I’ve been asked to explain a bit about the really groovy looking window that appears on the right-hand side of my REAPER orchestral template. What is it, why is it there, how do I get it and so forth? Well,…
Blog Archives
Cutting to the Chase (Reaticulate)
Tagged with: BRSO, Cinematic Studio Strings, Cinewinds Core, GPO5, Kirk Hunter Brass, MIDI Programming, reaper, Reaticulate
Posted in g) Classically Inclined, j) Sound & Vision
Posted in g) Classically Inclined, j) Sound & Vision
With One Foot on the Platform…
Well, you’ve got to do something when you’re waiting for a train, right? The piece, incidentally, is Liszt’s El Contrabandista, which makes the Mephisto Waltz look like Für Elise… Bот блестящee представление. Sometimes you get amazing surprises on street pianos (and…
Tagged with: El Contrabandista, Liszt, Street Piano, Valentina Lisitsa
Posted in e) Rants & Ramblings, g) Classically Inclined
Posted in e) Rants & Ramblings, g) Classically Inclined
Rachmaninov Had Big Hands
Here Igudesman and Joo show how to tackle Rachmaninov’s famous C# minor Prelude if you’re a little digitally ungifted by nature. Rachmaninov was a big guy. He also had Marfan Syndrome, aka hypermobility. He could span an incredible 13th and make…
Tagged with: Big Hands, Igudesman & Joo, Rachmaninov
Posted in e) Rants & Ramblings, g) Classically Inclined
Posted in e) Rants & Ramblings, g) Classically Inclined
Fostering Talent
It’s a hell of a story. The life of the inimitable Florence Foster Jenkins was begging to be told, and has now hit the big screen in a biopic, starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant. (She was inimitable, because nobody…
What the Fugue?
You go back to Bird and I’ll go back to Bach Here’s a piano exercise I find really useful. I’ll run it down first, then tell you why it’s useful and how you can use it as more than just a…
Note Perfect
Well, there’s no such thing of course, but I needed a snazzy headline for another software review. If you don’t use Sibelius, you are excused and can run and play. If you do, I’d like to tell you about the…
Tagged with: NotePerformer, orchestral playback, Sibelius, Wallander Instruments
Posted in g) Classically Inclined, j) Sound & Vision
Posted in g) Classically Inclined, j) Sound & Vision
Beethoven’s Dynamic Duo
I was talking to a jazz pianist the other day about technique, in particular dynamic and tonal control. He asked for some exercises and I thought about it for a bit, then suggested he work on the Beethoven E minor…
Tagged with: Ashkenazy, Beethoven, Opus 90, tone and dynamics
Posted in e) Rants & Ramblings, g) Classically Inclined
Posted in e) Rants & Ramblings, g) Classically Inclined
Everyone’s a Critic…
Jazz musicians will possibly know Nicolas Slonimsky for his Thesaurus of Scale Patterns. Famously, Coltrane practised out of it and I come across musicians today who still explore it. Just the other day, I was chatting to a saxophonist about…
Tagged with: critics, Lexicon of Musical Invective, Slonimsky
Posted in d) The Dark Art of Marketing, g) Classically Inclined, i) Reviews
Posted in d) The Dark Art of Marketing, g) Classically Inclined, i) Reviews
I Could Read a Book
Heard occasionally on the bandstand: “Oh come on guys, surely you don’t have to read THAT one?” Well, in theory we should all know just about every tune by memory. But this isn’t the ’50s and not even the busiest…
Tagged with: Franz Liszt, jazz, memory, reading, Sviatoslav RIchter
Posted in c) Musicianship, e) Rants & Ramblings, g) Classically Inclined
Posted in c) Musicianship, e) Rants & Ramblings, g) Classically Inclined
Cueing at the Alphabet Soup Kitchen
Yup, that’s spelled correctly. Cueing. I’m not talking about the delightful British pastime of standing in line for something and drawing a perverse comfort from covertly bitching about how ugly and stupid the people ahead of you are. Nope. Cueing…
Tagged with: cueing parts, jazz, musical structure
Posted in c) Musicianship, e) Rants & Ramblings, g) Classically Inclined
Posted in c) Musicianship, e) Rants & Ramblings, g) Classically Inclined
...appetising young books for sale...
Pents book is recommended reading on Gary Burton's Berklee course.
Jason Lyon on Music 