Keytard

You can listen to and/or download it here Pat Coffey on purevolume™

Pat Coffey on purevolume Weird Tune.mid

Thanks Gardener. The idea behind the second piano is that the listener knows its there, there is however meant to be a certain amount of blend between them. I have many different piano patches, but used the exact same ones so that I could get that blend when piano 2 comes across piano 1's range. I like your thoughts about piano placement. I am primarily a recording artist, in that I record everything I write often as I write it, so I tend to forget about live performance. Now that I do think about it, placing the pianos right next to each other but, with the performers have their backs to one another. That would allow the sounds to blend at times, but create a visual independence.

I couldn't seem to make a PDF will Finale Notepad, but I have the MIDI. I also have a screenshot of the Reason file* open, I include it because it would work very well as a graphic score. I captures my gestures in a way that I really like. The shirt I wear in my pic is a James Ready shirt, its a Canadian beer. *I record in Reason 4. I have tried to upload the reason file, but it wouldn't allow me to. I could post it with something like sendspace or another free server if anybody is interested. Clusters in C Minor.mid

Ahh, no problem.

Thanks pliorius, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Which controller do you have? The Edirol or the M-Audio? I could upload a MIDI if that would be helpful.

I think that piano sound itself has a lot to do with the spooky sound. Its also fairly dissonant. Its really good though. When I listen to it, I get a very clear imagine in my mind of the creepy children playing innocently with their sand castles. Could you post a score?

Sorry, I misread your other post. No problem. What I meant was that there is little dynamic change, and that the dynamic change that is there sounds more like you changed the track volume in the recording, than actual lighter playing. I'm not sure whether you intended that, I'm just wondering. I like your comment about the software. When I think about it, thats true of any good quality music software.

The first movement was a little bland, but the second two were very cool. I really liked the unpredictable percussion part. Also the samples used in the last movement were nice. Overall, a good use of dissonance and consonance. It maintained a mostly soft/consonant feel, so the few moments of dissonance were well conceived. Aside from the first movement, its a really good work.

Generally a soft synth is any computer generated sound (even when its a piano patch, and not a moog or something). I thought it was something like fruity loops. I've listened to it again, and I find the dynamic range to be small. What dynamic range is there sounds like a volume change in the output, and not lighter playing. Was that intentional? Or was that software holding you back?

Its spooky. I think it would make fantastic film music. I really see a moving picture. The colours are very dark though, lots of blues, greys, and blacks. Its like in a horror movie when they show a child doing something rather innocent, but the child is evil so the scene is accompanied by music like this.

This is a piece for 2 pianos. Its in C, but I make extensive use of tone clusters. The harmony is not functional, its gestural. Piano 1 is a simple melody (D-Bb-A-Bb). For piano 2, I simply hit record and played whatever came to me (with the only the use of gestures, and tonal centre C, planned ahead of time). You can listen to/download the song here Pat Coffey on purevolume Clusters.MUS

That was interesting. I was going to comment about it being static, but that seems to have been your intent. The sounds were very cool though. What soft synths do you use?