Pastlives Revisited

Started by dandelO, October 22, 2013, 11:14:01 PM

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dandelO

I'll assume then, that I'm the only one that didn't download the thing!
Sorry, J. This has turned into a bit of a farce, eh! :D

Btw, as far as I'm concerned, like I said much earlier in this post when I brought it up, I really don't care who or how many people want to muck around with some sound manipulating fun, I never intended to limit it to just one project per person to work on. What I think would be good is everyone just post whatever files to the discussion that they want(if that's allowed, of course), that everyone and anyone can mess around with if they wanted, that would be ideal and would give everyone the most creative freedom to take it, manipulate it, repost their edit and the same thing happen again with that until a musical monster was born at the end of it. I'm fine with everyone diving in.

The problem I'm up against is my email client refuses to let me access any email attachments that are not image files. So I can't really trade files by email at the moment, it's a pain.

PabloMack

Quote from: j meyer on November 13, 2013, 10:53:00 AM
Ok then who are the real musicians that are in?
As far as I know Martin and myself right now.
Anyone else?

What do you call a "real musician"? A (semi)professional? I have composed music since 2003 using Cakewalk sequencers (Music Creator and Sonar with several plugins). Besides a 5-string and a little guitar, I don't physically play many musical instruments. Instead I score them and let my sequencer and soft-synths play them. I learned to read sheet music as a child and singing in a church choir. The NorthernSounds website is really great for listening to composers who use softsynths for their rendering. I actually composed a one hour DVD of music if anyone cares to listen to the free samples:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/pkmckneely

If you ask me, though, it sounds like dandelO is asking for a train-wreck. People are going to have to do a lot of coordination of timing which is very important in music. A spastic player sounds okay when people are talking but it makes music sound really bad.

BTW: I didn't download it either.

j meyer

I didn't bring up the term real musician,but I for one use it to make a difference
between someone who actually plays an instrument(not necessarily on a pro level,
just knowing some chords and basic structures of music,like the 12 bar blues scheme
for instance) and the ones that do something with electronic devices without any
further knowledge.

Ok then,I'll attach the file again and who ever likes to do something to/with it feel free
to use it .It's a very basic Reggae fragment,2 bars intro/anacrusis followed by two
8 bar chunks.
Personally i would prefer to keep a common musical structure!
For midi compatibility reasons between brands I'll give you the note assignments
for the drumkit in use,too.
And the note assignments in use for the drum kit:
PGM 009  Room Kit
C#1 - side stick
A#/Bb0 - open rim shot
G2 - splash cymbal
A#/Bb1 - HiHat open
B0 - Bass drum M
C#2 - Crash cymbal1
F#1 - HiHat closed
G#/Ab2 - cowbell
F2 - Ride cymbal cup
D#/Eb2 - Ride cymbal
A1 - Room tom3

Looking forward to what will develop and have fun everyone,J.

dandelO

Might indeed be a train wreck!
I for one love to edit and pass sounds around, only really done it with close friends that I see in day to day life. Recently Ade and myself done the title track here remotely and I think it worked very well. That just gave me the idea to have a little free-for-all. Whether that's a fail or not, I'm sure I can make something out of a basic skeleton that anyone else would be welcome to play with.
It's no big serious deal, just a bit of fun, someone makes a riff, posts it, anyone else makes an edit, posts it back, maybe there would be several different edits to the skeleton by multiple people, the next person might like to combine them all, add some live instruments, whatever. Take it easy and just play around. Also, I don't read music but have played for around 20 years, notation and theory is all very well but playing by ear and feeling is just as valid, in my opinion.
Regardless, I'll play around with -anything- at all, begining with this, Jochen. Thanks, I eventually got it! I'll open it up tonight.

PabloMack

#34
BTW: If anyone is interested, the Northern Sounds website is:

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/

The "Listening Area" section often has some good music.

Quote from: dandelO on November 26, 2013, 11:37:08 AM
Also, I don't read music but have played for around 20 years, notation and theory is all very well but playing by ear and feeling is just as valid, in my opinion.

To some extent, standard score notation is arcane and barbaric as it does not recognize that all of the black keys on a piano keyboard are mathematically of equal status and fundamentally no different from the white keys. An octave should include twelve keys that look the same. However, if they did look the same, then a pianist would have nothing to clue into as to which keys are what notes. Furthermore, the keys would have to be narrowed in order to fit the same number of equal keys in the same amount of space. There should be no such thing as flats or sharps and the notes should be named A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,H,K,L and not A~G with sharps and flats. However, if musical notation was done that way, even though it represents reality better than the standard, you would need seven or eight horizontal lines on the staff in order to place the equivalent number of notes onto it as compared to the standard way of doing it. So "doing it right" would make it more difficult to navigate and interpret what is written, but those problematic sharps and flats would be gone (I hate them).

