Music Composers Unite!

January 2010 Blog Posts (10)

The great dissonance hoax

I'm not talking about prepared dissonance with resolution, I'm talking about the predelection for "modern" composition to embrace relentless dissonance as a foundation for a piece of music.

In the effort to evolve music beyond the common practice era, we have thrown harmony under the bus. Notably, yes there has been some harmonic evolution that has given us a broader pallette to work with, but these have more to do with how we modulate, more colorful chromaticism and breaking of… Continue

Added by Michael J Lawrence on January 31, 2010 at 1:12pm — 10 Comments

1st Blog!!

First time for everything ... so I'm writing a blog from now of any commissions coming up ...

I'm currently scoring up my portfolio of composition to submit for my Ph.D. in Writing Music for Film and the Media ... it's all going in on Monday! this includes DVDs and CDs of about 4yrs of projects including my library music, advert music, tv music, film music and extras such as music in education projects and my 2 operas! ...

My next project will be writing for players from… Continue

Added by A5 Music on January 28, 2010 at 6:59am — 2 Comments

VSTi's... Which ones are on your shopping list? Which do you use already?

Hi All,

As I'm new to the world of VSTI's I thought I'd post a discussion to get some views.

After trawling the internet, looking at several different packages and developers, I'm contemplating getting EWQL Complete Composers (Customizable) Collection, with SO Platinum Plus and substituting "Pianos" for Gypsy. This would be purely for composing and demoing cues / themes for Film and TV.

Are there any others you think I should look into before taking the plunge?… Continue

Added by Adam Weldon on January 27, 2010 at 6:57am — 7 Comments

New : by? Music Listening Room

Can't find it HELP!!!!!!

Added by Kenneth Palmer on January 22, 2010 at 2:29pm — No Comments

What makes a great musician?

You can have two individuals, with similar musical technical ability, play the same exact notes on a guitar and receive completely different reaction from the audience. You can also have musicians who train day in and day out and become extremely good at technically manipulating their instrument but when you hear them play, they hardly evoke any emotional reaction in the audience. On the other hand, you have the other kind of musicians, who may either be technically good or not, but their… Continue

Added by Kenneth Palmer on January 21, 2010 at 8:22pm — 4 Comments

I Can't Believe It's Not Better!

I always spread myself a bit too thin, when it comes to the internet.

Like butter, if you don't concentrate yourself in certain areas, you don't get a lot out of it.

At the same time, too much in one location has no benefit whatsoever.

I'm a part of many musical forums/sites, yet I still find myself dumbfounded when I get an email from a site I don't remember claiming that I signed up with them this many years ago and still have an account.

Just a bad… Continue

Added by Rahim Stratton on January 21, 2010 at 6:01am — 1 Comment

Composers' Forum Get-together in London in late February

Hi all,

I was thinking of planning a get together for members of this forum somewhere in central London at back-end of February. My current proposed date would be the evening of Saturday February 27th.

As this is a fairly short notice thing the idea would be to meet for drinks and then head out to a restaurant. Ideally this would just give everyone a chance to meet face-to-face and get to know each other. If this works out well then there's a good chance that we'll follow… Continue

Added by James Semple on January 17, 2010 at 9:21am — 17 Comments

String trio on a pop song

Sometimes I'm hired to add strings, synth, drums, or produce tracks for singers. There are a lot of great songwriter / singers that just play guitar and can't really add much more to their mixes, but they know they need it. This song came to me as a vocal and acoustic guitar track, and the songwriter said to do whatever I wanted to it. So I decided to go with a string trio - Violin, Viola and Cello. I used 'Vienna Instruments' for the sounds and played in the parts on the keyboard. The… Continue

Added by Chris Merritt on January 16, 2010 at 12:53pm — 2 Comments

Ouch!

Back up your work composers!

On Monday, my hard drive died. I didn't have back-ups of my original scores that were developed with that hard drive. I don't know yet if they are completely lost or not.

I have a new computer on order and it will arrive in about a fortnight. At that time, I'll take it in to the shop with my old computer. I'll have my E-mu sound system transferred and I'll have the technicians examine the hard drive to see if there is anything that is… Continue

Added by Thomas on January 13, 2010 at 10:20am — No Comments

Just a little Experiment I did with sound

I am sitting in a room (1969) is one of composer Alvin Lucier's best known works. I attempted to recreate this work myself and this is what the result was. The results were very interesting and might be something I might try again in the future with a slight change.
I am siting in a room.mp3

Added by Tyler Hughes on January 6, 2010 at 5:12pm — 2 Comments