in the most essential places. The computer played out the speakers and the recording captured that with me on oboe as if it were a live performance. It’s really hard to synchronize a cadenza and start the return of the melody with a machine that does not hear you! En pleurs

Getting the right settings for microphone gain (sensitivity) was difficult: 5% on the microphone, mic volume of 30% and no more than 30% gain inside the Windows driver, otherwise, crackling noise was just deafening. I don’t know if these settings change the sound, perhaps more gain on the mic and less in the computer would be better?…. need to experiment. For sure, it would have been MUCH easier if I had done multi-track recording like in my 2nd recording. I think the video capture software that came with the webcam is not suited for the complex sounds in music: I did not have these troubles on the device directly or when using Audacity.

Which to choose: better sound? Video really annoying!
Making a video is HARD!

What did not help my endurance at all are the computer problems during the recording! How many times did I start over just because it failed to start recording or because the accompaniment went berzerk? If you get the impression my computerized accompaniment sometimes “yawns” and stretches a beat or two: it’s true! Some of the takes I had to reject had much worse breaks in the video than this.
 
Maybe I need to get more memory and/or deactivate the Internet and a bunch of other things, because at every few takes, the MIDI playback would slow down terribly for a few beats and then pick up again.... was Windows 7 running updates in the background? Also, because I recorded directly to the computer rather than in the recording device, the computer seems to have added pops every once in a while..... maybe I need a MacIntosh? I still have to try Linux (Ubuntu Studio). I could not use Windows Movie Maker at all because of the pops!
 

IMS #6:

last week (#7 tomorrow), went well, but this was a rough week. The weather heated up a lot and this caused my arms and shoulders to get painful again... not as bad as a month ago, but stiff and sore. Towards the end of the video, there are two arpeggios including is that infamous dominant 7th on D. They are not "clean" because of strain in the shoulder: a few weeks ago, I had no trouble with these at all.
 

Thanks again to everyone

I get visits almost every day from every country on the list. I guess this means there is something interesting here! I really enjoy your (rare) comments and e-mails: don’t be shy to criticize, that’s useful too! One thing is for sure, your visits really encourage me. I hope this can also encourage you and motivate you in your endeavours too!

Thank you:
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Columbia, Cyprus, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, U.K., Ukraine, U.S.A.,  Venezuela

Thursday, February 17

Old Cane and Rubato MIDI

It seems the full moon is having its effects: work gulping my practice time and great reeds going bad just because the cane is too youngGirard Oboe Reed.

Free advice for new reed makers:

In my posting wimpy [ weather cane mouth | reeds ], I mentioned how the weather is public enemy #1 for reeds… well, freshness doesn’t help either! Ever since my own student days in Montréal, we always said that you just can’t make a good reed out of green cane: good cane is ripe cane! Today just confirmed that for the ump-teenth time! For the past few years, I had been experimenting with shapes made on request by Roseau Chantant. I was always impressed with the quality of his cane and workmanship, but tonight, I fell upon one piece that just won’t play. When cane is not ripe, you can make a reed that will play wonderfully just after you scraped it, but the next day it goes dead (no more crow). Scrape it again: it plays great for 15 minutes and goes dead again. Scrape it again, and the same thing over and over again…

I have tube cane from 1994, and this never happens. Using almost any shaper, this cane will make from good reeds to fantastic reeds, rarely bad (except, of course, where the grains were always wrong to begin with). You’ll know “green” cane by a kind of very-hard soapy wax-like feeling when you scrape: it doesn’t feel like cane, it doesn’t scrape like cane. There is also a yellowish-greenish shine to the grains under the bark.

I know this will not provide comfort to new oboists on a budget, but there is really only one thing you can do to prevent this: buy lots of cane, and let it age at least 5 years!

MIDI accompanimentmidi_music_editing_software

Leading up to my 1st video (Gammal fabodpsalm), I mentioned preparing the accompaniment as a MIDI file (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) to be played by my computer. Well, luckily I have some very powerful software, but the neat thing is that there are tons of free music editing programs out there; you can also get almost any piece of music in MIDI format for free off the internet. You can see how this becomes interesting to students and amateurs!

I’ll write more on that later after trying out a few things, but this is what I consider important in an editing program:

  1. Easy computer keyboard note entry: mouse entry looks easy, but it is actually very tedious, hard on the wrists and prone to mistakes.
  2. A way to change tempo in chunks of music: in other words, select a few bars and say “do a rallentando” or “do an accelerando”.
  3. A way to change the dynamics (in MIDI, this is called velocity) in chunks of music: in other words, select a few bars on one instrument or several instruments and say “do a crescendo” or “do a diminuendo”.

Those seem obvious and natural enough, no? Points 2 and 3 are surprisingly hard to find! I have only found 1 freeware program that does tempo changes, and this is not even rall./accell.! Finale, one of the most popular programs (and one of the most expensive) does it all, but not easily. But looking for freeware is hard because doing a Google search for “MIDI editor” will bring thousands of results, most of which for ring tones and drum beats!

At any rate, for my next few recordings, I want to concentrate on sound quality (of the oboe) during the recording process, so I’ll use Music Minus One and other recorded accompaniment I have instead of . Also, there is a Linux distribution (Ubuntu Studio) designed especially for multimedia artists, so I’ll try it and hope it will allow my lap-top to communicate with my digital piano. Installing Ubuntu Linux (and its variants) has always been flawless for me, so I have hope!

Saturday, February 5

First Recording, NOW!

