MOTUnation.com

https://www.orchplaymusic.com

Sorry this is a quick hit-and-run, but my jazz combo has a five-hour gig starting in an hour and I have to leave so only had time to provide this link.

I have printed out their website's main page to study on my train commute tomorrow.

The vi-control-net discussion talks about it as well:

http://vi-control.net/community/threads ... ble.55051/

Again, my apologies for not having time to study it and provide context. My superficial guess is that this is a tool for teaching and learning orchestration, but that it involves mock-ups of some sort.

Maybe it's associated with the weird (to me) file format stuff I found during the past year, via my alma mater's website (Indiana University) for Indianapolis and other second-tier orchestras, not geared for Kontakt or "usual" sample players.

It's a too bad they couldn't somehow do this with live musicians and multitrack, but there wouldn't be sufficient isolation-- and there'd be the incredible resources required to make that happen!!

But the virtual tracks sound well-done, just you know, not real.

Seems useful as a teaching tool. But if I was using it in a classroom. I'd have students study a real recording, then analyze this stuff afterward, so they at least have the mojo in their minds.

Totally agree. Also, training the ear to focus on specific sections, combinations of instruments, and phrases and harmonies is a critical skill any serious musician interested in orchestration must have. The color real instruments produce when combined are too complex and blend in a unique way that simply doesn't happen in "fake" (VI) instruments. Analog life is far more complex than any digital portrayal can ever accomplish.

I can see using the individual parts as examples in an orchestration class if the Rimsky textbook is still being used. It would be better to use a good recording instead of the VI orchestra.

The reliance on 18th and 19th C. PD material, while understandable, makes this product obsolete on launch.

I don't see it being any better than the classes I took where the professor would sing the line he/she wanted us to listen for. Another clever solution to a problem no one was having IMO.

Sort of the ultimate realization of Music Minus One... "No, not that one, this one...."

I'm so glad I learned such things in real time in books and with real musicians playing my scores. I've been very lucky that way. I determined long ago that electronic music is one thing and acoustic music is another thing. They certainly intersect in a Venn diagram and still, they have their distinct pluses and minuses. The only really minus in acoustic music is getting great players to perform the work (the financial aspects being the true root of the problem).

And frankly, learning either in great detail is a study unto itself. Many musicians I know do one or the other, or use electronics as a crutch nan attempt to fast-track their "apparent" skills by faking it with electronics. I've certainly been guilty of that in the past. But "power" without "understanding" is never going to end well unless you are truly a genius. For regular guys, it often turns out as an embarrassment.

You gotta love them geniuses!!!

The Music-Minus-One idea seems like a useful feature-- for kids wanting to play a particular part of a larger work, and have it absent from the reference track.

interesting and useful pieces of advice, thanks for sharing

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:[...]You gotta love them geniuses!!!

Thanx much for that link, MLD.