Adapting orchestration style to VI's

[nickysnd]

If you read the urtext title of the score in question, the work is for clavichord. NOT piano. Changing instrumentation would be a sin against the composer, no?

Um, no, that is not the case. As I have very recently learned (thank you zaster), Bach has left open the choice of instruments for his WTK. The link posted by zaster makes this very clear:

... what did Bach and his contemporaries mean by "clavier"? This name, while nearly identical to the modern German word for "piano" ("Klavier") and closely related to the word "clavichord", did not originally include any specification other than that the action of the instrument should contain "claves" or keys. Thus "clavier" could refer to an organ or a spinet, to a clavichord or a harpsichord, as well as to the instrument that was to become our modern piano.

This vagueness regarding the choice of the instrument reveals a very important aspect of the "Well-Tempered Clavier": its music is meant as absolute music. This means that it is the absolute, artistic idea expressed in the music that counts, not the technical way in which it is performed. Whichever instrument might seem, in a particular situation and at a particular time, to be best suited to the content and character, message and spirit of a piece would be considered appropriate.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~siglind/ ... -intro.htm

I humbly admit that I have made the confusion between Klavier and piano. My excuse would be that many German composers, including Mozart and Beethoven, said "Klavier" and meant "piano," so in my mind this equality Klavier=piano was taken for granted. I was mistaken. In the period Bach has written WTC, Klavier meant "everything equipped with keys." Now I see that neither of us was quite right; in fact, Bach simply didn't restricted the choice of instruments, leaving it open for any keyboard-equipped instrument. So I would say that even Wendy Carlos' choice to play WTK on synths is a valid one. No "sin" whatsoever.

Zaster, thanks again for that link, it was very informative and clarifying. Now, in reply to your post -

Bach would have played these on clavichord, maybe harpsichord or organ.
The preludes and fugues get their title from the Equal-Temperament tuning system Bach used, not from the piano-forte. Here's a rundown of some various performance POVs from J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier In-depth Analysis and Interpretation by Siglind Bruhn. Full text available online at:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~siglind/ ... -intro.htm

As seen above from your source, the German term Klavier "could refer to an organ or a spinet, to a clavichord or a harpsichord, as well as to the instrument that was to become our modern piano." So, to repeat the obvious, WTK was intended to be considered pure music, to be played, if really necessary, on any keyboard instrument, piano included. Let us not exclude the piano, for Bach didn't. Alright?

Now this issue of piano that you said Bach considered as a "toy." I couldn't find any reference in your posted link about Bach dismissing the piano as a "toy," nor did he excluded the piano as an option for playing his WTK. What I was able to find, on another site, is that:

... the clavichord maker Gottfried Silberman (1683-1753) made two such pianos. Here again however, the piano was not received with great enthusiasm. Bach, a close friend of Silberman, did not like his pianos at first, but his opinion changed later.
from: http://www.uk-piano.org/history/history_1.html

From this I gather two things related to our issue: first, the fact that Bach initially didn't like Silberman's pianos, and not that Bach disliked pianos in general; and second, that even Bach's initial opinion about Silberman's pianos has changed into a favorable one towards Silberman's piano. Am I correct in these two points? Because, if I am, then I really can see no reason in assuming that Bach would have thought to exclude the piano as an option for playing his WTK.

Almost forgot:

Clearly, we are from different planets. Good luck in getting your music played.

Oh, how very sweet of you! Actually, I think my music has been played more than enough by live orchestras, the last one was a little symphony performed less than two months ago - I have barely recognized my piece. All the orchestras I have collaborated with proved incapable of playing even very simple things, not to mention how badly they were out of tune and out of sync, wrong pitches, dynamics and articulations were a complete mess, etc. Thank you for wishing me luck, but I have decided that, from now on, I will perform my pieces only on virtual orchestras. So my luck will only depend on how good performer I will become in playing virtual instruments, like Kompakt and, of course, DP. As I gather, your choice is to leave your luck at the mercy of live orchestras - which makes me think that you need much more luck than I do. Actually, I don't think I do need any luck at all, I only need time to improve my MIDI skills, that's all. So, good luck to you!

OTOH, I like your "planets" metaphor. Living on different planets doesn't mean that we cannot exchange opinions, right? I greatly enjoy the "fight" of opposite opinions among people who respect each other, and don't take debates personally. It is not "us", as human beings, who are in opposition, it is only only our opinions that are "fighting" - are we in agreement at least upon that?

