Dave,

As an avowed fan of your music, it must seem odd that it has taken this long for me to address such an important new composition. Suffice it to say, I have listened to it several times and every subsequent hearing reveals something new. This is an eloquent, deeply personal work and you have bared yourself through it in a way that took some genuine courage (at least that's how it comes off to me). Your MIDI performance is getting better all the time, BTW; I think I can say that this is the best effort on that front that I have heard from you. Congratulations!

As to why it took so long for me to even show up...I have come to realize that I am the very embodiment of point 4B from your earlier post:

"Also, many hobbyist composers will feel ill-equiped to offer any kind of real insight in to the music, and would rather leave it for others to do"

That's me. Essentially, I'm a poser. I have composed exactly one piece of concert music that has been performed. I do not own a single VSL product; I just show up on the website and drool over it. I am in the enviable position of having a dear friend who is the conductor of a decent adult wind ensemble who has told me that he will program anything I write that is reasonable and playable, but I can't make myself write anything new. I'm sort of the obnoxious kid brother standing on the sideline wanting to get into the game with the big kids. Maybe that's why I didn't have anything to say about When Doubt Arises...it hits too close to home.

Tom

Sorry Anand I misunderstood and completely agree. Also I have always been as interested in science as art so we have the same attitude!

Tom, first off, thank you as always.  Your support of my work has been hugely motivating for me, as a person with your talent, musical experience, and ability to articulate your thoughts so eloquently, is rare.  Even rarer, is your willingness to devote the time to listen repeatedly to a piece, in hopes of finding some meaning beyond the initial impression, and then to put forth such a humble and sincere response, like you have here.  

My take on your situation, is that you have all the capability in the world to translate your inner voice in to beautiful music.  As I said with the piece you shared with me a while back, it only takes one piece to show you have the ability...from here on in, it's a matter of finding the motivation/inspiration to continue to create.  In my case, the motivation is simple:  this is what I've chosen to do, so I want to do it well, because I am not interested in doing anything else (and I spent way too much money building a backyard studio to have it collect cobwebs!)

In any case, let me reaffirm:  you're no poser, you're no obnoxious kid brother (well, at least not in this context...you may be to your actual brother if you have one!)  You're a valued member of this community, and if more people would have the confidence/willingness to just allow themselves to partake in some music and discussion, without fear of judgment/criticism, I suspect the community would blossom, with even more composers sharing, more listeners commenting, and maybe, inspiring someone like yourself to take the plunge with your own work.

Glad that When Doubt Arises struck a chord (no pun intended).  Now, go and buy a VSL product (do I get a commission?) and show me how it's done!  😊

All the best,

Dave

@tchampe said:

Dave,

As an avowed fan of your music, it must seem odd that it has taken this long for me to address such an important new composition. Suffice it to say, I have listened to it several times and every subsequent hearing reveals something new. This is an eloquent, deeply personal work and you have bared yourself through it in a way that took some genuine courage (at least that's how it comes off to me). Your MIDI performance is getting better all the time, BTW; I think I can say that this is the best effort on that front that I have heard from you. Congratulations!

As to why it took so long for me to even show up...I have come to realize that I am the very embodiment of point 4B from your earlier post:

"Also, many hobbyist composers will feel ill-equiped to offer any kind of real insight in to the music, and would rather leave it for others to do"

That's me. Essentially, I'm a poser. I have composed exactly one piece of concert music that has been performed. I do not own a single VSL product; I just show up on the website and drool over it. I am in the enviable position of having a dear friend who is the conductor of a decent adult wind ensemble who has told me that he will program anything I write that is reasonable and playable, but I can't make myself write anything new. I'm sort of the obnoxious kid brother standing on the sideline wanting to get into the game with the big kids. Maybe that's why I didn't have anything to say about When Doubt Arises...it hits to close to home.

