Wrongplanet Musicians' Showcase

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Oh, you'll love Reason once you get the hang of it. I've used Logic Pro since version 7 and it took me fiddling with it for over a week and feebly trying to read the manual just to learn how to get sound out of it. Reason is SO much more intuitive than Logic.

Of course, it is more intuitive because it's strictly a sequencer, although they do have Record now. It takes a little time to get a handle on signal flow and patching, but once you get it there are so many cool things you can do with it.

PM me any time you have a question and I'll try to help you any way I can. I'm more a user of Subtractor, Thor, NN-XT, and ReDrum than anything else. I'm not a big fan of the loop player because I can't import my own loops and don't want to spend extra money for the loop editor.

Thanks I will

So far I've only been using Domino sequencer (http://takabosoft.com/domino) which is the simplest of the simple but great for me as a newbie. It made making music fun and not so intimidating.
I can't wait to learn Reason though...

I've practised a bit today and have reuploaded my new composition:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgCYo7V1a_g&feature=youtube_gdata[/youtube]

Dude, I think you just keep getting better.

My usual complaints aside, I'll just summarize by saying this:
If you're working within a tonal context, you bear the burden of having to be extraordinarily good to make it work. You're practicing, revising, and I think you're well on your way.

So, that aside...

I think you would benefit by carefully studying form in music. Cut down on the amount of thematic material you use. Stick with one or two main themes and make that the focus of your work. As I've mentioned in the past, you're doing more interesting things rhythmically, and I like how your melody is free from your accompaniment. Something that I'm finding difficult to listen to are the large number of pieces you've written so far that seem dominated by motor rhythms. Give your left hand time to rest at some point. I dunno if I'll ever get my piece for piano and strings on youtube, but each movement focused on a specific mood supported by different rhythmic treatments. The Prelude was minimalist-influenced and was driven by changes in volume intensity rather than rhythm alone, since there was no distinct melody. I followed that up with a fugue, which relied on counterpoint and interplay among all the instruments, pitting the piano against the strings in some places and not even requiring all players to play all the time. I had a slow movement that featured each instrumentalist individually. A frantic movement that borrowed material from a Chicago song and a Beatles song. And after all that was done, I wrote a chorale which started out with strings only and ended with just the piano. The final movement was more like a pop song form with a modulation in the last "verse."

Writing a fugue might be a little much for you at this point. They're difficult to write and even more difficult to actually play, but you can look at Bach's fugues to get an idea. I think maybe Hindemith also wrote several fugues, but I can't remember... Even if you never write in a strict fugal style, it's a great way to get some ideas about how to think more in terms of counterpoint rather than just "melody-accompinment." Something in a more chorale-like style might be easier for you to do. It doesn't even really matter if you follow all the voice-leading "rules" to write a chorale, but at the very least come up with a melody/counter-melody supported by chords underneath, and have the chords change with every one or two notes of the melody. It's an extremely simplistic way of composing, but valid none-the-less.

As for specific forms I think you should explore: Think theme-and-variation, rondo, and eventually fugue. Chorales are typically strophe form, which means one or two themes, usually a half-cadence somewhere, and repeat. It's more typical of choral music, not instrumental, so the challenge is how to make something repetitive sound interesting. Varying voicing and register (octave) are two ways of playing the same thing over again but fooling the listener into thinking he's hearing something different. You can also change key (like moving to the dominant) or mode (major/minor), and maybe end by expanding or thinning out the texture (like start out with 3 or 4 voices and end with 5 or 6, or full chords in both hands, or vice versa). One historically significant form is sonata-allegro, but I think you'd do better focussing on forms that don't require motivic or thematic development until you've really practiced handling thematic material in very basic ways.

Rondo is probably the easiest. Here's perfect textbook case of rondo form:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yomi0-WL5Pg

It's not about speed but rather the alternation of different themes. Notice how the accompaniment changes from theme to theme.

Another quasi-rondo form is Beethoven's Bagatelle in A minor, aka "Für Elise."

A little Flamenco medley

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVy2qG4eOGw[/youtube]

Let me know what you think. This song has been chopped up and thrown in the bin more times than I care to remember. I think it sounds pretty good now. I did have some rubbish sounding demos up there a few days ago (including a demo for the one song that's up there at the moment) but I decided (via some helpful advice) to take it down. I've worked pretty much constantly for about a week on Blown Up, and on and off for about 8 or 9 months. I hope you like it as much as me!

http://soundcloud.com/domsay/blown-up-again-quieter

Good stuff! I left comments elsewhere, so I'll just simply say it's MUCH better than it was.

Thank you pandabear. It's nighttime here, and your music fit the mood perfectly.
How long have you played guitar?

I started a little over 30 years ago when I was in college, but then didn't play for many years. I started taking it up again a year ago. I grew up playing the violin.

I play a bit of acoustic guitar, but not as well as you do. Wow, violin to guitar - they both have strings, but really different. Do you still play violin? Do you write your own music? I can't tell from your video if that's your original.

Repost:

Here is one of my piano videos, playing Starry Night, and you get to hear my voice at the end too, I don't like my American accent but my friends do, they think it's novel and different.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45TZ-AwGsM8&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

Lou

Lovely! You are 10 years old?
When did you begin to play?

I started when I was 5

Lou

Wow, so you are far more experienced than I am though you are 8 years younger, I'm raising my hat to you

I hope you will keep on having fun with playing the piano, never stop!

I really wished I would have started in your age, god only knows where I would be then today!
I've started some months ago, just in the time when I'm about to graduate and go to university, when it will be pretty hard to find enough time to invest it in music. If you use the years you're still in school you would be so damned good with 18^^ keep that in mind.

Thank you I will never give it up though I would love to try something a little different with it. I really like Tim Minchin's musical comedy on the piano.

Here is another video playing Jazzy for my Grandma.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cft1VAVe-Ts[/youtube]

Lou

I still play violin, but haven't ever written my own music. That guitar bit comes from Flamenco Guitar Solos by Juan Martin. It is by far the best guitar book that I have ever come across.