On Feb 9, 2006, at 3:31 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 9 Feb 2006 at 14:43, dhbailey wrote:
Chuck Israels wrote:
[snip]>
I could go on - talking about a string quartet player recently
involved in performing some of my music, who said, "For us, it's all
about the line", as an excuse for unsteady timing. For my music,
the line loses too much of its meaning, if the rhythmic proportions
are distorted. That's where I live. YMMV.
I agree, Chuck -- after all, a line with no rhythmic stability is
simply meandering pitches, and that's not what you wrote.
I strongly agree on that, too. I think pitch is over-rated, to be
honest -- it's the rhythm that gives most "lines" their identity and
meaning, in terms of accent, rhythm and flow. My experience is that
people who talk about "line" in that fashion simply don't understand
the basics of rhythm and phrasing. They have a weird idea that
evenness of notes and complete regularity of rhythm is what makes a
good line, when it's precisely the opposite -- the well-chosen accent
and highlight (dynamic or agogic) of some particular notes is what
gives a gesture its shape and lifts it off the page.
The three most important things in music are rhythm, rhythm and
rhythm, in that order.
It's precisely why synthesized performances sound so poor. It's not
so much the quality of the samples so much as it is the lack of
rhythmic subtlety, especially in the standard patern of metrical
accents.
I think so too. I am OK with the timbre of most of the Garritan Jazz
sounds - maybe all of them, but how much fussing and tweaking and
"post production" work has to be done to them to make them begin to
resemble music made with human hands and breath! These problems
apply to both rhythmic and envelope issues. Then there's the subtle
(or maybe not so subtle, to some ears) pitch adjustments that humans
make according to the harmonic environment (even in supposedly non-
tonal circumstances). Some people are working on computer
programming to operate on sampled pitches in a more human way. It
remains to be seen how successful they will be, but anything in that
direction will probably be an improvement.
I am not certain if I can detect if Finale's Human Playback actually
incorporates good metrical accent patterns, or if it accomplishes the
more natural rhythmic sound by introducing variation of accent
(somewhat randomly instead of consistent with fixed metrical
patterns).
In the jazz realm, it tries. But jazz rhythm is more complex than
the plugin will now accommodate. Darcy has communicated a more
detailed treatment to Robert Piechaud. One can hope for some
improvement, but I still think this tool (Finale playback w/Garritan
or other sampled sounds) is about as useful as the police department
sketch of a suspect they want to apprehend. It helps catch the
suspect, but it's far from a real image. That doesn't mean I don't
think it's useful, even needed by some.
Next time tell him to get his rhythms more accurate or you'll take a
pair of drumsticks and help him by beating the rhythm for him on the
bout of his precious instrument! ;-)
To respond to David Bailey about this: I'd have liked to!
Chuck
There's also the issue of finding the time *between* phrases. I work
with one musician who's quite gifted, but he seems to have no ability
to have any "out of time" phrasing. He can "turn the knob" (if you'll
pardon the expression!) on his internal metronome and put in subtle
rubato and ritards and accelerandos, but he can't seem to naturally
add space to set off phrases from each other. Partly I think he
thinks of this process as adding space after the ends of phrases,
instead of as placing the next beat in exactly the right place after
the previous phrase.
This is something that seems to me can't be taught -- you've either
got it or you haven't, you can either feel it or you can't. I've
always suspected that too much playing with a metronome is to blame
for this syndrome.
--
David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/
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Chuck Israels
230 North Garden Terrace
Bellingham, WA 98225-5836
phone (360) 671-3402
fax (360) 676-6055
www.chuckisraels.com
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