Unique - For Piano, Trumpet and Audio Manipulation

This is my newest work and I believe that it's one of my best works to date!

The piece is entitled "Unique" for 2 reasons.

I. The WIP piece, along with scores, and the whole process has been posted on the Internet for everyone to view and see how the piece developed, in a sort of a tutorial (altough I wasn't teaching, just logging the details of what was happening in my head). This information can be found here

II. The piece, the recording and the score, in the final version exist in a unique, single copy, to be owned by a dear friend of mine! Everything you get here, scores, mp3s, etc are etiher reduced versions, of the final recording, or incomplete versions, low quality PDF files.

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A few words about the piece, as a philosophical approach.

In most arts we get what is called the single, unique copy: Painting has that, theatre has that, sculpture has that. Music also has that, in a sense that each live performance is unique.

But we listen to music, constantly in recorded form.

So I took the liberty (not only in this piece) to pressume that a recording is a separate art form than music, which holds its own "rules" and aesthetic dictations.

The piece you hear is a COPY, a fraud COPY of a Unique piece of recording and score, in the posession of a dear friend of mine.

Because music IS about communication, I let loose all information about the creation of the piece, and all relative files, only in reduced quality.

Do remember that the art is NOT the music but the RECORDING, instead (which does include what we casually communicate as "music"). Because of that the piece is, unplayable, as it stands in public, unplayable due to acoustic issues, due to electronic tempering, post produced, and disrelative to social features that a live performance would include (every live performance is a social event, which is one of the vast differences between music and recorded music).

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The music can be found here:

HERE (MUSIC)

The score can be found here:

HERE (SCORE)

Feel free to distribute the files, as you see fit. Just credit the author and make sure you mention that the files are copies of the original art form (photocopies if you wish them to be called that).

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EDIT:

Piano: The Garritan Authorized Steinway, pro edition (24-bit samples)

Trumpet: Samplemodeling "The Trumpet" (Kontakt 2 based player)

First 3 pages are filled with doubt whether this is a live recording or not. It's not. It's sample based (even if played live through a midi keyboard)

Nikolas

One of the lessons that new composers need to learn is that composing music takes time.

We all have seen the posts in the forums that say this is something I threw together today. Well, they usually sound like something that has been thrown together.

I have been reading about this project of yours and know of the amount of time you have put into it, so in your post, can you add how many hours you have invested in this so others can see what it takes to put something like this together.

Ron

i like itttttttttt very very much , nothing can be critical to u

dark

by the way , i need to thank you , i am composing a chamber opera which use 5 intruments include trumept and piano , there will very a long section for the them but i am lack of information , it also describe a dragon by trumpet and i want to use atonal on that parts , but i dont have any score to found , however, your music came up , meanwhile i really have no score better than that , so i will study yours music as well

dark

So, just to clarify:

Philosophically, you wanted to create a work which cannot exist in reality due to performance impracticalities, and only exists in full quality in the possession of a single person, your friend? And everyone else gets the 96kbps mono recording? Interesting...

I enjoyed the material, the fast bits are a lot of fun and the slower more thoughtful sections are good too. Someone on Northern Sounds said it reminded them of a lost Miles Davis tape - I sort of got that too.

Must ask: what kind of audio manipulation are we talking about here? Also, am I to understand that isn't in fact a real trumpet? Sounds mighty realistic!

So, just to clarify:

Philosophically, you wanted to create a work which cannot exist in reality due to performance impracticalities, and only exists in full quality in the possession of a single person, your friend? And everyone else gets the 96kbps mono recording? Interesting...

Think of it as a recording from an installation, which doesn't exist anymore. You can't really persist that you have in your hands the original art project, but a poor copy of it.

Think of it as a live performance of music, which has happened in the past, and certainly won't be repeated ever again. You can't claim you have the original art in your hands by a canned version of it, a photocopy.

