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Composing Secrets : 1.Tracks and Instruments

Topic started by rjay (@ 206.152.113.140) on Thu Aug 24 12:45:43 EDT 2000.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Composing Secrets - Tracks and Instruments

Most songs have the following structure:(you can
think of them as parallel tracks)

1. Melody
2. Bass
3. Chord/Accompaniment
4. Drums
5. Percussion

Melody is sung by the singer or could be the
'solo' played by an instrument, when singer
is taking breath. In most music,
melody states the theme of the song/composition
and carries the emotion. All the other tracks
should provide a context to what is says or
reinforce and enhance it.

Human voice, flute, sax, trumpet, and synthetic
sounds serve well as melody instruments.

Drums set the basic pulse and rhythm and there
are many drum kits: acoustic, jazz, techno(used
in ;chandralekha - Thiruda; for example), power
(pottu vaitha kadhal thittam) and many many more.

Bass is usually played by a double bass - huge
violin, plucked like a guitar, or with a guitar
itself. With electronics, synth bass sounds are
generated from keyboard itself(kadalikkum pennin
kaigal - has a wonderful synth bass sound
in its intro.) Slap, Electric, Fretless,
are a few more common sounds. I will get you
recordings of these in isolation.

Accompaniment or backing is usually provided
by piano or guitar class of instruments.
And there are two types: block chords, where
you play the whole chords and hold them,
versus arpeggio and broken chords where
you strike the notes one after another.
In most western music, piano and guitar
are 2 pieces of the five piece orchestra
(voice, piano, guitar, strings, drums)

Strings typically provide counterpoint,
but can also play accompaniment.
My definition, Counterpoint is nothing but alternate melody
which either responds to the lead melody
or plays against it. Examples to follow.

Percussion is the name given by westerners
to all non-western beat instruments! ;)

Shakers, Morocos (chicku chiku) and sticks
and claves and others are examples.

Even bongos (from Africa) and our Tabla are
named percussion, but they are actually
drums because they can play alone and provide
rhythm without the drums.

We can proceed learning in two ways:

(i) We will explore the General midi sounds
128 instruments (16 categories and 8 in each)
and one drum kit. We will take each sound one
by one and learn to identify it and see what
its unique value is and how it has been used
in TFM. I can upload audio demos.

(ii) We can later see the song structure along time
axis (measures) - in terms of intro, theme, break, pallavi
, charanam structure and learn how orchestration
is effectively varied to serve the needs of
the listener at each position.

Basically, tracks and measures are the two
dimensions to understand a composition.

As an aid we can pull apart some famous songs of your choice to see how they are put together. And I can take one of my own compositions and share what thoughts and decisions guided its creation.

Game?
Here is a link to the tutorial that RJay has prepared:
Melody Making Exercise.

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: UV (@ 134.113.4.168) on: Thu May 22 13:19:40 EDT 2003
  
  rjay
  I was thinking about some of things you have written about mind and consciouness
  I was wondering your take on prodigies like mandolin srinivas,seshang,or that little 5yr old girlwho can identify every raga ?!! or mathematician Ramanujam
  anyway I quote something interesting here eventhough necessarily it may belong here
  "The Vedanta speaks of an Absolute, an Infinite and Vedanta proclaims the divinity in- each one of us. This infinite is the source of all knowledge and Srinivas Ramanujm(mathematician) must have some how received his inspiration from this source. Otherwise how can he, who had only secondary education expound such mathematical theories and make the proclamation he did, that baffles the most advanced mathematicians of today. How can it be that he could out of his mind evolve theorems of such profound value that even now decades later, mathematicians are beginning to provide proof to his theorems, using the most sophisticated techniques now available"
  
  hihi/arulacaran?! is gonna hate me for posting this
  I am not or dont want make music making as something mystical but few things that you cant necessarily give a logic or do physcoanalysis
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.122) on: Thu May 22 13:33:18 EDT 2003
  
  hihi:-)
  
  That was a tough question because I read it more than 10 years ago in some cognitive psychology book!
  
  But thanks to Google, I found that more people were intrigued or enticed by that observation so a few references are on the internet:
  
  The original article seems to be:
  Chase W.G.and Simon H.A. (1973)’Perceptions in Chess’, Cognitive Science, 4, pp 55-81
  
  I liked this one:
  http://www.admin.upm.edu.my/~mzbd/expert.html
  
  I will try to track these originals..
  
