State of the ArtTatum

I'm Sure you are all familiar with Art Tatum. This Piece is a tribute to him inspired by

the movie "R A Y".I did not improvise, but composed it & it is a sort of intense jazz

invention as perhaps some contrapunctist like BACH would have interpreted jazz.:angry:

I'm Sure you are all familiar with Art Tatum. ...I did not improvise, but composed it & it is a sort of intense jazz

invention ...

Honestly, I don't get it.

You didn't compose anything....there's nothing there.

*listens to some of your other "compositions" and starts to understand*

Sorry to be dark on you, but random plink-plank-plonkings do not a composition make.

Some interesting runs and some of it sounds like tatum but most of it sounds like a bunch of notes to me. Maybe if you posted a live recording? ;)

The composition is interesting; I don't agree that it's just random notes. But I'm not sure what your point is. Neither this piece nor the Bach Jazzer is playable on any instrument that I'm aware of, so we're left with an electronic representation. That being the case, why don't you come up with a finished electronic version that sounds the way you want it to sound? By leaving it midi, your piece is at the mercy of the individual listener's computer. On my computer your piece sounds like it's being performed on a cheezy $10 keyboard. If you convert it to an MP3 we'll be able to tell what you have in mind for this song.

I honestly am confused, i own a vista inspiron 531s pc, i compose using noteworthy composer program, i have a standard soundcard, & i configure my computer with reverb parking lot. if this clarifies some things, please let me know. i await your hopefully illuminating correspondance......

... [blah, blah, blah nonsense] ... if this clarifies some things, please let me know.

'fraid not.

...anyway...since you obviously put no effort into this "composition", I'll put little into this "discussion".

Bye!

A midi file is not recording of your piece. It is merely a bundle of information that tells other computers how to reproduce your piece--what pitches to play, how long to hold the pitches, what sounds to use, etc. The key here is "what sounds to use." My computer can use only those sounds that it has stored on it. Your computer may be playing your piece back with a very nice piano sound, but my computer doesn't have that particular sound, so it substitutes something that it thinks is close. It isn't. And it sounds cheezy.

See if you can save or export your file to MP3. Failing that, try to save your file as an AIFF (if using a Mac) or WAV (if using a PC). There is freeware on the internet that you can use to convert these files to MP3s.

Glenn, perhaps you could do me the favor of posting what state of the art tatum sounds like in your computer as an mp3, it should then be a simple matter to track down

the anomali, the misconception.

Sorry, but I don't know how to do that. I'm not sure it's possible.

Maybe if you upload the nothworthy file, someone can export it to mp3. Not me atleast, but maybe someone else.

Why would you bother!? It's just going to sound as incoherent and aimless as it does in the MIDI.

:whistling:

I'm Sure you are all familiar with Art Tatum. This Piece is a tribute to him inspired by

the movie "R A Y".I did not improvise, but composed it & it is a sort of intense jazz

invention as perhaps some contrapunctist like BACH would have interpreted jazz.:angry:

omg it sounds like my computer when it gets angry at me for loading up too many virtual instruments. I'm sorry maybe i'm a pleb but I don't get it :-S

Maybe i shouldn't go thru the trouble, but i was under the impression that all pc's

produced the same general midi instrument timbre, unless my realtek high definition

audio soundcard produces more a descent output than others. There's a software called

midiview, inexpensive, & is a midi player like noteworthy player, but it has a mild reverb

quality to it which makes midis,specially piano kompos sound a lot better. What you can

do is download it without buying it,run it,import my midi & at least hear the difference in

sound.

What can i say, I am an extremely eccentric composer who satirizes(or at least gives one

the impression)academic rules in general with much daring freedom of innovation breaking

away from the traditional forms leading to a new perspective though not disregarding

doctrinal musical diciplines altogether for as a true composer not only must one

observe the foundations, but also breakaway from the constraints of the past!

Music is a shapeless sculpture with all the possible compositions in the infinite arranged

executively & infinitely with a certain universal logic & immaculate beauty. What a

beautiful sculpure! No insult intended, but that is my view & philosophy!

Is it supposed to be that fast?

And it has zero swing to it. In Art Tatum's time, for it to be jazz, it did 'have' to swing. It was idiosyncratically part of jazz.

Also, I'm sure most of us have some basic DAW knowledge and can sequence your midi, no need to download programs that play midi with reverb. Let me do it for you.

Ok. So what I did, was run it through GPO as a VST in Ableton Live. I shifted all of the velocity down to which is about a mezzoforte. Tatum usually played a strict mezzoforte, and this allowed the accents to when he smacked chords and started his phrases to be even more pronounced. (The midi was compiled at a constant '110' in midi velocity, that's out of 127 (127 being sFFFF))

I slowed it down from 180bpm to 120bpm, so some of it is intelligible.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/83uj23

It's still very mechanical, because there is zero dynamics. Simply the one flat rate of 60 I lowered it to, so you're not hitting getting the 'keys hit with a sledgehammer' sound.

I used to write music like this! Except not nearly as fast.

Then I realized not many people can enjoy this kind of music. So I stopped.

There is no swing at all; Art Tatum, being a jazz artist, made heavy use of the swing rhythm. I also see no resemblance to Bach at all. Ridiculous.