EDIT: Keep in mind that everyone also gets a poor quality PDF file of the score (not the final score though and without handwritten notes that my friend has), and also the whole course the piece took, with various files, and semi-tutorials in NSS forums. I developed the piece and was feeding it online on the Garritan forums (NSS).

I enjoyed the material, the fast bits are a lot of fun and the slower more thoughtful sections are good too. Someone on Northern Sounds said it reminded them of a lost Miles Davis tape - I sort of got that too.

Must ask: what kind of audio manipulation are we talking about here? Also, am I to understand that isn't in fact a real trumpet? Sounds mighty realistic!

What makes you think it's NOT a live recording btw? I came back to Greece and know many musicians! ;)

Ron, decided to show your post because it makes sense for other people to see it, I think.

It took me around a months total time to work on it, but heavy part-time, due to other gigs I had. As in real hours time I'd say it must've been close to 100-120 hours, at least.

The idea about the uniqueness of the piece is what took much longer and I've had it in my head for many months, in fact probably a whole year before starting off with this piece.

So in terms of how fast I work, I'd say I work rather slow. I just realise stuff very quickly, but it takes time to think them over.

darkangel: Thank you for your kind words. There's plenty of piano pieces here to study, including those of QcCowboy, for example. About trumpet, you could have a go at anything Robin has created (although he plays the trombone), and also check flints works, since he plays all woodwinds (more or less). :)

You are the beast. I like how this project ended, It got its particular personality with the trumpet added. I enjoyed a lot the free improvisation part; It's my favorite. Fun piece to listen Nikolas.

Also Tash said your black and white picture is nice.

Cool idea, Nick, and nice music.

A few things I'd like to add to my praise: I know the idea of this piece is not to perform it again with the score, obviously. However, the are some typesetting issues that you should fix. Example: bar 2, collision with bass clef in piano upper staff.

Good trumpet player.... however I think you should have used a real pianist too. Since this piece has already happened, the only real way for anyone to experience it again is by listening to the recording... and I have issues with the recording. The piano (I'm assuming it's a synth) and the trumpet sound like they were recorded in separate rooms at different times, at best (though of course the synth piano would never really be 'in a room'). I think a bit of post-processing to get the two recordings to match better would help a lot. Saves the trouble of learning the piano part, or paying someone else to.

Some of the trumpet writing is really hard.... but your guy managed *most* of it, so kudos to him. Probably the least convincing bit was the long 'wavy line', where he started playing a half-valve glissando, but basically gave up very quickly. That sounded a wee bit weak.

Overall I really liked this. The rhythmic, driving bits, and the more heavily electronic stuff in the middle were great.

interesting piece, somewhat disjunct (electronics sound a bit too random, but maybe that was the goal). trumpet and piano play neat together. somewhat dark and grotesque mood you have here.

rich stuff.

I must say I don't fully understand the point of this piece... You've created an incredibly hard piece of music, and the recording doesn't really seem to do it justice. The trumpet writing is fantastically hard, and the piano writing is very complex. I love the actual music though - some great moments you have here. Overall, I'm perplexed and impressed at the same time. Could you, however, maybe go into a little more detail about how you conceived this idea (and what it is supposed to contribute to music)? Thx!

Cool idea, Nick, and nice music.

A few things I'd like to add to my praise: I know the idea of this piece is not to perform it again with the score, obviously. However, the are some typesetting issues that you should fix. Example: bar 2, collision with bass clef in piano upper staff.

Damnit! New Finale 2009, was giving me trouble. This is what you get if you're using a new update (which you haven't updated your software for 10 whole years! :D)

Thanks for spoting it. I will fix that.

Keep in mind that the score can be performed, and there's nothing that can make anyone stop from performing it (maybe except the fact that it's very difficult...). So while the idea is fixed on the recording as the art medium, as opposed to any music which gets performed again and again, still I wouldn't mind at all getting people to perform this. But keep in mind that the recording contains other things and sounds which are not reproducable in a live setting (not impossible, but... very difficult).

