Это видео недоступно.
Сожалеем об этом.
Musescore 4 Realistic Mock-Ups (Tutorial)
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 15 авг 2024
- We have a long discussion about the premise behind the pursuit of realistic playback and how that should guide notation practices. I provide examples, ideas, and... rants!
Music: "MAX-Q" by Carl Irwin
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction 0:00
Playback 1:33
Sounds and Mix Settings 5:08
Why Orchestral Music? 12:38
Notation Doesn’t Matter 18:50
Composition Aids Rant 23:34
Sound Relativity 27:34
Mock-Up Examples 36:27
Programming Matters 47:08
Notation Still Doesn’t Matter 49:05
Programming Still Matters 49:43
Economy of Mock-Ups 51:02
More Mock-Up Examples 52:04
Composition Summary 57:58
Mastering 1:00:10
Final Comments 1:04:30
Carl - I thoroughly enjoyed your comments and observations (and totally agree) re: creating realistic sounding orchestral mock-ups via MuseScore 4. I'm an acoustically trained composer/arranger/orchestrator, and a Music Educator (50+ years). Ten years ago, I started using Sibelius and NotePerformer, and both programs have kept me creating music in meaningful ways. Now, along comes MuseScore, and I am totally knocked out by the generosity and foresight of so many talented comtributors behind this fantastic program! What an incredible gift this is to us all within the creative world of music composition and orchestration. WOW! - Don Wilkins
Thanks for the kind words. Are you the Don Wilkins at Berklee College of Music?
I like how Muse Sounds plays back any piece we create.. Sometimes if I were to make realistic mockups in combination with Muse Sounds, I can use VSTs, though I have to add an extra staff within that instrument part for the key switches or different articulation sounds just in case the libraries don't have any.
glad to discovered your video and cant thanks enough to musescore for making orchestra sound accessable for creativity. Thanks
Despite the fact that this video is six months ago, it still applies to MuseScore 4 and what a great vibe and personality you have. You changed my mind about what MuseScore is all about regarding orchestration. I thought it was only for beginners.
I have recently been taking Jason Allen's Orchestration Masterclass series and I am enjoying learning things like counterpoint, melodies, background, and the "whole vibe" of orchestral music. Jason uses Dorico for the pieces in his masterclass, but I enjoy that he says you can use any orchestral software. I think Musescore is mature enough to use for professional cases.
Musically, I have had the privilege of taking both drum and piano lessons and have been involved in both marching and concert band in high school. I also have learned bass guitar and dabbled in the violin for a brief time. Oh, and the high school experience includes jazz band and gospel choir, which many schools didn't have.
Many conductors start with piano voicing and work from there. In this video you mention you start with strings? That's simply taking a different timbre of instrument, am I right about that?
Great job and I am subscribed!
Loved your comment re 5 different orchestras. Many many years ago at school we studied Petrushka. For 6 months i only ever heard the piece as per the schools record. Then my dad bought me Petrushka conducted by Stravinsky. It was a different piece!
Going to try your sub bass synth idea. I'm now subscribed. I've been using Musescore since 1 point something. 4.2 is incredible.
I was arranging a piece for the first time in MuseScore with the MuseSound three days ago and I noticed the same thing you're talking about at around 34:21 that triggering the right feeling requires throwing out expressions willy nilly and using hairpins creatively.
I quickly started using rehearsal marks and Ctrl/command+f to jump around in the score
Very informative, thank you!
Such a clear and comprehensive tutorial. Love the rants and agree 100%. Although...Linux?! Only the brave! I have found it sometimes beneficial to export the individual instruments from Musescore 4 as WAVs then put them into my DAW for mixdown, to allow individual EQ, sectional reverb, and some minor automations to get finer control over the balance but it's an awful lot of work to get that extra 10%. My only gripe with Musescore is the exaggerated dynamic difference between mezzo-piano and mezzo-forte which often leaves me screaming for a middle dynamic (mezzo-mezzo?!) but sadly the music world seems to have overlooked that glaring omission for the last 300 years! Thanks for your superb advice.
Phil Glass and those folks claim they are composers who orchestrate in their heads; thus I can, to a degree. You don't NEED proper notation incomposing, yet it's still nice to use it for self educational purposes, I feel.
Super helpful commentary!
I understand the approach of giving up on notation as it is the only way of squeezing more realism out of a notation program. However, I believe that, in the long run (or not-so-long given current advances), IA-based approaches will be able to realistically render a nicely engraved score, and even scold you for your engraving errors! And I say "render" because they will probably will work like current image generative IAs that do really create images out of the blue instead of stitching pieces. In the same way, a music generative IA will not use samples, instead it will work with the ideal sound of, say, a violin section, learned from a big database of performances.
But such a technology could only provide a 'mean' representation of the database. Ensemble recordings are created upon the specified interpretation of the conductor. Notation is the least of all factors in music. That's hard for engraving enthusiasts to accept, but notation is only ever used to communicate the most basic elements of musical vocabulary to a performer. Humanity makes all of the rest... and with ensembles, it is the humanity of the conductor that rules supremely.