  
  Chase and
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.122) on: Thu May 22 13:35:39 EDT 2003
  
  The google search I used:
  
  http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=expert+50%2C000+patterns+chase+ericsson
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.122) on: Thu May 22 13:37:24 EDT 2003
  
  I liked this section that emphasizes that genius is hard work:
  
  It is important to be realistic about the amount of time it takes to learn complex subject matter. It has been estimated that world-class chess masters require from 50,000 to 100,000 hours of practice to reach that level of expertise; they rely on a knowledge base containing some 50,000 familiar chess patterns to guide their selection of moves (Chase and Simon, 1973; Simon and Chase, 1973). Much of this time involves the development of pattern recognition skills that support the fluent identification of meaningful patterns of information plus knowledge of their implications for future outcomes (see Chapter 2). In all domains of learning, the development of expertise occurs only with major investments of time, and the amount of time it takes to learn material is roughly proportional to the amount of material being learned (Singley and Anderson, 1989); see Box 3.5. Although many people believe that "talent" plays a role in who becomes an expert in a particular area, even seemingly talented individuals require a great deal of practice in order to develop their expertise (Ericsson et al., 1993).
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.122) on: Thu May 22 13:52:51 EDT 2003
  
  From a composers perspective, patterns could be like the following:
  
  1. Beats: Specific percussion 'loops' to compose against. How many can you recollect or collect?
  
  2. Phrase chandams to tune.
  
  3. Ragams
  
  4. Bands or genres -
  dappanguthu band - melam, urumi, nayanam
  hindustani - tabla, sarangi, sitar, sarod
  katcheri - violin, mrdangam, tavul
  Light music - Congo, strings, accordion, guitar
  Classical - String section, flutes, brass
  Indian folk - dafli, flutes, tumri
  
  5. Situations crying for music
  Love at first sight
  Lost love
  Betrayed
  Winners fanfare
  Poatti paattu
  College farewell
  
  
  ....
  And many more like, Jazz Bigband, Latin, Spanish Bull fight,
  
  
  
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.122) on: Thu May 22 14:00:03 EDT 2003
  
  6. Every instrumentalist has some re-usable patterns -
  licks and riffs in guitar/bass
  chord progressions
  
  I estimate that by the age of 30, a tfm page visitor could have listened to at least 5-8000 songs. 2000 of Raja, 300 of Rahman, 1000-2000 of MSV and 500 hindi let us say.
  
  That gives a rich basis to start studying.
  As we try to play or reproduce this music, you begin to see repetitive patterns.
  
  As you try to describe to others you are forced to label.
  
  Pick 10 patterns or ideas from each of the 5000 songs and you get 50,000 ideas you can reuse.
  
  Let us estimate, how long will it take. If you analyse 2 songs a day, it will take you 6 years.
  
  If you chose the top 500 songs (real hits), it will take you an year at most.
  
  
• From: hihi:-) (@ 128.111.112.46) on: Thu May 22 14:00:55 EDT 2003
  
  rjay: thanks. let me read through the articles.
  
  UV: :-). whether we like it or not every human activity (including consciousness) should be somehow related to electrons and their interactions :-)) . it's just that we (that includes me too) dont want such a reductionist knowledge; (for me it takes the "mu" out of music(k) ).
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.122) on: Thu May 22 14:13:18 EDT 2003
  
  UV,
  
  You are very right, no matter what direction you approach from (Vedanta, Cognitive Psychology)
  each of us does have an all-knowing or at least all-remembering source inside.
  
  The genius that Ramanujam tapped into is the same one tapped into by every kid when aged 1-5, learns language, ideas, expression etc.
  
  My last post linearly calculated 6 to 12 years to become an expert, if you start today. But if your mind awakens and is free from inhibitions, you might do it much faster. Or more you learn, the more easy it is to learn more, because you have the framework and larger and larger patterns you see.
  
  Ilayaraja writes "Karpatharkenru thaniyae neram odhukkiyadhu kidayaadhu. Entha isaiyai kettalum adhil ulla vishayangal thamaga vandhu velippadhuththivittu poyvidum" (Translated: I never had the luxury of allocating specific times to learn. Whenever I listen to any music, all the lessons and ideas from it will automatically reveal it to me.) What is the mindset he is talking about? Is it possible for us to get a glimpse of it? (This is a quote from his Rajangahm article on Hungary trip)
  
  I wondered why he is using a passive voice here -
  things will reveal themselves to me and not I will unravel the mysteries. There is a good reason. When YOU unravel, you the processing mind can only think in terms of the previously known, real learning happens only when you are open and relaxed and new things show themselves to you.
  
  Somewhere in there lies the key!
  
  At the same time, I do not think that all this learning is unconscious, it will be definitely conscious and very analytical, but the top level driver will be relaxed and centered and not goal oriented and short sighted and anxious.
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.122) on: Thu May 22 14:15:05 EDT 2003
  
  Oops, the thread is turning into a 'Secrets of the mind'. Sorry guys!
  
  

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