Good trumpet player.... however I think you should have used a real pianist too. Since this piece has already happened, the only real way for anyone to experience it again is by listening to the recording... and I have issues with the recording. The piano (I'm assuming it's a synth) and the trumpet sound like they were recorded in separate rooms at different times, at best (though of course the synth piano would never really be 'in a room'). I think a bit of post-processing to get the two recordings to match better would help a lot. Saves the trouble of learning the piano part, or paying someone else to.

Also, I'm the pianist in the recording, the piano is played live, not sure what you mean.

Also I'm teasing you a lot about who played what and what is live and what is not. I'm a bastard I know... :whistling:

Some of the trumpet writing is really hard.... but your guy managed *most* of it, so kudos to him. Probably the least convincing bit was the long 'wavy line', where he started playing a half-valve glissando, but basically gave up very quickly. That sounded a wee bit weak.

Overall I really liked this. The rhythmic, driving bits, and the more heavily electronic stuff in the middle were great.

Nuy011: Groah! (<-beast sound! :D). I guess I am the beast (no idea what you mean here). Yup, I'm also loving the electronic bits in the middle (note, it's NOT the middle man! :D). And Tash is right. If only I could also loose a few kilos that would be more awesome! Tell here she's very sweet! ^_^

Pilorius: I do tend to agree that it seems a little disjoined, but I always had in my mind that the 'final' product would be a recording, so I allowed myself to do whatever I wanted. Maybe volume/gain issues would help, dunno, but still. The piece has 3 distinct layers and the piece is, as you say, rather dark (and aggressive I'd say, but in a dark 'hardcore' kind of way).

I must say I don't fully understand the point of this piece... You've created an incredibly hard piece of music, and the recording doesn't really seem to do it justice. The trumpet writing is fantastically hard, and the piano writing is very complex. I love the actual music though - some great moments you have here. Overall, I'm perplexed and impressed at the same time. Could you, however, maybe go into a little more detail about how you conceived this idea (and what it is supposed to contribute to music)? Thx!

Not 100% sure what you don't like about the recording. :-/

I played some of the best piano of my life in there (!!). If you actually compare the recording to a possibility of a live performance, I'll dissapoint you: You probably won't get that.

The idea came to me around a year ago in Windsor (Berkshire in the UK), where I was strolling with my wife and two kids. We walked into a gallery and saw many many "signed copies" from well known artists. So I thought that those bloody artists are actually trying to reproduce their art, while music is doing only that. Why not reverse plays for once? Along with my grudges against recordings (or what people perceive as music, when it's only recording), and thinking that if we think about it, 99% of music is circulated via recordings and the net, or digital means by now, I thought that I would strive to create: a recording. Not music in the traditional sense.*

Something which is plainly obvious in pop music, seems outright bizzare in concert hall music: Go to a studio and do your best to create the best and most shinning recording. In classical music we sit in our room, do the manuscripts, think how they will be played, if they are hard, or impossible to be performed (see that there are comments in this thread about how hard the piece is), acoustic issues, how to have the instruments in the same room, etc. We forget that we have all kinds of different choices in the studio.

So my contribution to the music (concert hall world)? Play for the recordings! Strive to create a new art form. Cinema came from theatre and phtography from painting. Yet both, even if they are reproducable to millions, are considered separate arts (photos and cinema I mean). Why not music? Why on earth aren't there zillions of DVDs showing theatrical plays? (because it's completely lame). Why isn't the picture of the painting sold? (because it's not true art). Why is music not being sold when all they do is recording live performances? OH WAIT! IT DOES! THE WHOLE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS BASED TO THAT!

Well... Enough for my little rant and thank you for listening.

Nikolas

* Keep in mind that I'm not the only one with such an idea. JEan Michel Jarre also did something like this with his "Musique pour la Supermarche" (single copy (vinyl back then), sold to a single owner, next day the whole record played in an AM bad (very low quality, lower that the 96 kbits mono I'm giving you! :D)

Ahh Nick, sorry! I had thought the piano was done with Pianoteq, and was just done very well. Kudos to you for playing the thing!