Furthermore, in my opinion, the terms "half step" and "full step" are misnomers. The only reason why the notion of a "half step" has any validity is that two adjacent notes on a keyboard are always regarded as being in discordance, which in itself is often useful to impart a feeling of grief or conflict. Another thing that is necessary to really understand music is that an octave is a power of two. When the log base 2 is taken of the frequency of the notes, they all appear equally spaced along a continuum. The intruiging thing to me about music as we perceive it is how these frequencies play out to be hormonious or discordant to one another. It is very interesting that notes that are used in the same chord can seem to be in perfect harmony with one another while they are really not. They are just close enough that we can't tell they are not. This is true and it is the reason why some pianos are specially tuned for certain musical pieces so that the chords used in the notes will be mathematically more perfect in harmony. The trade-off, of course, is that, if left in that state, the piano will sound more out of tune when the same piece is played in another key (or another piece using different chords).

Any way you standardize notation is necessarily fraught with compromises and could never please everyone. I am afraid we are stuck with standard western musical notation. Those who really object can use special sequencer notations which have their own problems.
While sequencers can represent music any way they like, and these might be closer to reality, standard music notation, as problematic as it is, is better understood by more people than any other form of written music. That's why I use it.

Sorry. I guess that was another one of my tirades.

dandelO

Something I've recently taken a real shine to is a move away from concert pitch. All my instruments are now tuned to the Solffegio scheme, which I believe through first reading up on and then experiencing in actuality myself, is more 'in tune' with the human vibration. Most people accept today that everything, be it entity, force, soundwave, etc. contains, coded into its very make up, a particular resonance/vibration. The step up to Solffegio from Concert is very minimal but, with a honed ear for music and harmony, makes a World of difference! The harmonic ring and whistle behind every note is so much more enhanced and beautiful to me, it is actually unbelievable. To an untrained ear, the difference may not be apparent but I would definitely say, and I've tested this directly, that the slight raise in pitch to Solffegio sounds so much more bright and sensible, when heard back to back on two separately tuned instruments.
To recallibrate your pitch to this scheme involves, on guitar my instrument of choice, a raise from Base A=440hz to A=444hz, which takes the middle C to 528hz. You might not think that such a small difference would have any benefit but I urge anyone to try it and see/hear for themselves, really.

Further, and this might sound bizzarre to most, I can't remember where reading this but I think it holds some weight: The music industry bigshots know about this 'nearer the human resonance' idea, and actively use it to manipulate record sales. For instance, you'll see an advert for an album on TV, hear a single on radio, etc. With the final pitch levels set to this middle C=528hz so, you love the sound, rush out and buy it! The thing is, the versions we are paying for has the drop from Solfeggio to Concert Pitch performed, thus, you bore of that music much more quickly, as it's just not that 'in tune' with your body as when you heard the ads/radio edits, and rush out to buy more music that they are advertising with the keys in the Solfeggio scheme. What's anyone's opinions on this? Real? Bullshit?

TheBadger

QuoteWhat's anyone's opinions on this? Real? Bullshit?
Real.

There is nothing left to discover. So people just deepen their understanding of whats already known. I won't say that this theory you shared could be universal though. People are different, or rather there is a certain (unknown) number of groups a person can fit into in any context.

So I would say that, that theory was figured out, and works for a percentage of people, and that it is probably somehow verifiable.

I don't know the theory, But if this note/sound could be represented by a color, what color would it be? Say this color were to be yellow, then what is the sound/note for blue? And would people respond the same way to each? Some must prefer blue to yellow is what I mean.

The 'trigger' must be different for certain people.

I would also be curious about the effect when looked at from the perspective of class of music. That is, among those who are effected positively by the stimuli, are they effected the same way when its used in Rock, Rap, Metal, classic, classical and so on?

And then there is the question of other human conditions in the subject/person... Are they impulse buyers, are they impulsive in general? What is the intelligence level of the subject? And what is the depth of his/her pallet/experience? Does this person prefer britney spears, or Mozart?

If there are two people, one preferring pop, and one preferring classical like Bach, can they be effected the same way.

