My first real failure

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 16 Jul 2003 4:27 am

I'm in the process of recording anoter CD, and for the first time I have to abandon a piece. It's called "Cuban Landscape With Rain" by Leo Brouwer, and is a musical depiction of rain in all it's different forms, from a slight drizzle to a hailstorm.

I've recorded 95% of it, and the first part sounds very nice, but the hailstorm part (which is the climax of the piece) simply doesn't work on the steel. I've re-recorded it 3 different times, trying to make it work, but it just sounds bad. I've played the tapes for my wife and some friends, and they all agree, the piece falls apart at the end. I've done everything I can think of to save it, but no matter what I did, when it reaches the point of the hailstorm, it really sounds like crap.

I've given up on it and have begun work on another piece to replace it.

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 16 Jul 2003 5:38 am

I tried recording a piece very similiar to what you are doing. It was called "The Storm". I was doing fine until I came to the part where lightning hit the outhouse and then I just couldn't make it work.

Uff-Da!

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 16 Jul 2003 9:00 am

Rain and hail are, from a sonic perspective, stochastic events, which means they have a random distribution. This is difficult for musicians, and people in general, to reproduce because we are always looking for and working with patterns and logic.

You might give a listen to "Pithoprakta" by Iannis Xenakis. These were some of the issues he addressed back in the early '50s. He developed a way of using poisson distribution for the notes and orchestration. When I was in school, I had an assignment where I had to analyze and convert the score back to the original graphics, a task that required substance abuse.[This message was edited by chas smith on 16 July 2003 at 10:03 AM.]

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 16 Jul 2003 10:31 am

Rain and hail are, from a sonic perspective, stochastic events, which means they have a random distribution.

In the score, at one point each of the musicians is given a series of notes and told to play them at random for between 25 and 25 seconds. Consequently no 2 performances of the piece ever come out identically.

Tony LaCroix · Post by **Tony LaCroix** » 16 Jul 2003 10:38 am

Mike, I'm curious as to what approaches you've already tried to accomplish this task. Couldn't you use several tracks to create the apparent randomness, as you describe above?

I've heard your music from your webpage, and you are a truly gifted musician. Best of Luck.

Eric West · Post by **Eric West** » 16 Jul 2003 11:00 am

That's a Failure?

Mike, I think you need to get out more......

Eric West

(author of a couple chapters on the subject)

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 16 Jul 2003 1:15 pm

Couldn't you use several tracks to create the apparent randomness...

I did. The piece is written for 4 guitars, and on the passage in question each has 4 notes to play at random intervals. On one of my attempts, I used 16 tracks and recorded 1 note per track.

The problem isn't that I couldn't record the part, the problem is that it sounds like crap.

Anyway, I've found another piece to record in it's place, and it's coming out well so far.

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 16 Jul 2003 1:58 pm

Mike, just the fact it says
play any of 4 notes at random for 25 seconds x 4 instruments
really means the posibility of a trainwreck on ANY given perfomance. Or the trainwreck is intentional.
Since your are recording it and listening to it, you might be hyper critical about it's "musicallity". This may not be a neccesary consideration.

Random by it's nature connotes a form of cacaphony. Stacato little plinks at random could be fine. Play with the bar, but muting with the thumb to make notes super short.

If 95% is cool, just go for a cacaphonic ending and be done with it.
Maybe come back with a fresh attitude later too.

And don't feel bad, I spent the evening trying to learn by ear on PSG the Roumanian folk songs I played on upright bass and recorded last weekend at an ancient musique festival. Two of them are in 13/8. So I KNOW exactly where you're coming from right now.

Sunday midnight till 8:30 AM could have been described as the Klezmer Band From Hell.
[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 16 July 2003 at 03:04 PM.]

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 16 Jul 2003 3:02 pm

Red Rhodes had a cut on his Velvet Hammer album that was imitating a crashing jukebox which had some very interesting things on the steel guitar. I don't have it anymore but maybe someone could send you a listen to it.

Regards, Paul

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 16 Jul 2003 3:57 pm

Hey Mike.
Don't worry about sending a cassette, I just thought you might have an MP3 handy.

Listen man, what your trying to accomplish is something that is totally at random and predicated on what ever instrument you are working with. There really can be no "right" way to play this section since it is written for the instruments to play certain notes "at random". Whatever you come up with being as true as you can be to the composers' wishes will suffice and be fine. If I had a piece as completed as you have this one, I would surely forge on and make this work. Luck to you.
Do some Bach. One of the Brandenburgs.

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 16 Jul 2003 6:42 pm

Maybe you weren't high enough when you recorded it. Or when you listened to it.

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 16 Jul 2003 8:12 pm

Maybe you weren't high enough when you recorded it.

Moi? Get high? Ernest, I'm shocked, SHOCKED do you hear me?, that you'd think that I would ever indulge in such a depraved and immoral activity.

------------------
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I'm schizophrenic,
and so am I

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 17 Jul 2003 3:19 am

Failure ?

I think not..

It's called more experience on the way to more success...

I'm certain this tune will spark another journey...

I'm also certain that many of us have tunes on tape from yesterday on back many many years which we have moved on from before completing because we were not pleased with the outcome. Maybe you will return to it in a few months...maybe not...

This sounds like a success story to me..

Many musicians would have completed it and just acccepted it knowing it was less than what it should have been.

You obviously are not one of them...

tp

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 17 Jul 2003 4:15 am

Thanks for all the comments, guys. I am convinced the piece is unsalvageable. Sometimes you have to just cut your losses and move on. I have already begin work on a substitute piece.

I'm a little disappointed, but I don't really feel bad. The substitute piece is a good one, and the CD is (hopefully) going to be very strong, despite being slightly different from the way I originally conceived it.

