Little Mouse Run

Has it been 5 months since my last post?! Been rather busy between work and other non-musical project. Last week - ok, something this month - I discovered Symphony Pro, a very nice app that runs on tablets. It's great, as I can just curl up in bed before I sleep and write some melody fragments out.

Last Sunday, I took the time to write this short piece for string quartet, sequenced most of it on Tuesday, then finally got around to mix and apply the finishing touches to it.

Lamenting Calculus

Slowly getting back into my hobbies.

Spring Snow

A short piece I wrote for my orchestration class :)

Harmonies of Snow

This piece took forever to sequence and mix. I need pancakes.

Sonata for Harpsichord, Flute and Oboe

Short piece I wrote last weekend, and sequenced with DP8. After lots of consideration, it's likely I will just move to Logic Pro X, mainly for cost reasons. From the viewpoint of a hobbyist, the crossgrade price for DP8 is (at the time of this writing) $395, versus 199 for Logic Pro X.

DP8's features, which are just simply awesome like the score and midi editing tools. The reshape tool is a thing of beauty. The sad fact of the matter is also this: I'm not a professional. The various tools are really well designed for the professional composer, and it's really overkill for me.

In addition, LPX _should_ be much easier to manage and use, and I do really miss some Logic plugins :)

Maybe if things change one day I'll definitely revisit DP8.

As a side note, I had mucho help from Patrick Woo for his critique of my mix. I'll be sure to include your comments into more mixes in the future!

Sonata for Harpsichord and Flute

Haven't been sequencing stuff as I've been working on short exercises. Here's a culmination of my efforts :3

Quiet Steps

A piece for string quartet :)

A Short Diversion: Presto

Very pleased with the outcome of this section, learned lots. I am moving on to study a quartet piece by Hadyn next.

A Short Diversion: Andante

Continued studies on Mozart's Divertimento in F, K138, Andante Section.

A Short Diversion: Allegro

Updated this piece to include stronger harmony - there were many open fifths or just all 4 players playing the same note.

Also rewrote the last 8 bars of the piece. The original was an attempt to utilize secondary dominants, but I find it very difficult to work in a rigid pre-laid out harmony. Instead, with the update I write something more melodic and allowed the harmony to follow through.

The mix has also been altered to reflect a smaller hall, using the Schubertsaal impulses in Vienna Suite.

A Short Diversion

A short piece, which took almost 2 weeks to complete, spending over an hour a day.

This is thanks to the book I'm currently reading, "Music in the Eighteenth Century" by John Rice. Inside was some discussion about the learned style vs galant style, so I've decided to explore it.

The piece is a study of Mozart's Divertimento In F, K138. I've borrowed lots of elements from the Allegro section.

VSL Solo Strings, VI Pro and Vienna Suite seem to be really good!

Valse des Renards

A short waltz for string quartet. VSL Solo Strings here, with Vienna Suite and TB Barricade+Reelbus.

Melody/Sequencing Pratice

My teacher thought I should move on to a new subject, but not in the middle of a move, so for my last lesson before I move to Montreal, I'm just working on some melody and sequencing practice.

Fugue No. 6

6th Fugue practice, this one has a much shorter subject, and the answer is now properly in the dominant key. Some parts are a very difficult stretch and probably not playable on keyboard... also I think the ending of the fugue should be in the tonic key but I candenced in the dominant.

Fugue No. 5 rendered

Trying out some experiments with splitting the treble clef and bass clef into two separate midi files, and using the stereo panner to place the treble more to the right and the bass more to the left. The result is then piped to the reverb. Hope it works!

Fugue No. 5

Oooook getting long. But yet it doesn't take that long to write nowadays...

Fugue No. 4

Midi from Finale opened in Logic. The VI in question is Pianoteq, with some compression and a limiter.

Fugue No. 4

Fugue No. 3

Fugue No. 2

This time, the counter-subject is properly harmonized with the subject - unlike last week's which had octaves :D