Tom

Really agree with that. Tom is one of the few people who is NOT a poser.  Real expertise from the most valuable point of view - playing in orchestra.  The only things I ever really learned about orchestration came from playing. And it is funny how playing in not-so-good groups actually helps.  You hear the difficulties far more than with a great orchestra perfectly captured by a master recording engineer.   And the difficulties reveal the true nature of the instruments.  The worst sample performance treats a high d on cornet the same as a middle c.  The reality is vastly different, and that principle applies to everything about performance.  

Dave and Bill,

You fellows are too kind. As you know, I am a big admirer of both you guys, not only for your wonderful music itself but also for the fact that you are actually doing it...putting in the hours, busting your humps to create the very best music you can. It's the kind of inspiration that could ultimately get me to get over myself and join the party.

Bill, your thoughts on the need of composers to actually understand the nature of the instruments they are writing for is right on. Rimsky and one of his buddies (can't remember who) made a point of learning to toodle a bit on every instrument of the orchestra, just to get a feel for how they made music. Last I heard, he was considered a pretty fair orchestrator 😉  I like to say that good orchestrators give the instruments parts to play that match the temperament...the personality...of the instrument. This means a lot more than keeping the part in the useable range and keeping the limits of the ax's caprice technique in mind. It means that if you're going to write a horn part (for example), no matter how original and unlike any that have come before it, it still needs to be "hornistic." In Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel, Strauss asked the horns to produce licks that had never been dreamed of in an orchestral setting, but the parts were perfectly hornistic (it didn't hurt that his dad was one of the top hornists in the world).

As Bill points out, the world of virtual orchestration is a place where the composer really needs to watch it, because MIDI is perfectly happy to grind out any stupid lick you may program for any instrument...even though the "wrongness" will be obvious to anyone. There is a chap who used to hang around this list...you know the guy; bit of a piece of work, fancied himself a provacateur...who put together an impressive collection of unknown classical works by unknown composers and put them online. When the VSL Historic Winds release with the natural horns came out, he found a couple of little-known horn concerti by a worthy named C. F. Abel and dutifully cranked them out. I was digging his effort...the strings were tight and nicely balaced with a clean, chamber orchestra sound, the horn solo was singing along with nice phrasing. Then...the closing allegro arrived. His tempo was so brisk that the ghost of Punto himself would have cried "Uncle!" This cat Abel must have been a cracker-jack virtuoso (or was working with one); his chart is chock-full of arpeggiated figures climbing to the highest register of the Eb horn; real show-off stuff. But at my man's computer-assisted tempo they popped out with a blatantly artificial perfection; every note absolutely centered, no discernable difference between the stopped and open tones, runs and arpeggios rattling out with machine gun precision. It was, to me, comical. Despite the fact that he was working with an actual historical piece of music, written by an actual performer of the era, and despite his obvious skill with sampled orchestra production, my man had rendered his work unhornistic.

That is an expert observation that few people will fully appreciate.  

What Tom said made me think about avoiding "perfection" in a MIDI performance, which is totally artificial sounding.  Also doing things that play to the individual instruments characteristic difficulties.  I have been experimenting with going to extremes on those and sometimes have to dial it back.  It seems that knowng how hard it is to play certain things is very valuable, whatever the instrument...

Hi Dave,

an interesting piece, it went a lot of directions, they were fun to follow, even though I'm not sure I fully grasped the "main" idea. More on this later (hehe). The clarinet was somehow more assertive, and the strings followed it more often than speak their own word. The stringed instruments were also in unison often, which made me thinking about their... secondary role compared to the piano+clarinet. I could be wrong here.

The ending felt just a little bit abrupt, as if its composer (you) all of a sudden decided: "Enough!".

Overall, I enjoyed the ideas and clever interplay, even though I'm not really a huge fan of chamber music in general.

On the technical side, I felt sometimes there's too much resonance in the low-mids (~250-500Hz) that is created by the reverb (I think). 