Here is a quote that I totally love:

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quote ... 64008.html

Love and Peace

[zaster]

Keep looking, and you'll find more about this. I don't have a lot of time to look for sources, but if you look around with an open mind, you'll see the complexity in this ongoing perspective debate among Bach scholars- despite the point that Bach may have meant any keyboard instrument, you'll see that, even so, he couldn't have envisioned what the sound of the piano as we know it would be. The piano was simply "not there yet", and some of these things being called piano were in fact more like harpsichords with hammers or some other experimental stage of the instrument. Nor could he have envisioned that our "keyboard instruments" would now be controlling MIDI percussion sets. So does this mean that if I play the WTC on a Keyboard triggering GM Drumkit, it would be within the composer's intentions? Of course not. But you see, when composers die, they don't get a chance to see what comes next. For all you know, if Bach were here, and had experienced the intervening centuries' developments in music, he'd prefer a speed metal guitar performance of his keyboard work over anything done on the modern piano. In fact, the harpsichord in particular sounds a lot more like a guitar than a piano to my ears. You think Mozart would have been into Hendrix or written him off? You think Shakespeare would be for or against modern setting of his dramas? On the one hand it keeps a piece of work alive and relevant to reinterpret it according to the spirit of the times- people have a harder time relating to antiquated conventions of language, musical or spoken. Historical preservation also has its value, whether it's civil war or medival or musical reenactment, but I think "the composer's intentions are on my side" bit is always problematic since no one can know.

EDIT: Incidentally, Bach, unlike Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, never acheived the status as a composer during his lifetime which would have allowed him to quit his day job. I bet he'd be thrilled by the popularity of the Gould GVs which accounted for "Goldberg Variations" becoming a household-name. My guess is he'd probably also be fine with a GM Drumkit rendition of his WTC, so long as people were still playing his music.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Love and Peace

OK, I give up. I really don't have time for this thread any longer. You guys can have it.

Boy, that closing reminds of someone on the board a while back.... bronx something or another...

MM

[nickysnd]

My guess is he'd probably also be fine with a GM Drumkit rendition of his WTC, so long as people were still playing his music.

Man, would he be alive, he'd probably be one of the richest men in this part of the galaxy!

Zaster, I agree with most of your points, maybe less with those where you guess and bet on what Bach would like or not. As you said it yourself, that is something that we cannot know. Or, as Wittgenstein would put it, "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence."

My position was/is only against changing the scores, as I see no legitimate reason for doing that, and no authority that can give one the right to modify the composer's marks in his score. In fact, I see great personal benefice in being able to play a score exactly as written, and none in disregarding the composer's marks. If one loves fooling around, one can compose his own music and fool around with his own music in every way he is capable of. But please, leave Mona Lisa alone!

[Rick Averill]

some patches don't use velocity for anything.

Ahem...if I may get back to the topic of this thread...

If you're using the mod wheel to control attack and volume, how do you randomize attacks and volumes so it doesn't sound so mechanical? Also how do you accent specific notes? Do you have to do a mod wheel change just for one note? And what if you're using more than one voice in a given patch? Can you play one part louder than the other using the mod wheel? I don't see how.

I know that it's CC#1 you're controlling with the mod wheel, but whether you're using the actual wheel or the continuous data, it appears to me that you have all the control one would get with, say, a Lowrey organ. Boy, what a technological advance!

[kinnylandrum]

Here are my opinions in respose:

If you're using the mod wheel to control attack and volume, how do you randomize attacks and volumes so it doesn't sound so mechanical?

I use a pedal or a slider, but you simply play the part with one hand or foot on the controller and play it differently each time, if you want to.

Also how do you accent specific notes?

That's what velocity is for.

Do you have to do a mod wheel change just for one note?

If you want to, and if it's a long one with a lot of volume/timbre changes in it, you may need to.

And what if you're using more than one voice in a given patch? Can you play one part louder than the other using the mod wheel? I don't see how.

No, the parts would have to be on separate MIDI channels, but of course you can make one seem louder than the other with a higher volocity, but then they would both have the same volume changes, etc.

I know that it's CC#1 you're controlling with the mod wheel, but whether you're using the actual wheel or the continuous data, it appears to me that you have all the control one would get with, say, a Lowrey organ. Boy, what a technological advance!

