@Another User said:

Loving the vsl and enjoying the debate!

Thanks. Stay tuned and poke your head in now and then and post some more! i look forward to your intelligent fodder! Hmm. That didn't sound good. Uh ... post some more! [:)]

Evan Evans

@zigzag said:

Anyway,Im enjoying the lively debates, loving using VSL and looking forward to annoying Evans [6] with my never ending musical ignorance (Ive gotten away with it for twenty years now).

So far it's not working. You seem charming to me.

Evan Evans

@Nick Batzdorf said:

Just curious, Evan: how do you do cymbal rolls? There aren't any 3-lays, and they sound *so* different at various dynamics that I can't imagine why you'd program those.

(On the other hand, for years I made them out of crash cymbals on a drum machine. Sounded terrible, like a machine gun.)

lol. yes, I've been there ... haven't we all. Quick answer is that I don't incorporate them into my writing as much because of that. however, I think VSL did a good job of providing left hand right hand mallet struck suspended cymbal, at different velocities that with a high polyphony and velocity crossfading serve me fine, in the machine gun style of programming. But suspended cymbal rolls are only necessary with full bore Hollywood orchestrating and mostly I have been finding more unique sounds, ala herrmann might pick for projects.

Hunting Humans for instance was for:

4 Horns
4 Horns (muted)
Timpani
Bass Drum
Xylophone
Tam-tam
Strings

Even in my MIDI files I respect the breathing and switching off of the one Horn section with the other, paying especially close attention to what writing is acceptable for the muted horns as they tire more quickly because of the increased pressure on their tightened embouchure.

Evan Evans

@evanevans said:

And I'm not that modest as you my have discovered!
Evan Evans

Ha, ha, [:D] , Hi, hi [:D] Evan, you´re really cute. [:D]
"Modest" isn´t exactly the word I ever would have used to characterize you. [:D]

@mathis said:

1) Evan, technically: your approach is of course working very well on strings, since there the layers can be blended nicely. But how do you do with woodwinds and brass?

Well I am not sure there is a good example of my approach "out there" yet. But I have been doing some amazing experiments. I am about to start on a psychological thriller called FEAR OF CLOWNS and I have every intention of making the music sound as impressive as possible, and I am excited to, at some point, posting some links to my mixdowns. I have NO idea what to expect from myself. I can only hope it's a good score! HUNTING HUMANS is hard to top. I get a lot fo positive fanmail/responses about that score. It has been nominated for best score in several indie festivals as well

Ha, there guys! [:D] Here is our president! Go for him! I´ll write your fanfare!



(But, yes, post your works. I´m always curious.)

@William said:

You must have learned it from that hobo.

Hobos are a secret weapon, aren´t they? [[;)]]
If they just wouldn´t ruin our money purse with all their whisky...

@Nick Batzdorf said:

Just curious, Evan: how do you do cymbal rolls?

Cymbal rolls are a terrible clichée anyway.

(Yes, next rant! [:P] [:D] )

Ok, I´m a loyal and diligent campaign manager. So I already finished the fanfare:

www.audionomio.de/mp3/Evans_Fanfare.mp3

@" said:

You are awesome, I can tell how you wrote your post even. Evan Evans

What? You mean he can spell and punctuate properly?

LOL. There's a Houston Haynes in every forum it seems.

-René

Mathis, you need to re-score that for krumhorn ensemble.

It's *so* catchy!

i see what you are saying ( evans) for me i look at VSL and computers and the like as a instrument. nothing more. i tend to always score from paper and piano- then use the instrument - vsl to orchestrate. conflicts happen when a articulation or performance doesn't work. do you change
the notes to fit a different articulation, repeition or legato??
then again us must know the limits of you instrument right?

[H] so there are times that compositions can be improvisations based on the instruments potential. IE: reps and runs would may have not scored to start with.

regards

"No, I completely addressed it my friend. I consider the perf-legato instruments to be par on par with single sample notes as far as equal amount of versatility and malleability. They are adjustable in every conceivable way that prior single note sample based playback was."
- Evan Evans

Evan,
Sorry my friend, but you changed the logic of your argument in midstream. Now it applies only in certain cases. The crucial element that creates the legato performances - the brief slide between start and end notes - is NOT adjustable at all. It is a fixed performance indistinguishable in a strict logical and aesthetic sense from a run. As I stated, it is simply quicker, not essentially different. You allow one but not the other. That is a practical approach that I respect. However, don't act as if it is an unshakeable aesthetic principle based on peerless logic. It is essentially the same as what Fred Story said all along, but you won't admit it.

I won't argue about this any more because I'm starting to feel like HAL9000:

"I'm sorry Evan, this conversation can no longer serve a useful purpose. Goodbye."

"Hal?... Hal.... Hal!... HAL!"

@William said:

""Hal?... Hal.... Hal!... HAL!"

Dave! Dave! I can feel my mind going! Stop Dave! Daisy, Daisy....

Where the hell is Dave anyway, Bill. I have'nt heard from him for ages.