@@carlirwinmusic Well I think that's only partially true. You can deduce a lot about the intended performance style just by inspecting what is on the score. For the rest, I think the solution to that must not be hacking your way with low tech stuff like samples and controllers. Instead, an engine should understand annotations in your score. From basic things that the software already support (like indicating exactly how much a ritardando line must slow down the tempo) to high-level conductor notes that a ChatGPT-like system could take and translate into the render (dreaming is free :))
@ dreaming is free
Just re-watched this after 5 months. Still really useful! One question, if i may please Carl: Try as I might, I cannot hear that Musescore 4 respects slurs on any instrument so I now write entirely without them. But you mark all of your slurs and phrasing. Does it make a difference to you?
I think the regular notation is very legato without the slurs. I'm not sure if the engine is pulling on separate samples with the slurs written in, but you can hear legato samples particularly in the brass and strings. So it's not that it doesn't do legato, it's more that it plays legato as default. But yes, you are right. You often don't need the slurs to get the legato sound. In order to get separation, you may need to add staccato or rests.
@@carlirwinmusic Thanks Carl. Yes, I've concluded much the same. There are times when I really want it to stop re-bowing strings on every note, which makes them sounds over-romantic sometimes, especially above mf but that (I believe) is not possible. I put a piece for oboe and piano on my channel recently, which sounded very realistic to my ears, and a commenter came back with horror that the whole score had no slurs in it...oh no, sacrilege! I was tempted to refer him to your video here but I rather suspect he'd have missed the point!
@JeffWardMusic only M4 mock-up users will understand the score roll demo. I have started rendering the final output and syncing it with a piano roll or just placing a title card... unless I'm creating a commentary or tutorial for mock-ups.
I was literally just watching your Stage Zero video with the roll when you replied. Interesting; I might give that method a try. Excellent piece, by the way!
Great value in this content, thank you Carl. Namely "Score to picture" episodes are amazing. Still, when I try to sketch something, the result is - not great :-) and there is more fight than cooperation among various instruments. Do you have any advice, where (book, online tutorial...) a hobby composer could learn more about orchestration, voice leading etc.? Thank you again.
You should check out Guy Michelmore and Anne-Kathrin Dern on RUclips. I also recommend any edition of this book for an understanding of tonal theory: www.amazon.com/Techniques-Materials-Tonal-Thomas-Benjamin/dp/0534526233/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3D9KHMPU6XTAJ&keywords=benjamin+horvit+nelson+tonal+music&qid=1690977311&sprefix=benjamine+horvit+nelson+tonal+music%2Caps%2C130&sr=8-1
And I recommend this book for a consice look at orchestration:
www.amazon.com/Complete-Arranger-Sammy-Nestico/dp/B0C9SP2TPL/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?adgrpid=82810291850&hvadid=408714180120&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9005580&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=b&hvrand=721079713684268658&hvtargid=kwd-300574198968&hydadcr=15401_10362675&keywords=sammy+nestico&qid=1690977666&sr=8-1
Subscribed!
Privet Carl..
I am Mikhail Rimsky-Korsakov. No relation, I was told. Known as Hans in West! 🙂
I do understand you, and totally agree with you. I do compose music, but rarely because I want to compose as you. As you said, there are no real demand for it unless commissioned which only happened to me once.
I am, however, a military band expert, ie I am Director of Music of Military band, and Arranger. I arranged thousands of music as I found that commissions for Wind Ensembles are far more in demand. I even have music in your country's military band's library!
My actual point here is that when I compose or rather arrange stuff, I normally have 2 scores...one called "xxxxx (PrintScore).dorico" and "xxxxx(MidiScore).Dorico. (It used to be xxxx(yyy).sib or .mus)
Anyway, my PrintScore is for Notation ie Printing my work for ensemble.
My MidiScore is like yours. All 'ugly' stuff is notated including midi CC texts, my fp looks just like yours. The purpose of this is that other directors who commissioned a piece wants me to email him/her periodic mp3s of work progress. In the past, mockups from PrintScore gave them wrong impressions on the score, so I, like you, developed idea of the MidiScore to imprint in their minds more realistic sound which also improved their performance as many derectors of bands are quite mediocre conductors and needs so guidance from my mockups! 😬😂
Hope others also start to understand this approach of ours. I must lastly also say that with Dorico Pro, mockups are automatically far more realistic as one have DAW & Notation workflow all in one project. Pricy, I know (for us), but you Western Friends have money for this! ;-)
Keep well and keep educating your Muse Community!
Mikhail
До свидания
PS. I tried to obtain your email address as I really would like to be friends and so on, but no success.