I went through a discussion in this thread, and would like to add something vaguely related. I went to Paris once, to see the beatiful paintings of the D'Orsay museum, and then to see more of that in Louvre. Even though in visual arts I was as educated as an average caveman. It was overwhelming in terms of new information, but I didn't think there was a painting thing in particular that I *liked*. And then, a couple of days later, I went to Versaille, to see the palace, of course. The palace also boasted a few paintings, but to my amazement, they were horrible. Maybe they are not, maybe it was just me pumped up with the beauty of all those great masters, and just incomparable. It was amazing not only because the French kings couldn't find a single decent painter. It was also amazing because I knew by heart that what I saw a couple of days ago was more beatiful than what I saw in Versaille. I learned to appreciate paintings!

Well, not even vaguely related, so it seems :) 

Cheers,

Crusoe.

P.S. Disappeared, indeed, but not entirely :) just went on vacation. I for some reason don't get notifications from your YouTube channel, even though I'm subscribed to it.

It sounds great, and it is a very meditative piece. Like following a series of memories.

Paolo

Crusoe and Paolo T:  thank you both for listening and commenting.  Paolo, I'm happy the piece resonated with you!

Crusoe, as always, your discriminating ear picks out some fine detail.  I'll confess to not being as confident as you with regard to the resonance in the low-mids.  Reverb is always a delicate balance between not enough and too much.  What I like on Monday might change drastically on Tuesday.

In terms of interpreting the piece, my thought process in conveying the range of emotions when composing, was to have an anchor point, such as the initial two chords, serve as the question of, "am I good enough to do this?" (almost like a musical sigh).  The loose structure, with constant interweaving ideas, echos (as you pointed out in the strings echoing the clarinet and piano often) etc. all serve to imply the racing of thoughts through the mind, with the ever-looming question returning no matter how I try to escape answering it.  

The second movement's aggressive nature, with the strong conviction opening is that point when I, as a composer, feel I'm secure in my ability, and will plough forward with new determination and resolve.  The unbridled enthusiasm and energy catipults me forward, but of course, doubt returns (marked by the slow/mysterious section where the harmony unravels).  The abrupt ending was with intent (not because I had to rush in the house and tend to my crying baby, I promise!)  The phrase preceeding the ending, in which the violin plays the last (almost hicupped) note before the final assertive conclusion, was to imply that doubt never fully leaves, but the final word was my way of saying, I'll drown it out and move forward with confidence.

OK, so I usually prefer to say what I'm thinking through music, not words.  However, I recognize that instrumental music can obfuscate the meaning/intent, absent lyrics which pretty much give anyone listening the intended meaning of the writer.  

Thanks again to both of you for listening.  And yes, crusoe, I counted you among those wonderful forum contributors that vanished in the night :)  (I'll also look in to the youtube notification thing)

All the best,

Dave

@Acclarion said:

It has always been the domain of the "cultural elite" and this infuriates me, as there is no reason classical music can't appeal to anyone, as long as it's part of the formative development of children.

Dave, thank you for taking time and explaining the thought process behind the compositional decisions. Even though I did undrestand them to some degree, a lot of times my understanding was ambiguous. And you helped to clear that up. With zero initial understanding, the explanations would probably be meaningless, as you rightfully said in another message. But half-way through, they are certainly useful for a guy like myself (pretty much uneducated). I myself often have trouble with finishing a piece properly, and your explanation is very helpful since your interpretation is unambiguous.

Cheers,

Crusoe.

Jasen,

Thanks so much for all those thought-provoking comments.  You always inject information splashed with your wacky sense of humour in to your posts, which makes for very entertaining reading.  I believe you're spot on with regard to how most people view a forum as a technical troubleshooting reasource, as most that visit here are actively trying to write their own music, not be an audience for other composers (with exceptions, of course).  This begs the question:  if everybody's creating, who's consuming, and where can we find them, so we'll have an audience for our work?

As for my pieces serving as a sort of meeting ground for discussion, I love it!  You're absolutely right in that, when we write and share our music, we're doing so as much for stimulating discussion as we are simply for feedback. Thanks to the brilliant minds that occupy our little subforum, I get a regular dose of food for thought...I'm certainly not stimulating my intellectual curiosity in the grocery store :)

Cheers!

Dave