This thread has taken such an interesting turn. It's always useful to learn about other composers' methods, and I've picked up some interesting ideas.

Where I draw the line is when someone proclaims that using a particular method automatically dooms the end result to something with no 'artistic integrity', or sacrifices the 'morals and ethics' of the composer. Every day we have to make choices...sometimes difficult ones. (Client-demanded choices are a topic for a completely new thread.)

My point is, I don't criticize the choices others make. I don't do it with the other composers I work with. I don't do it on public forums. I think it's disrespectful and just plain wrong. And those who dash it off as 'simply being honest' or 'speaking their mind' just don't get it...and probably never will. Hopefully we were all taught a few more social skills. Plus, setting oneself up as the arbiter of 'artistic integrtiy'...just how pompous is THAT?

So for those who refrain from the value judgements, thanks for sharing. We all benefit from an exchange of ideas and experiences.

And to those who think that if we're doing things any way but theirs we're wrong - or somehow lesser for it, well...that's YOUR problem.

After this thread I figure I'll read...and contribute...less. I got pretty worked up at the disrespectful attitude of a certain somebody. Since he seems to enjoy pontificating ad nauseum, and is either blissfully igonorant or doesn't care about the image he projects here, I don't have time for the aggravation. Sure, he SAYS he enjoys an open exchange, but it's obvious that's only the case when it's folks who agree with him.

Take this forum back! Are we gonna let that guy push us around? Power to the people, man! (Sorry, must be having a bad flashback.)

Here's to...whatever works. And as a tip of the hat to our congenial hosts, here's to VSL for giving us so much stuff that works so well...including all those terrific runs and phrases. Going back to the question that started it all...anyone know where I can get some more?

Fred Story

Forgive the novella that follows...

(note that when I say "score" I do mean staves, notes, rests, etc.)

This is a truly interesting thread. And I think I've finally found a way to understand Evan's philosophy.

Don't shoot me, but I'm not even a film composer. I'm a concert music composer, who does a fair bit of contemporary dance music. I'm not opposed to composing for film, but I'm also not pursuing it with any serious energy. It just feels like a massive carreer undertaking, and I'm really not a musical "chameleon" -- I have my aesthetic, which I'm always trying to develop, but not a great deal of variety with regard to genre.

I use VSL to compose, plain and simple. I am, however, becoming increasingly interested in the possibilities offered by a type of music which is, in fact, _intended_ for CD, or recording—whose "home" is on the home stereo. This is an interest that has come about for two basic reasons: 1) I think the general movement of technologized culture is placing the locale for musical contemplation in the home—moving it away from the concert hall, and 2) today's sample libraries have come to the point where this sort of "venue" is feasible—virtual orchestras in virtual spaces. I'm interested in this, also, because it suggests a type of music which is completely "about" the composition itself, or more specifically, the imagination of the composer. Anyone who has written music intended solely for "live" performance knows that the ensemble has immense power in the realization of the composer's intentions. The same piece can sound bizarre played by one ensemble and fantastic played by another. This can simply be the result of poor musicianship, to be sure, but can also be the result of less drastic influences like interpretation, lack of rehearsal time (a _very_ common problem in the concert music world), or even the basic character of the performer. I had an instance of this when I wrote a concerto-like piece for piano and ensemble for a particualr pianist, only to have the performer leave town before the (somewhat delayed) premiere. The new pianist simply lacked the fire that the intended pianist had, and since the whole work was "hung" on the piano part (it _was_ a concerto, after all!), the performance just didn't "cut it". It wasn't _bad_, but it didn't quite sound like the piece I'd composed. How many of us have heard performances of music we wrote, or loved, absolutely slaughtered by a conductors with "different" understandings of the work?

On the one side, this is obviously a part of music-making, and of composing, since a piece of music composed for concert performance should be written with the psychology (and psychological variety) of performers in mind. However, the emergence of sample libraries of VSL quality has ushered-in a new ethics of composition, if you will, in which both the composition _and_ the performance are strictly controlled by the composer her/himself. And so, in my thinking of late, it seems to me that there are two different modes of composition which imply two different modes of thinking, even ethics, if you can accept the use of that term.

Ethic A, the traditionally supported one (and where I believe Evan spends most of his mental time), sees the score as dialogically tied to the "live" performance, in that musical meaning only truly exists in consideration of the physical parameters of live performance. So, each note on the page must be composed and realized as though it were for a live performance. This ethic literally sees the live performance as the "completion" of the score, since it is, in a certain sense, incomplete until performed. The midi realization is a surrogate performance, quite possibly of the highest quality and indiscernible from a potential live reading, but still a substitute from a semiotic standpoint.

Ooops! Didn't realize it had a max number of words....

Ethic B, however, sees the virtuality of both score and orchestra as representing a complete break from this dialogical connection, and thus the "score" may never even exist in its traditional form (i.e., a logic session, never "scored" on real or virtual paper), and there is really no need for the work ever to be performed "live" for it to be complete.

