Alice Finale

Very beautiful!

How did you get the initial effects?

The only thing, at 0:55 it seems to me that the entry is a bit distorted, maybe because it goes towards the ff quickly or anyway more than the medium allows.

Anyway, positively impressed

I don't have the skills to make technical comments, I can say that I like it very much.

Bravo Geppino!

As far as the playback goes ... great growth from the first one I listened to a few months ago to this latest one today.

When the vocals come in at the beginning, I don't like it much... I don't know if it's just a matter of taste but ... I don't know, it left me with a strange feeling.

For the rest, it is excellent, very good

I agree with the users, great piece,

I've been following Geppino for a while now; I know you studied traditional composition and are a jazz musician.

How do you leverage your skills in this more cinematic field?

Aside from complimenting you, I wanted to ask if, to achieve such a result, you attended any courses or if it is "only" the fruit of one's own imagination. To be clear, is there technique involved or is it just inspiration?

Compliments again.

Beautiful!, especially the "oriental contamination" of the initial part.

The effects are all VSTs, they are libraries; the difficult part is understanding where the limit lies between too little and too much, between "emptiness" and redundancy. To answer Oracolo, I think that in this case inspiration consists more in the mixing of timbres than in the creation of phrasing or musical periods, as the piece is a kind of long pedal; only in the central part does it move a bit, but not even that much.

For me, a great source of inspiration is the timbres themselves of these fantastic libraries; when I hear a shaker or a rainstick where you can actually hear the sand falling, I feel like using them in a composition, which in the end can be sustained even just by the sound effects, also considering how they are intended to be used. If desired, with some variations, it could have been drawn out much longer by continuing to play both on the initial pedal and on the final march, but these were the timings.

I haven't attended any particular courses other than composition lessons with my teacher, which, moreover, were very focused on passing exams; however, I believe I wouldn't have been able to easily organize this sonic material without lessons on harmony and strict counterpoint, without immersing myself in double choruses, fugues, romances, quartets, analysis, listening, and so on. In particular, one of the most useful things for orchestral compositions is listening with the score: before writing Flower's Galop, I analyzed quite a few orchestral marches; usually, I go to IMSLP, pick an author I like and download the score, then I go to YouTube and pair the analysis with the listening; it is an extremely useful practice that, while not harmful, costs nothing.

Around the web, you can find monstrous demos from a sonic point of view that lack compositional depth; this is to say that the beauty of a dish consists in the preparation, the garnishes, etc., but there must also be substance; it is a combination of things, the result cannot always please everyone, but if there is a poetic foundation, you are credible and, in a certain sense, "unassailable."

In the end, in this small piece, which is little more than a sonic sketch, my listening, my influences, my tastes, and perhaps why not my style—assuming I have one—converge; and as the piece grew, I was thinking of Pat Metheny, Ottorino Respighi, Paolo Fresu, Trilok Gurtu, Chick Corea, Tim Burton, that pain in the neck of a choreographer, Fkt, and who knows how many others........

deadly geppino !!!!

hai reached truly the top, not so much from a compositional point of view which is less dense here than in the other pieces, but as for sound quality and taste in deciding what is needed and what isn't; precisely, you didn't put too much or too little

e I am stunned by the audio quality not only of the samples, but specifically of the total mix and the spatialization: re-listening to the very good results of previous pieces with this in your ears ..... I'm afraid you might have to redo them from scratch

one single note of personal taste: I would have enhanced the percussion in the final part with the choir (at the end it's the triumphal march, right?!), either by adding more or even just making what is there more audible (although that vaguely bolero rhythm doesn't convince me much).

congratulations as per usual !!

Hi. The 3 parts are clearly distinct from a linguistic point of view. But while the first (to me very Mediterranean rather than Oriental) and the third (well-managed "parallel" harmony on pedal) convince me, the second leaves me with a strange feeling, too disconnected from the other 2 (without wanting to pass judgment, it feels a bit like Don Matteo, a bit like Incantesimo), even on a sonic level (anyway harder to manage due to the type of instrumentation involved).

In any case, good job.

As a sequencer, I have many reservations about Finale. Personally, I only see it as a musical word processing program; I prefer to pass the MIDI through Pro Tools and manage the libraries from there. And I must say that Notion (and slightly less well Sibelius) behaves very well (especially rewire), better than Finale. Then, obviously, it's the habit of a program and a method that makes the difference.

Replying to AleGozzo: those toms, in the end, I had initially pumped them up like crazy; on their own they sounded beautiful (the library is Drums of War by Cinesamples), but then in the overall mix of instruments they were distorting and saturating, meaning they were masking the other instruments; I couldn't avoid the distortion in any way except by lowering the level of individual notes a bit and using a limiter and a maximizer. In the end, they don't come out as I would have liked, but overall I settled for it. Furthermore, they have a huge dynamic range and many velocity layers with very different playback effects, so if I changed the velocity by even just 5 units, a completely different sound came out; they really drove me crazy, in the end I doubled them with timpani and gave up....