Maybe i shouldn't go thru the trouble, but i was under the impression that all pc's

produced the same general midi instrument timbre, unless my realtek high definition

audio soundcard produces more a descent output than others. There's a software called

midiview, inexpensive, & is a midi player like noteworthy player, but it has a mild reverb

quality to it which makes midis,specially piano kompos sound a lot better. What you can

do is download it without buying it,run it,import my midi & at least hear the difference in

sound.

A terrible reverb isn't going to come close to making it sound better. I play around with a lot of midi for fun (especially the midi.xp stuff meant for the Yamaha Disklavier system), and even a good sample isn't really needed to sound close, if the performance is realistic enough.

I could outline this by using GPO's Steinway Grand patch. My GPO is from 2004, and the thing can sound pretty rough at times. But it'll still sound fairly good if I run one of the performances Oscar Peterson sequenced himself.

You don't notice the lack of reverb when you're lost in the performance as well.

What can I say, I am an extremely eccentric composer who satirizes academic rules, (or at least gives one the impression that I do so) in general with much daring freedom of innovation breaking

away from the traditional forms leading to a new perspective though not disregarding

doctrinal musical diciplines altogether for as a true composer not only must one

observe the foundations, but also breakaway from the constraints of the past!

Music is a shapeless sculpture with all the possible compositions in the infinite arranged

executively & infinitely with a certain universal logic & immaculate beauty. What a

beautiful sculpure! No insult intended, but that is my view & philosophy!

When making self-stylized glorifying remarks, please, at least leave us with the impression you know an inkling of grammar. You attempted to justify your composition, (and your lack of knowledge concerning the use of contemporary composition tools) with an unintelligible ramble, whose content, after crafting a translation, was pseudo-poetic and pathetic at best.

The response you gave illustrates the lack of understanding you have of your own composition, and your own musical philosophy. It does so to a degree much greater than anyone of us could possibly have explained. You sound (post translation) like you're regurgitating something an acolyte of John Cage might have once said, but you are missing the purpose of this point. Not only are you not satirizing or breaking any rules, you're just hitting random notes, with some major sevenths. The only doctrine it breaks from is that of common sense. It is no longer doctrine in today's classroom, but it is situations like this that prove it should be.

My conclusion? You're lazy. You're too lazy to study the fundamental 'rules' you're breaking (satirizing you called it? No one is laughing). Too lazy to learn to use fairly intuitive contemporary composition tools correctly; you're even too lazy to correctly type you're hacked together philosophy that only exists to support your ego and justify such senseless ideas.

A terrible reverb isn't going to come close to making it sound better. I play around with a lot of midi for fun (especially the midi.xp stuff meant for the Yamaha Disklavier system), and even a good sample isn't really needed to sound close, if the performance is realistic enough.

I could outline this by using GPO's Steinway Grand patch. My GPO is from 2004, and the thing can sound pretty rough at times. But it'll still sound fairly good if I run one of the performances Oscar Peterson sequenced himself.

You don't notice the lack of reverb when you're lost in the performance as well.

When making self-stylized glorifying remarks, please, at least leave us with the impression you know an inkling of grammar. You attempted to justify your composition, (and your lack of knowledge concerning the use of contemporary composition tools) with an unintelligible ramble, whose content, after crafting a translation, was pseudo-poetic and pathetic at best.

The response you gave illustrates the lack of understanding you have of your own composition, and your own musical philosophy. It does so to a degree much greater than anyone of us could possibly have explained. You sound (post translation) like you're regurgitating something an acolyte of John Cage might have once said, but you are missing the purpose of this point. Not only are you not satirizing or breaking any rules, you're just hitting random notes, with some major sevenths. The only doctrine it breaks from is that of common sense. It is no longer doctrine in today's classroom, but it is situations like this that prove it should be.

My conclusion? You're lazy. You're too lazy to study the fundamental 'rules' you're breaking (satirizing you called it? No one is laughing). Too lazy to learn to use fairly intuitive contemporary composition tools correctly; you're even too lazy to correctly type you're hacked together philosophy that only exists to support your ego and justify such senseless ideas.

Im going to have to agree with Krsyztof. Your desperate attempt to be more original then anyone else leaves you no where.

And what is really sad is that your music, much like most of the music of the 60's avant garde movement you seem to imitate, will end with you.

I did post a response before but it got deleted. I don't think we all mind taking our time to provide criticism for anyone's work. This is a pretty good community and people generally don't s**t on people's work, but provide some constructive feedback. However, your attitude is a real turn off and makes it really difficult to be positive. Please stop trying to be too clever. My advice; start with simple and plain in both your writing and your English and maybe we will start to understand where you are coming from. Arrogance is just bound to attract contempt.

I personally wouldn't be quite as harsh. I enjoyed moments of the piece, albeit in Krsyztof's slowed down version...

Which leads me to my next point, what is the idea of the piece? Do you want in electronic and ridiculously fast? What's your idea? Other people have asked this question, but you haven't answered it.

Other than that, what you have written, although I like how some of it sounds, doesn't work as a piece. It's incoherent. It might be pretty good, if you made it into a piece, added a little structure. This kind of stream of conciousness thing is, as others have pointed out, the the easy road to creating music, and nowhere near the best road.

Another thing, though it's not really that important: this isn't jazz. Just because it was inspired by Art Tatum, doesn't make it jazz.

Finally, it's quite silly to call yourself eccentric, daring and innovative, and then compose music that you think will reflect that. If you compose complicated music, then others will call you daring and innovative, but at least you will have been focused on the music instead of on your eccentric image, which is what this composition sounds like.