The sampled run is "disgusting" to the composer of ethic A, since it sacrifices the score, symbolically, in honor of a surrogate performance—any score made for the run would only reveal the starting note and duration of the run, which is clearly a contravention of the integrity of the score. Evan shows the purity of his dedication to ethic A when he mentions his practice of creating passages shorter in duration for muted horns than for open horns. If not for the fact that it is ultimately the _live_ performance that is the (ethical) goal of the score, such a gesture would be meaningless. Of course, the whole theory flies on the aesthetic grounds that the surrogate performance will honor the real with greater veracity the more closely the integrity of the score is represented in the midi realization. Composers of this ethic will use properly "notated" (and realized) slurs, up and down bows, will avoid looped sustain, except perhaps in tutti strings, won't use runs, riffs, crescendi, and so on, or any sample that circumvents conventional, "long-hand" notation.

For ethic B the sampled run is not a problem, since the sample itself is 'native' to the _library_, and therefor has a place in each and every composition which could potentially be created from such a library. The score is not seen as an authoritative/prescriptive document -- a representation of truth -- but rather as a means to an end. In the viewpoint of ethic B, in fact, the score is seldom a consideration at all, except insomuch as it allows the midi realization to be rendered at a futre date (e.g., the logic session file). For the composer of ethic B, a written score may be realized at a later date, if and when a live performance is required. The live performance, however, may very well stand as a disappointment, or second-rate realization, as it is not likely to capture each and every decision made by the producer of the _original_ performance (midi in this case).

So, as long-winded as that was, what we're talking about are two distinct musical ethics, with their accompanying semiotics which, although they share a similar locale (film, CD, etc.), have totally different paths to realization. One will refer to the computer/library as a "tool" and the other as an "instrument". Considering the computer as a tool, one will see the abuse of such a tool as a moral affront, while the other will see the adherence to specific rules of orchestration surrounding the score and performance as simply naive.

Both are right.

However, what interests me about Evan, is that I now see that he's found his way to an application of this technology which truly honors his ethical standpoint. My experience of this problem is similar to his, and perhaps even more acute since I do all my composing in Finale (or Sibelius), and therefor am always trying to find ways of making the VSL respond directly to the score itself. I don't even want to go in and edit midi parameters, since that, to me, is already tech-work and unnecessary with a score that contains all such operations in its historical fabric (at least to the eyes of a performer). However, I have noticed in the past that if I get great new samples of, say, trombone crescendi, suddenly I will be painfully tempted to use them. Now, because the crescendi are "locked" in time, and cannot really accomodate a wide variety of durations, I suddenly (and somewhat secretly) start inventing situations in which the sample itself will work, as recorded. So, the sample now starts dictating the way I write, and even the way I think musically. Needless to say, being a composer rooted in "ethic A", I find this quite disturbing. There is some peace, however, in the fact that I know my works are ultimately intended for live performance, and thus the sampled crescendi will ultimately be obliterated by the "real thing".

But I nevertheless know, in my heart of hearts, that those crescendi I'm hearing in the concert hall are the result of a sample library influencing my musical decisions. Is this actually a problem? I don't really know, but certainly since buying the VSL it's becoming less of a problem. And, as I said earlier, I'm even starting to see that the virtual orchestra can become a medium in itself. In thinking this, of course, I'm faced with an ethical decision -- do I deny the score, after all these years, and compose for this new medium, this new venue, without concern of the possibility or impossibility of live performance? Well, one thing that interests me is the thought creating of pieces which are deliberately "impossible" -- too large an ensemble to fit in a hall, a virtual space of impossible dimensions, etc. In this I would still obey the logic of the score, but at the same time make use of the immense possibilities offered by the virtuality of both instrumental forces and performance space.

Well, this is unresolved, but I hope it will shed some light, or produce more interesting conversation....

oh yeah, and much of it could be totally bogus (but it makes sense to me)!

the end.

James. [*-)]

James,

GREAT post. I really enjoyed your perspective. Though he certainly doesn't need it, Evan has my undying support to adhere reliously to Ethic A...or WHATEVER methods suit him.

My point has simply been, when you say Ethic A is right,and Ethic B is wrong - or even immoral, for pity's sake - and condescend to those who disagree...for me it's just not a constructive contribution to the dialogue. And with little time to spend on forums like this, it tends to make me want to spend more time where the conversations are more constructive. One guy hogging the bandwidth makes slogging through threads slow going. But he doesn't think it's a problem...he even brags about it. Too bad.

But I'm sure glad you wrote your post before I dashed off. Great stuff.

Fred Story

@Fred Story said:

...Hopefully we were all taught a few more social skills.

Social skills?! Lol. What are you form England? Are you? Hmm. Let me check. Lol. Anyway, no ... I am a composer. It doesn't get much more socially inept than that!

There's also nothing worse than a socially conscious composer! Uck! They probably use prerecorded runs and glisses! (cause it's so accepted!)

[:)]

Evan Evans