This theory gets very complicated when you start asking about ways to prove it. But with nearly every major university in the world having a music thoery department, I bet there are answers. And with the music industries billions, Im sure they know the answers.
It has been eaten.

PabloMack

#37
I had to do some research about Solfège Pitch before I knew what it was. This is something I didn't know. Sounds like it is no different from Concert Pitch except for 1) the specific frequencies used and 2) naming convention for the notes in the scale (A, B, C... vs. do re mi...) besides some unspecified "teaching methods" alluded to in Wikipedia. The two systems use the same method for recognizing only seven basic notes per octave (plus five odd-balls) instead of twelve that are of equal significance.

From a biological standpoint, it is very interesting how we sense these discrete notes on what is closer to a continuous sensory system. The vertebrate cochlea (the snail-shaped chamber in the inner ear) has a series of sensors known as techtorial plates and sensory filaments. The cochlea is like a miniature pipe organ except that the series of graduated pipes is instead a series of sensors. And these sensors are much closer together in their frequency increments than notes on a keyboard. So, at least theoretically, you are mostly using discrete regions of sensors that resonate infinitesimally close to the notes used in our standard scales. The in-between ones are somewhat neglected. There are a few exceptional instruments such as trombones that can play a continuous slide across a range of notes. Combining this knowledge with the biological and physical phenomenon of fatigue, I wonder if these certain sensors that are heavily used to sense the discrete notes in a scale experience any fatigue when the others are, in a sense, under used. My hypothesis is that anyone used to the Concert Pitch scale would experience a sense of pleasure or relief in switching to Solfège Pitch tunings because he then begins to use sensors that have been idle. It would be much like shifting a heavy suit case someone was carrying from one arm to the other when the first one was tired. The techtorial plates that vibrate to their resonant pitches do get damaged and even break off when stressed too much. This is often the cause of hearing loss. So with this hypothesis, switching from Solfège Pitch to Concert Pitch when the person is experiencing the fatigue of listening to the former might experience the same kind of relief or pleasure as someone switching the other way around.

dandelO

These are all very good points. Yes, each person is of course different and perceive different forms of pleasure and anguish through very different medium. Also, the older we get, the lower the frequencies we are able to perceive become, as a youngster I remember being crazy by certain sounds, one, my Grandpa's hearing aid, feedbacking consistently high tones when at the wrong setting, tones that he clearly couldn't hear but drove me bloody mad. Other things like acoustical garden 'cat scarers', too. The horrible tones would get me right in the teeth, while the adults around heard none of it, I can't say I've noticed one of those for years, though I'm sure there are still people who keep birds or other animals using these and they must still exist.
The Solfeggio scale is based on the do-re-mi... convention, yes. I came across a Youtube video where, apparently, this guitar player has worked out the base note Solfege frequencies used in ancient times and transferred these to a guitar, the results are, to me at least, very counter intuitive to use for any kind of serious songwriting, I'll take his word that the keys are correct but to try to play in a very strange tuning scheme like that made me feel awkward and amateurish, have a look for it, it's one of the only Solfege related tagged videos on YT. Other guitar tuning methods, Full-Fourths as a quick example, are very intuitive to me and just 'work'. I suppose each person is different, indeed.
The thing I read about the 528hz middle C was trying to be more specific than I maybe put across earlier, that the frequency range inherent in the commonly accepted Concert Pitch is actually more than just less 'nice sounding' but actually detremental to the human body and mind.
You also have many other base note conventions, the next one I intend to look into I happened upon when gathering info' on the Solfeggio, is the Pythagorean, it keeps the same tuning convention of half/full-step but your root A, instead of vibrating at 440hz, is dropped to 432hz. A future study...

dandelO

Michael, I have always wanted to be a full synesthesiac, I find that amazing and it is what you're reffering to, what colour is A, what smell is yellow(ewww!). I think to some extent, everyone is, the olfactory sense being the one most widely recognizable as such, a smell can instantly transport you back decades in your mind to a memory you had no inclination that you even remembered, and would that memory actually exist in the mind at all to be recalled, if I 'hadn't walked past that freshly clipped garden hedge', whose aroma happened to invoke a sleeping memory deep within?
Many great artists, composers and creative people are known to have synesthesia, which just seems entirely normal to them until they realise that not everyone sees Tuesday as blue, or hears the taste of apples as they listen to a favourite piece of melody, like they do and have always taken for granted. It's very interesting and intriguing.

inkydigit

really interesting stuff here... more resaerch is needed on my part
@ Martin; as for synaethesia, check http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24990432
or LSD!
:o
J

dandelO

"Putrid meat at Kilburn." Nice!
Cheers, Jason.