Btw, the bass clef collision wasn't the only problem. If you're printing it, I'd check through the whole thing again to make sure it's just right.

Yeah, I thought it was all synthetic too, reason being I saw Nik talking about trumpet samples somewhere on the Northern Sounds thread.

That's some nice piano playing. Good for stress relief I imagine! :D

Just listening through the piece again, I'm really loving the bit just over halfway through where those sort of "whhhhumm" audio manipulation sounds come through. Cool stuff...

Ahh Nick, sorry! I had thought the piano was done with Pianoteq, and was just done very well. Kudos to you for playing the thing!

Heh... Thanks. It's actually less difficult than it seems, if you grasp the rhythm. It's a matter of more energy, which would, normally be lacking in most classical pianists I think (since it lends itself a little towards jazz, I think! Robin?)

Btw, the bass clef collision wasn't the only problem. If you're printing it, I'd check through the whole thing again to make sure it's just right.

Being silly mostly (cause I don't really believe it): These errors are part of what makes that copy of the score unique. The rest scores will be clinically clean. Errors are also a part of the process, and considering we are talking about a recording and not music which is based on a score, I'd say that the score is a tiny bit less important. (Honestly I don't exactly buy that. It seems like a cheap excuse of sorts, but I do have to try and excuse everything, in practice for my viva! :D hahaha!)

Mike: It's one of the pieces that I don't mind listening again and again. Please note that I, myself, only have the mono recording now! I didn't exclude myself from keeping a secret copy somewhere. Project files are lost, Finale files are lost (which also brings me to the question: WTF?!?!?! will I do to correct any errors. Let's hope the Finale score is on my laptop as well... :S Geezz... Why on earth I have so many bizzare ideas? To make my life more difficult?)

And yes, the electronics part after the middle are totally awesome, I agree! :w00t:

Wow Nik, I've got to hand it to you. You continually prove yourself to stay as my favorite composer on this site! This was bloody fantastic! Awesome trumpet player too, as well as the piano :D. I'll edit this post when I have more time to listen since I'm stuck with very little time for this site right now, but I'll PM you when I do :)

Great job man, and as always I look forward to hearing your latest works!

Vince

First, I want to say, that was bloody brilliant (as you know, since so many have said it already). But I'm genuinely curious about this, and have been for a long time. I'll chalk this up as my inexperience, but when you're sitting at a piano, and you write this, how do you notate it? These seemingly random strings of notes that are played so fast that they can barely be conceived, how do you play them and then go "all right. *writes A B C D# D E F# G E## F# G Z S D Q*" If you wish to delete this and reply in PM, that would be fine, as I don't want to derail your thread with my question, but I am curious.

I thoroughly enjoyed the piece, and the whole concept is very intriguing. Congratulations.

Vince, my long follower! :D Thanks for your kind words.

Ziggy: I'm not 100% on what you are asking, and there's no problem in derailing the thread (slightly). You mean composing wise? You mean notation wise? You mean inspiration of the melody?

In general the "how fast" whilst composing does not matter really, since I sit on the manuscript... and compose. Keep in mind that most of my pieces are composed without the aid of the piano, so it's only me and my pencils. If I compose something on the piano, I've played it a lot of times, so probably know it by heart. But it's a matter of dicte

Ahhh Nick (Nik? Nic?) ... I also didn't realize the piano part wasn't synth... that's what I had trouble grasping in the recording - it seemed not fitting with the idea of the piece that the piano part would be synthesized. Also, I thought the part was impossible and anyone playing it would sound like crap - your amazing performance confused me, that's all!! ;)

The main issue I had with the recording was the trumpet player - he seemed to do well with the high notes and all the technical stuff, but the improvisation was lacking greatly, I felt. I liked your squiggly lines, although I usually disagree with outlining improvisation at all (but that's just me).