To make an analogy, in 1987 I bought a brand new Acura Integra. They were out of the color I wanted (blue) so I got my second choice. (Maroon.) I was a little disappointed that I didn't get the color that I wanted, but it was still a great car, and I happily drove it for 9 years till it was stolen (The police found some of it, but not enough to salvage.)

It will be OK. You'll see.

Jerry Tillman · Post by **Jerry Tillman** » 17 Jul 2003 4:42 am

Mike have you tried dropping an old fender stand alone reverb unit from about two feet?You can get different sounds by how high you drop it from. lakeshrk

Pat Burns · Post by **Pat Burns** » 17 Jul 2003 5:09 am

..Mike, Earnest may be onto something here...for example, if I think about lying in bed listening to the rain hit the roof, I hear a percussive sound for the rain overtop of a droning musical undertone..if it was me, I wouldn't use the guitars for the sound of the raindrops, I would use different kinds of percussive sounds, tinkling, tapping, whatever...with the steel subtly underlying...

...the concept of layering those textures would be the same for a storm outside, but to me the sounds would be different..the rain hitting the ground or street doesn't have as sharp a percussive sound as hitting a roof, so again I would use percussive sounds (not on the steel) but more muted...and then in my ear I hear the musical undertone of wind blowing the branches and leaves, the ebb and flow sound that the trees make in the wind, and I would use the guitar for that undertone...

...or just record yourself humming in the bathroom shower...

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 17 Jul 2003 9:40 am

Mike,

Sit down with a piece of music paper and 4 dice. Make a chart with 21 note timing values (sixteenth, eighth, quarter, dotted eighth, etc.). Assign numbers from 4 to 24 to each timing.

Now roll all 4 dice. Add them up, and look up the timing value on your chart.

Write the 4 notes for the current part on your music paper with the timing value from the dice. Repeat until you have about 25 second of music written, then do the same for each of the other 3 parts.

At that point you have a randomly timed score to work from. Play the parts as written by you, with help from the laws of chance.

------------------
<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
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Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 17 Jul 2003 9:42 am

A deck of cards would work too. Assign a timing value to each card. Shuffle before each draw.

Brian Wetzstein · Post by **Brian Wetzstein** » 17 Jul 2003 11:57 am

Hi Mike. Mabye you could attempt some alternative sounds on your steel rig. Possibly try tapping on the legs or knocking on the body. Srumming behind the nut will give some quick and possibly "out of time" notes. I once lightly held the tuning wrench on the nut at the eighth string e while lowering and raising it to get a jaw harp sound for a cover song. I hope it comes together for you.
Brian

Terry Farmer · Post by **Terry Farmer** » 17 Jul 2003 8:16 pm

Mike,
I have a CD by Speedy West. The name of it is "There's going to be a party". Put out on Jasmine Records. A couple of times during the course of the CD Speedy makes a sound by picking randomly and fast behind the bridge or nut. When you started this thread looking for the sound of hail, I thought of this. Check it out. It may give you an idea to produce the sound you want.

Dave Boothroyd · Post by **Dave Boothroyd** » 17 Jul 2003 10:35 pm

By coincidence, I've just been grading a piece by one of my top students called "The River's Journey", which has a similar problem with random sounds and musicality.
His original version used the random guitar notes, but like yours it did not work as a n auditory experience (that's proper college language for "sounded crap")
After some discussion about what classical composers would have doen about the problem, I suggested that for example Schubert would have just used arpeggios, whereas Debussy would have overlaid arpeggios to give pseudo chaos with an underlying order.
He settled for that with continuous 16th note arpeggios over two octaves in Gm with a broken arpeggio in 12/8 in D over the top. Starting with random notes for two bars, it resolved into an impression of water, without trying to be an imitation. We've got samplers for that!
It might be worth a try for your piece.
Cheers
Dave

Pat Burns · Post by **Pat Burns** » 18 Jul 2003 6:03 am

...yeah, what Dave just said...

..you might also re-listen to the 2nd movement from Beethoven's 6th symphony to give you some ideas about water movement, that's an incredibly beautiful piece and is the best example in my limited classical experience of music conveying the feeling of a sound...

..it's kind of like the difference between looking at a photograph and a painting...the painting may not give you a faithful reproduction of all the little realistic details, but it more that makes up for that in the emotion that it evokes, that lets each viewer see it from their own experience and point of view..

..can you imagine a photograph of this Renoir tableau evoking the same response in you?..

[This message was edited by Pat Burns on 18 July 2003 at 07:24 AM.]

Tony LaCroix · Post by **Tony LaCroix** » 18 Jul 2003 7:13 am

This is funny... Mike started this post saying that he had given up, and we all want to finish it.

How about tapping the pickup with a screwdriver?

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 18 Jul 2003 9:31 am

Mike started this post saying that he had given up, and we all want to finish it.

I was thinking the same thing.

Guys, I've never given up on a piece before, no matter how difficult, but this is different. To repeat, the problem isn't that I can't play the parts, but that no matter what I do, it just doesn't sound good.

I am absolutely convinced that it is not salvagable, and rather than waste any more time and effort on it, I'm working on a replacement piece.

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 18 Jul 2003 10:46 am

Mike just put it on the shelf for now and come back sometime with a better attitude.
I am sure you can get it, if you think you can... and at the moment you don't.

I like the idea above about little percussive sounds. Pick with your hand muting the strings in different places and occasional harmonics, do that on several tracks and put a few tracks in reverb to give a sense of depths, etc.

And besides it's YOUR interpretaion of the composers free idea to create a rain storm.
So just create a rain storm. If there is a sound available on your instrument it's fair game as an effect.
But at 5% to go it would be a real shame not to go the whole 10 yards.
Win one for the Gipper![This message was edited by David L. Donald on 18 July 2003 at 11:53 AM.]