TheBadger

Quote...not everyone sees Tuesday as blue, or hears the taste of apples as they listen to a favourite piece of melody...

I just think that is an awesome sentence!

This of course brings it to the old story plot of creativity coming from the same place as mental illness though. You can easily imagine a mind with schizophrenia describing things likewise. Inky's link indeed. But a mind with imagination is needed in any case.
Creativity should never be confused with technical mastery though. Like muscle memory, technical skill/knowledge is offten confused for genius while hiding incompetence; Popular music and government bureaucracy are pretty good examples.

But Oh man! this is what I meant when I said there is nothing left to discover. And there need not be. You could spend a lifetime on any one subject once you start thinking beyond the simple doing of a thing. And the implications of that are profound too. For example, who is more important, the architect or the ditch digger? And who should be paid more? Or to be a little more on topic, the Composer or the violinist? Dose music have hierarchy because men do?

And if you are an Anarchist, does that mean that Bach is perverse? Can an Atheist really enjoy Mozart? I'll say that I do agree with Plato when he said that music is the highest form of art (and that actors are the lowest form of artist). There is nothing else that can do what music does.

Sorry if im taking you off topic but I do hope that you guys have some fun with this thread collaboration. Who knows what could come of it? Just hearing the right note could really set one of you guys off!

And again, sorry for the off topic, but I would be very curious what each of you would say is the sadist song you ever heard? Its fine if you want to qualify the answer by genre/class.
It has been eaten.

dandelO

Jochen. I've been messing around with this, the import MIDI file option was giving me a real headache but I think I have it sorted now, there are only 3 channels in use in your file, 1, 2 and 10, right? These use inbuilt instruments from the soundcard? I can select them all in my MIDI LSD importer but I don't see where those instruments have come from, or how to locate new instances of, for instance, 'drumkit-room'. I can clone your channel and start new patterns with the same instruments but, where are these instruments/sound samples to begin with?
Btw, everything imported fine with the correct note/sample assigned in FL at default.

I never used .mid before so I'm just a bit confused over where these MIDI instruments are on my pc because they're all there in the file when it's imported. And, up to 16 separate channels can be saved within .mid, what if, in an edit I've saved new channels to pass on that uses instruments that the next person doesn't have? I know they only save pattern and automation data but listening to your .mid in a media player sounds almost identical to when it's imported into my studio and I can access the instruments, haha, confused! Where are these instruments?

Cheers!

j meyer

First things first: yes you are right there are only 3 channels used in my file.
Ch1-should be bass,Ch2-keyboard (clavinett),Ch10 drums (CH10 is midi standard for
drumkits,but you can have drums/percussion on any channel,if you want)
As far as I know windows uses Roland sounds to produce the sounds you hear
when,for example,deleting a file or anything else that has a sound by default.
So it must be a part of the OS.
I don't know what an LSD importer is,sorry.
FLS uses some built in MIDI sounds that can be found somewhere,too.
There is a FLS midi tutorial somewhere,maybe that can be of some help here.
http://www.musictech.net/2013/08/fl-studio-tutorial-midi-1/
Midi is a standard convention to make music interchangeable and sound the same
on another instrument than the one it was originally done with.
If you want to change an instrument you have to find the graphic display of the track
and change it there.For example on my sequencer I have to select the track and then
go to edit mode,then the track is displayed as notes with the position in time like
C1 - 0-000  length  strength. When you have found that display mode in FLS
you will see the first value displayed is the sound bank and instrument.You can
change it there or you could delete it and set a midi sound in the appropriate
section of FLS.Probably called voice or so.
Furthermore FLS should have listings of the voice banks and note assignments
somewhere,I'm shure.My sequencer has a small booklet with all that stuff.

Should take a while to get familiar with the midi concept.But once you got it
it's pretty easy.

If you add tracks/channels in midi mode and assign the used voice the next
person will have it,too,as long as midi is used.Later on when mixing and
hopefully converting to vst sounds,which should be one of the last steps
taken,the next person can only add via multitrack recording.
The question is can FLS convert the midi sounds to vst? I don't know anything
about that unfortunately.
All that stuff can be really confusing,I've been there and still am. ;)

Hope that helps a little,J.