Hey what else to do want, a key with a plate on it that moves to give you expression for each note (hey that's a idea)

[Rick Averill]

That's what velocity is for.

My point was that the samples like the GPO strings don't use velocity at all. MIDI is supposed to be standardized. I think the use of velocity is not an unreasonable expectation.

[kinnylandrum]

I guess that's one of the reasons I don't much use the GPO strings, but prefer my old Vitous strings or my new EW Gold XP strings, or even my JP 1080. But while we're on the subject, I have a job coming up to "realize" a 6 piece classical group for a ballet that a friend of mine is writing. anyway, two of the six pieces are violin and cello. I notice from your signature that you have both the Strad and Gofriller libraries. I was considering either buying both of these or buying the VSL Special Edition limited library. Do the Gofriller and the Strad respond to velocity? And how easy are they to use? Frankly, with GPO I have to use way too much mod wheel for my convenience. Are these the same way? The Q Legato in EW Gold is much preferable for just getting it down, and I believe the VSL might even be easier than that.

[Rick Averill]

Strad is very hard to use. Gofriller is somewhat easier, but you still have to do a lot of tweaking to get it to sound good. Both respond to velocities in strange ways. (In Gofriller, it seems to somehow affect portamento!)

Gofriller is an extreme memory hog. Notice how powerful my rig is. And yet I cannot instantiate it along with a full orchestra without DP crashing.

I personally would not recommend either, unless you just want to sit and play with the sample for a long time without accomplishing anything.

Others may disagree.

[kinnylandrum]

Thank so much. Just the kind of feedback I needed. My decision is made. I have a G5 Quad, so it's no more powerful than yours, maybe less. By the way, I'll let you know about the VSL Special Edition when and if I get it.

[mckelly]

some patches don't use velocity for anything.

Ahem...if I may get back to the topic of this thread...

If you're using the mod wheel to control attack and volume, how do you randomize attacks and volumes so it doesn't sound so mechanical? Also how do you accent specific notes? Do you have to do a mod wheel change just for one note? And what if you're using more than one voice in a given patch? Can you play one part louder than the other using the mod wheel? I don't see how.

I know that it's CC#1 you're controlling with the mod wheel, but whether you're using the actual wheel or the continuous data, it appears to me that you have all the control one would get with, say, a Lowrey organ. Boy, what a technological advance!

Rick,

You would want to use the MIDI Editor - you can adjust points or lines for volume/velocity, among other things.

[zaster]

I know I have used velocity and modwheel together in GPO before. So some patches (maybe solo strings?) definitely have it. Specifically what I remember was following some kind of "string realism" tutorial off the Garritan page where randomizing velocity was used as well as a trick where you attack an accented note with high velocity and then sharply draw the modwheel down, in the middle of the note. I can't remember which ones do and don't have it, but I think for example the pizz strings use velocity instead of modwheel since the a plucked string is only controllable at attack, i.e. percussive (you don't have expressive control over it after that point). I think they use the wheel to simulate the volume/timbre elements you could modulate after note onset in the real world.

[zaster]

I'm doing a double post here because now you have me worried- am I missing out on something by converting my velocity layers to modwheel faded layers? I dislike using velocity data and have been avoiding it but I'd like to hear if this is a mistake. My main reason for disliking it is the hassle of dealing with it in the MIDI editor- the "points" or "bars" view. I may have like 8 CC curves in my continuous view and I find it annoying to have to switch everytime I want to edit the velocity. And isn't all it's doing, when you get down to it, just choosing which of say 4 samples (in a 4 layer patch) to play? I mean, if I open up a simple Kontakt patch like that I can see 2 jobs for velocity- picking the sample and usually controlling some volume curve over that. So if I'm simply reassigning those 2 jobs to the modwheel am I losing anything?

[Timeline]

Wow! I finally got back to reading this entire thread.

Rick as a veteran recording engineer i used to record live orchestra, about 30 to 45 at a time for TV back in the late '60s and really came to understand mic placement and coherent leakage as one of the missing parameters/elements of VI's even with the best verbs,(alta). I wonder what it would really take to apply these room tones in a way that made things sound more dynamic and clearer than muddy. As well horns when recorded properly have a crisp pronounced high frequency component I hear as lost even with VSL.

I know this is not the morphed issue of applying techniques to VI's as in scripts etc but I think we would all be allot happier if VI's came at 48K and 24bit at least and extended up more energetically.

Computer power is obviously a big part of this future we seek in realism.