Composition: MIDI Makes the Difference March 1, 2008
Posted by Damon Sink in : Composing, Notation, Virtual Instruments , trackbackComposers have always pursued talented musicians in the hopes of convincing them to perform new pieces of music. The main challenge is communicating some sense of our musical ideas in a way that will let the performer know what we are all about–that is, we try to answer the questions in advance: “So, what is your music like?” “In what style do you write?”
The real question behind these polite, superficial questions is, “Will I, as a performer, find it rewarding to spend the time necessary to learn and perform your new piece?”
This is a really good question. If your art form is painting or sculpture, then you can produce new works on your own, fully formed, without ever really relying on the assistance of anyone else during the creative process. When you are finished, you have produced the thing: it exists exactly as you imagined and created it. If you are a composer who writes a piece for orchestra, you have a written score and maybe a set of parts. You still don’t have the thing: your work has not yet been performed. You are totally reliant on getting a group of talented performers to play your new piece and make this musical idea that you have so carefully sculpted into a reality.
A student of mine (Chad Latta, 19) was recently part of a packed house audience at the world premiere of his orchestra piece, Contentions, performed by the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Neal Gittleman. The piece, which is influenced by Lutoslawski and Corigliano, is substantial and more than a little bit difficult in places. The DPO offered an outstanding performance, and Chad was obviously thrilled with the event.
Contentions was programmed for this concert over a year ago. Lead times like that are typical (sometimes much longer) for professional orchestra performances. Chad submitted the score to Maestro Gittleman along with a “mockup” that he and I did together using East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra (I have the “Platinum ProXP” version, but Gold would have worked just as well for this application).
When the piece was complete, we exported a MIDI file which was written with Human Playback enabled. Then we opened that file in Digital Performer to do some MIDI editing and add in performances of the aleatoric (random) parts. These were notated as pitch groups in boxes (like in Corigliano’s Of Rage And Remembrance) so Finale wasn’t able to “perform” them as Chad wanted. He went through and sequenced these parts individually, which took most of an afternoon. We also had to do some patch changes and keyswitches to get correct articulations and techniques like ponticello and tremolo. It was also necessary to do some editing and reassigning of MIDI controller data, but the end result was pretty good. Not a version that would have been good enough for an application where a real orchestra would be expected, but the conductor was actually quite impressed. Gittleman is a long time Finale user, and he told Chad that his demo recording sounded much better than most of the MIDI files that he listens to. I, for one, am completely convinced that the quality of the sample library (East West) had a lot to do with getting the conductor’s attention and demonstrating Chad’s unrealized vision for Contentions. The result was the supreme accomplishment of winning a premiere by a major, professional orchestra–something that a composer never forgets.
If you have questions about how we did the mockup, or about studying composition, post a comment. I’d love to hear from you.
DS
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