As far as using Finale as a sequencer is concerned, I think the results speak for themselves: does this piece sound like it was made with a sequencer or notation software...? And yet I assure you that it is the playback from Finale, and from this point of view, I didn't even tinker with it that much. In the end, even with Finale 2011 you can use all the libraries you want, all the effects you want, you can manage all the parameters that make a performance sound human; the only thing is that it is more "analog," you cannot intervene on a curve from a graphical standpoint, but only from a numerical standpoint, but as a final effect it changes nothing and anyway with a low-latency audio card you can play and manage parameters in real time just as you would with Cubase and similar. It is clear that habit plays its part in the choice and optimization of software use.

Anyway, I thank everyone for the comments and interest; I know well that this little piece is not a masterpiece from a compositional point of view, I focused more on timbre and effects, it's a field that I still need to study much more and that fascinates me, perhaps one day I will also come to write pieces consisting only of effects and then maybe I will embark on the path of many more or less contemporary composers....

Aside from complimenting good Geppino for the music and the audio. Speaking of the music, always try to preserve your originality... this latest composition of yours, unlike the first two of the trilogy, seems almost to evoke certain types of sounds. You are not beyond the limit, but danger is always lurking.

I hope the right message gets across, because very soberly I say that I envy you a little... so I avoid being misunderstood.

Curiosity, can you support this different exchange of views with arguments? I am interested.

modale wrote:

the "oriental contamination" of the initial part.

Zedef wrote:

the first one (to me very Mediterranean rather than oriental)

Frank wrote:

moltamente sobriamente dico che ti invidio un po'...

you could elaborate on this concept...? What do you have to envy me for, you have a style that, judging by your latest tracks from the workshops, is taking a very precise and credible turn; let's just say that in some cases I am not afraid to get my hands dirty with dangerous and "shittable" material, but one cannot live on good intentions and lofty concepts alone, you know that better than I do, or perhaps it is I who do not yet have the courage or the stylistic flair to do so....

Dear Geppino

geppino12575 wrote:

could you make this concept explicit...?

I'll try, because there is always a risk of not being understood and, knowing each other for years, I think this post of mine is easier than one addressed to a stranger. Therefore, if I write something that doesn't add up, read between the lines.

So, just as you notice improvements in me, I see yours; this clearly does not mean that when we met you were at zero (of course not... quite the opposite!) and I think vice versa ... but you move at a very fast pace, this is one of the natures of "envy" which I obviously express in a very good-natured way, you know I am an ardent admirer of yours.

geppino12575 wrote:

let's just say that in some cases I am not afraid to get my hands dirty with dangerous and "shittable" material, but one cannot live on good intentions and lofty concepts alone, you know that better than I do, or perhaps it is I who do not yet have the courage or the stylistic flair to do so....

Precisely, this is a sign of strength; that you are good is evident and audible, so it is only a matter of choices (not a fallback) and knowing how to carry them forward with dignity ...

There are those who do not know how to question themselves, remaining entrenched so as not to be debatable. I also alluded to originality simply because as soon as I heard the first part of the track, which I find very successful and interesting in several respects, musically speaking, my ear immediately led me to "stereotypes" that are heard a bit everywhere today, a sign of sensitivity to the current world, to the current ear, but which moves in a "minefield"... you know what my idea of movie trailers is, right?

However, in my post I also said "you are within the limits," because despite the allusion, you did not fall into the predictable, into the truly heard-before.

I don't know how to make the concept more explicit; in the first two tracks, right from the opening bars, I began the "predictive game" (I get it right... or I don't, which I find at the basis of sensuality); let's say that here, during the little game at the beginning, I got it a bit too much right; when the first effect arrives ... I started getting it right more and more frequently, and since the voice arrived, I was in the realm of certainties (but also a little bit after) ... I was expecting exactly everything at those points ... precisely.

But its conduction, the aftermath, etc., make me understand precisely that it was intended ... an initial reminiscence of setting to capture the listener's attention (perhaps a layman's) a bit like Morricone, just to do as one pleases. This is something enviable and not for everyone.

The central part, clearly contrasting, can be a sign to escape the deception; surely the choreographic requirements will have played their part.

It was illuminating when at the end of the listening, to myself, I said: a beautiful product... eh, eh ... product, you understand.

In the others, instead, it came out instinctively: what a beautiful track. Clearly, in one I also had the score, which plays its part ... and here I would really like to know how you experienced it, because I read a bit between the lines your "I am not afraid to get my hands dirty with dangerous and 'shittable' material."

I hope it is a bit clearer, even if it is a very brief synthesis of the elements that came into play, of the mechanisms that trigger when one says to a friend, I envy you a little.

I say that it is a successful track(/product), whoever listens will feel pleasure and it has its points of interest and above all it is based on a modern and contemporary rhetoric.

In short, not academicized, studied to death, and which necessarily works, if not by the effect of having applied well (obviously "well" is fundamental) some sound principles, which must be known, but which are easily reachable and tend to be by anyone with a minimum of musicality and disposition to the subject.

Here the step is different and I close the circle with the beginning.

I hope I have been clearer and haven't offended anyone's sensitivity, because it is truly not my intention and then there is little to be done: when a woman is beautiful, however you dress her ... she looks good; however you make her up ... she looks good; however you cut her hair ... her hair looks good.
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