Holy Cow, more than 2 thousand visits to this blog deserves a celebration! C'est la fête

People from countries on every continent (as per Blogger Statistics) – it’s really amazing to get all your visits! So I gave myself a kick in the back-side to do the recording I hade announced several times since the holidays…. I hope this is a present and not a punishment!Tire la langue

I feel like apologizing for this performance, but I think I’ll ask you instead to post your comments, both good and critical. I hope I already have a justification for the criticisms and, well I can always hope for some good ones…. but I really want everyone to be honest and straight-forward.
So here it is:…. yes the A-natural 2 minutes in is intentional!

My rebirth on the oboe! Not my best, but my best for this weekend!
The piece is entitled Gammal Fabodpsalm från Dalarne (Simple folk-tune from Dalarna, Sweeden) written by Oskar Lindberg – I did the MIDI orchestration myself (more on that later… really not as easy as I had expected). I was given the honour of performing its North-American premiere (or so I was told) as the solo oboe (it could have been clarinet or trumpet, but I was chosen) with the McGill Wind Symphony in 1992 (or 1993?) --- back then, I was a decent player!. The experience was simply amazing: things had been going so bad for me all week (my keys holes filled with water all day) that I actually phoned my parents to stay home. They came anyway and God saw it fit that I should perform to my best that night. When the conductor made me stand for the applause… I was in another world and I consider it easily the greatest moment in my performing life.

I chose this one for my rebirth because the tune just started playing in my head, one day I was very discouraged at the notion of playing ever again because of chronic pain. Looking up pictures of Dalarna (Sweeden), it becomes obvious why the music speaks to my soul so much! Anyone who loves the living world will understand what the music is saying.

My last public appearance was in 1998, except for a brief and intimate tune for family at the anniversary mass for my late brother’s funeral in 1999. I have been trying to practice as diligently as I can and make as many reeds as I can for the past 8 odd months, but this blog gave a glimpse at how this is not so easy. I have to admit, This release means a whole lot to me to play again and I really, really appreciate the correspondence I have enjoyed through the Oboe BBoard, Facebook, Twitter and others. To feel like a musician again is simply indescribable.

Sunday, January 2

Thank Heavens for Inspiration!

Yesterday, my condition of fibromyalgia had gotten the best of me – and in turn, everything went wrong when playing the oboe – and I had prepared a blog posting that might have been uselessly depressive. But, lo and behold, Providence kicked-in once again and furnished me with the inspiration to again set sail for sunny shores!Oboj

I was reminded of a tune I had played in 1992 (or 1993?) as solo oboe with the McGill Wind Symphony. This was a student production, naturally, but nonetheless it was really the crowning glory of my performing life. The tune is little known, unless you’re a big fan of ABBA, and I had kept the solo sheet music. Though searching Google and Wikipedia for the composer yielded nothing useful at all, some You-Tube postings were enough to get my muses flying once again!

No, I won’t say who the composer is nor what the tune is: I will use it as my 1st You-Tube recording! I can’t get the score for it, but the harmonization is easy enough, so I’ll make a MIDI file and, hopefully, get my Yamaha Clavinova to accompany ($%@&! Windows drivers) as I bring it out of the dusty closet at last!

This will take a few weeks to do. But it shows that the call to music remains stronger than the woes of life and when things look dark, Providence lights a candle! When you hear this piece, as long as I do it credit, I think you’ll agree its power to inspire is strong and deeply touches the soul.

Monday, December 27

Return to the (virtual) public spotlight?

Well, my preference would be to start playing with some ensemble, preferably chamber music. But I don’t know a whole lot of people right now with whom I can play – and not many people can introduce me to musicians seeking oboes right now. But – TA-DA! – You-Tube is out there where people are posting themselves left and right! Hey, maybe there’s some potential there for me?

Why play in public?

That’s an excellent question because I really don’t have an answer. Of course, some psychologists would argue that I need to be heard because of some childhood trauma or for some narcissistic need to expose myself… yyeeaaaahhh NO!

But some time ago, Hannah’s Oboes was selling a really special (and expensive) Oboe d’Amore and I was rather disappointed when someone else bought it (sigh!). I told her that I was glad it was sold to someone who would play it in concert: such a special instrument deserves to be heard.

THAT’s why I want to play in public. I don’t think I’m so great or anything, but I believe the oboe is an amazing instrument, music speaks directly to the soul and people need – especially in these parts – to share in its spirit. MP3s, streaming radio and CDs will just never compare with even a mediocre live performance: there is a connection that occurs. Of course all artists need to express themselves, and expression needs an audience, but its the shared experience that matters.

The stage still lures me strongly, in part because I want to make-up for some failings and in part because I live in denial that I have ever left it. In my soul, I "hear" the sound that I want, the character that the music should have, the voice that should be expressed when I play. Although it is very aggravating to miss the mark when I take my instrument and listen to myself in a recording, I cannot stop aiming for that voice, that character, that soul.

Now, what to play?

I have always been wild about the baroque, finding it easier than the post-impressionist or contemporary repertoire most players in my circles would usually prefer; they thought baroque was harder. But surprize, surprize, it seems now that the other way around is happening! It might be that, since the summer, I’ve been concentrating on sound so much that this is now best reflected by the likes of Debussy and some lesser known ones. At any rate, I have to limit myself to the one MMO CD I have and a few MIDI files: my “ensemble” will either be the CD or my Digital Piano played by the virtuoso Hewlett Packard (though less impressive than Angela Hewitt!!!). I’ll keep playing around and see what comes out well on my recordings.