London, Warsaw, Prague, Moscow, Sofia and now Bratislava; recording strings in studio 1 at Slovak Radio is my latest experience of string sessions around the world!
This one was the toughest test yet for an orchestra; a rhythmica… Continue
Added by pete whitfield on September 24, 2009 at 2:16am —
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I'm delivering a guest lecture on string arranging in a couple of weeks, so I prepared an introductory video, focusing on an approach to arranging string pads.
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Annotations on YouTube videos have been in beta for a while, but it looks like they are official now and one new feature is that when the video is embedded outside of YouTube, the annotations now play properly. This is a great tool for musical analysis, and particularly for students to demonstrate their own evaluation of their work, directly linked to the track, Pure text is so dissatisfying for musical commentary - but so sweet when connected directly to the music! Soundcloud allows you to do t… Continue
Added by pete whitfield on October 31, 2008 at 3:30am —
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Soundcloud.com is a cool new web service for anyone dealing with audio. You really have to sign up and play around with it to get a feel for what it is! As well as being able to upload large audio files and share them, you can attach comments to the wave form. Hopefully it will embed here, if not, try looking at it on the soundcloud website.
Roll your cursor over the little avatars under the waveform… Continue
I've dabbled with interactive web tools for music language - mostly aural but a bit of theory too. Here, I've tried to present a reference for various modes, bringing together the names, spelling and sound. If you click the mode names randomly you get either a complete mess or a contemporary composition!
… Continue
No, it's not something by Rimsky Korsakov but a new web service for creating online music notation.
One cool tool for music educators. Currently in beta. Continue
Added by pete whitfield on October 27, 2008 at 7:31am —
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I only dabble with composition; I'm primarily an arranger, specialising in strings, but you have to keep re-inventing yourself to keep working (and earning) so I'm looking at a library music project. I've done a lot of arranging work for a UK library music company and I want to pitch an idea to them - an album of string moods with contemporary beats, maybe offering 2 mixes (with and without beats). So my rough mixes are work in progress (imaginatively entitled track 1, 2 and 3). My advice to you… Continue
I've noticed there are a few student composers in this network, who are looking for guidance and support from more established members. One of the problems they face is lack of resources, whether that be reference books or software. I'd like to propose an award; if some members of the community are willing to pledge a small amount of money by way of a prize, we could make a valuable contribution to the development of young composers.
I'll start by pledging 50 dollars.
If it works it could be an… Continue
All music should exist with images - discuss! Certainly many pop tracks are released with a music video, and much of the business of making music takes place in relation to visual media - tv, video and film.
Cohen and Bollow iLife08, Apple Training Series 2008, suggest:
"An interesting irony of film and video is that roughly 50% of what you see comes through your ears." In other words, sound is more influential in our experience of visual media that we might expect.
Of course, making a glossy… Continue
There is no single route to making a career in music, so no-one can offer bullet-proof advice, only provoke you to find your own way. Some of these suggestions may seem contradictory, but developing a creative career will be multi-faceted and tricky to balance, so deal with it baby!
What is your personal musical identity? Find it and develop it.
What are your influences, passions, skills? Don't try to be something else - develop these. Find your niche.
Diversify - your influences, your knowled… Continue
This just came through from widget laboratory - a free widget that let's you make a slide show from the Ning network photos (hope folks don't mind) with a music track of your choice! Had to try it here.
I'm a bit of a web tools junkie and I came across Muxtape last week. You have to be old enough to remember cassettes to really get how cool this is! It's mixtapes for the digital age.
There's not much advice or guidance on the site about copyright but I couldn't help feeling uncomfortable as I uploaded mp3s that for years I've known I should not share online! Maybe I'll get some nasty letters from copyright holders.
You could use muxtape as a page for your own… Continue
Added by pete whitfield on June 11, 2008 at 12:56am —
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Back in 2000 (ish) I had a go at my first website - I'm finally getting round to a proper update, making the most of web 2.0 at the moment. One of the things I wanted to put on the site was some copyright free 'pads'; 8 and 16 bar chord sequences with a bit of arrangement, for free usage by anyone. A kind of 'lost leader'.
I know, over the years, some of these have ended up on writers' works. I've come on a lot since then but the examples are still a pleasing quality - maybe I'll get round to a… Continue
I wish I could find a way to feed by wordpress blog into my ning profile! Meanwhile, I'll duplicate some of my blog here!
I've been fortunate to have worked as an orchestrator in 4 major centres of orchestral recording - the 5th will be Sofia (Bulgaria) later this year. These scores have been for Richard Mitchell (movies)… Continue
This one was the toughest test yet for an orchestra; a rhythmica… Continue