I understand the piece a lot more now, after your response to me! I see what you were going for, it's a great idea, very poignant in this day and age. I have no more to say! You are a gem of a composer, very 'unique' (;)) and totally one of the best on this site.

Ahhh Nick (Nik? Nic?) ... I also didn't realize the piano part wasn't synth... that's what I had trouble grasping in the recording - it seemed not fitting with the idea of the piece that the piano part would be synthesized. Also, I thought the part was impossible and anyone playing it would sound like crap - your amazing performance confused me, that's all!! ;)

Heh... I'm flattered now...

I actually was bugging my wife to come and get a video performance of the piano part, but the last minute failures were too much so I decided to quit on the idea. :-/ But it is me playing, I promise that.

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Time issues got into the impros, although I did allow the impro (after the middle) to be "whatever", only because I would bust the shite out of the audio files either way, so I didn't really mind. I know that I'm betraying the performance now, but in all truth since it is a recording and all that, I'm allowed to do that, no? :whistling:

EDIT: Dear friends at home call me Nikolas. Over the Internet most people call me Nikolas, but people who come closer to me (over the net) tend to make it Nick/Nik/Nic. So whatever really! :D

Well I loved the more energetic parts and rising chromatic lines as well as the pungent seconds between piano and trumpet. The bravura writing of both piano and trumpet parts were very enjoyable - I loved the juicy jazzy chords (something I'd like to write) and how the higher sustained notes once in awhile take a moment for the pitch to set. As for the electronic sounds I am unsure of - they seem more in the way as one commenter mentioned.

You may laugh but the piano ad lib part reminded me a little of the end of the Chopin Fantasie-Impromptu with the repeating piano figures and the trumpet taking on the slower melody (in fact in a similar range as Chopin does in his Fantasie-Impromptu). Was a lovely section.

Around mm 74- 81 - it just seemed either the accompaniment or the melodic line would have benefited from a more varied and jagged contour that becomes smoother and more even - in fact you seem to be doing something like that in the coda - I would have liked to hear more development of the slower and more lyrical sections.

Question part around mm 39- 41 I barely heard the A's below middle C in the trumpet part. Does this stem from the fact it is an "imperfect copy " of the recording?

BTW - I hope the dear friend who has the ideal recording is the trumpeter - you made him or her WORK!!!

Last - I think this piece deserves to be a trumpet concerto or possibly a double concerto for piano and trumpet - you have all the material Nikolas and I think with a larger worker you'd have more time to integrate the electronic manipulations. Think about because I think it would be a fantastic work.

Composerorganist: Fair enough (about the electronic sounds). It could be that you're listening to a lousy version, while the clean version sounds... magnificent to me (I know that it's not much of a comment, but anyhow). As I said, I based my aesthetics to this work of art being a recording and did whatever the *ell I wanted to pretty much ,striving away from the concert hall objectives for a while.

I'm not laughing I can hear the influence very much so. In fact there was another small part which went towards Debussy (but very very close) and I got it cut (took me a while to fix things to sound ok...).

Yes I do stick to the piano melody very very closely, but on purpose, sort of. The very small variations and the doublings make all the difference I needed there. :)

Finally the low A is not heard, prolly because of my mistake: How on earth would I expect a trumpet to sound clearly so low, when the piano is ravising?

I also think that you are right. There's plenty of material for more works (or a trumpet concerto), only that I've swore to keep the material intact, for my friend (who is a flutist and does NOT play the trumpet, btw).

Well Nikolas -

Oh, let me clarify the electronic sounds. I think they are gorgeous too. But I want to hear these sounds developed and heardmore often, that is why I think you consider taking some of the thematic material and rework into new material because I think you could have a MAJOR MAJOR work - a triple concerto for Trumpet/Piano and Electronics. Now that would be quite a bold piece although within a more conservative tradition.

As it stands it is quite enjoyable.