If you are willing, my email is: mikhailrimskykorsakov@gmail.com
Thank you, I can't be the only one with this problem, but the sound relativity with muse sounds is terrible. I can't control note velocity and this problem has been known for over a year now. But there are no signs of new development that I can find. I can't afford to get more realistic vsts other than the soundfonts given. It sucks. The most recent post I've seen by open devs is that they are working on getting dynamic markings between piano staves for musescore 4.2 for example. That's great, but the priorities seem out of wack. Now that I've gotten a taste of more realistic sounds, losing the functionality of total velocity control in muse score 3 puts me in an awkward place. If anyone has updates about this issue more recently, let me know, but I don't want to do clumsy workarounds to get the sound I want.
The very existence of DAW midi control is, in itself, the essence of a clumsy work-around... meaning that far more data entry is required to achieve a result than merely composing notation.
I would encourage you to embrace (rather than despise) 'clumsy work-arounds' via notation playback files with altered dynamics, uniquely placed articulations and mixing panel adjustments until a midi level control is formulated. In the analysis, you lose absolutely nothing in time or data entry by doing this vs. composing exclusively to DAW or nuancing playback through midi level controls. The stumbling block is entirely conceptual. The truth is that while you wait for enhancements (in this case, data would really just be deferred to a different control layer) you can make great mockups right now with no loss in energy... so long as you don't view notation as being immovable and sacred in the file that isn't being read by people.
Interesting, though I'd like to hear what your very best efforts sound like. I don't think as I heard the piece at the start that it was anything like as good as an orchestra, or possibly some of the better DAW/Notation efforts. For 99.99% of people I believe you are right. Music from notation is not going to get played. The only chance is to make a mock up and hope that eventually someone will be interested enough to give it to an orchestra. Maybe publishing notation scores could work - someone may eventually notice that a particular score is worth playing, but mostly it isn't going to happen.
I feel that you concentrated too much on "the mix" - mention of compression sounds alarm bells to me. Sure, compression in the right place can help, but too often it's used just to get things to sound loud. That's for commercial reasons. Yet unless compression is done really well, it trashes the sound - both the sound of the individual instruments - and also the dynamic range. Too little emphasis is placed on dynamic range and contrasts - result is boring music with no impact.
One feature of mock ups which you didn't mention or discuss much was reverb or ambience. This can make a difference - particularly for layering. If you want to make instruments sound further away - for example brass at the back or even an off-stage trumpet, then it's no good just reducing the volume level - the sound has to change. If "real" ambience isn't available [i.e.a recording of a distant trumpeter] then artificial reverb can make a difference. That can make a difference to the sound of single instruments, or groups of instruments. Also, finally when the whole mock up is put together convolution ambience can set the whole mix into different [artificial] environments. Sometimes that is worth doing - it may hide mistakes, it may smooth out the sound, but sometimes that is what a creator wants. OTOH if someone wants very precise and jagged attacks and lines, then using mixes with close microphones and very little ambience - either real or artificial - may be the way to go.
One way of overcoming the "your music will never get played" problem is to write for smaller groups, and maybe also be flexible about the scoring. If you write a piece for a small string orchestra with a flute and a clarinet and bassoon, and there isn't a bassoonist, then re-assign the bassoon part - for example to cello and/or double bass. People who are not established are going to have to write for the players who are available, not assume that a full orchestra will be available.
Nowadays also some performances are to an extent enhanced by mixing in live sounds with digital mock ups. If someone knows how to do that, then that could help, but the chances are again that most small ensembles won't be able to do this, or won't have the technical expertise to make it work. In performance it might lack spontaneity, as perhaps the players would have to listen to click tracks, and some of the lines would be set in stone particularly for pre-recorded or pre-programmed sounds, so on the fly adjustments wouldn't work.
Of course if anyone does have success in breaking through and attracting attention, then they may get support, and be able to do better things - use pro musicians, book good halls- have good technical back up, get radio and TV slots and streaming services etc. Most people won't!
Mock ups may help people to get further than they would otherwise be able to.
Is your template or variant of it available anywhere?
I usually just start with the symphonic or classical template and add/subtract as needed. I have a variant of the classical template with expanded brass woodwinds and a standard percussion complement.
"Templates" are usually a much bigger deal in DAW, where one would need layers of articulations.
Better to learn a daw and be a pro there, there is not much reason to stay in the half-way. Use notation as notation . Notation is not performance
I use a DAW, but with all due respect to the vast libraries out there... Musescore 4 and Muse Sounds are eating their lunch. AI notation playback is relatively young and already vastly ahead of the hours required to mock up in MIDI. For the working professional in live recording, it also circumvents the necessary tedious conversion to notation that is required. Certainly, there is no reason to give up DAW work... but I cannot agree that MIDI sequencing is or will be a more efficient way toward realism going forward.
@@carlirwinmusic the best and most realist virtual performances came from daw. Good luck in this new method
@@LearnCompositionOnline the thing that musescore offers that daws simply cant is being free. not to mention no need to learn a brand new software. sure daws are more universally useful, but musesounds is only going to get better, and with minimal time expense to get a good result along with being completely free, the result is well worth it.