Playing style.. playing with dynamism, expression

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Mon Mar 18, 2002 6:27 pm

While the other thread farts away, here's another thing that I think about alot lately.

I'm no big time band player, but I do lots of keyboards and consider myself a keyboard player. Now, I've recently overlooked my playing style on the synth and realised that much of it is linear and flat. Not the kind of dynamism I'd get from a real piano or any other real instrument.

With synths, it's so easy to just bang and record, and then fiddle with dynamics and EQ later. Heck, I think that's the way it's supposed to be used. But as a result, you enter the multitrack, ACID paradigm. You turn samples/tracks/loops on and off or fade in and out at best. To bring out the structure of the tune, you add or take samples, or tweak effects. That's that, it's one way of doing things.

But considering playing style, it does leave me wondering. Ideally, all parts could be in there all the time, but with more dynamism and expression. When some part is doing something musically important, the rest sort of fades in playing, not in terms of mixing. Fading by lightening touch, decreasing harmonic complexity, taking things slower.. As opposed to just disappearing, like with the acid paradigm. If the content had that kind of dynamic expression, you get better continuity. (of course, if that's where the tune is heading)

Then, that coupled with the dynamism you bring out during the mixing phase, would make things more dramatic. It's simple stuff.. I think everyone knows and operates under these ideas.. but it's a feeling that's easy to forget.

It's easy to get in the habbit of depending on sonic content, sonic texture to show structure. I dunno, it's a hard line to draw.. part of playing style does affect sonic content.. but not like mixing.. ahh ya know what I'm gettin' at.

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Mon Mar 18, 2002 6:36 pm

I guess I'm just saying there should be more between "ripping the keys" and "not being there".. something like a "sorta there" stage of playing.. yeah, I think that's a bit clearer.

BTW, it's kind of wierd replying to my own post.. hehe.

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Mon Mar 18, 2002 6:59 pm

An almost perfect description of what moral dilemnae we lonely studio guys go through every day when trying to finish a tune. The beauty of music is even more resplendant when the execution is done by multiple players, don't you think? We can sequence bass lines, drums, keys, guitars. But if the notes all come from the same person, after a while the finished product seems to become sterile. I know I am feeling the severity of isolation inside my 4 walls and I'm screaming to get out....

_________________
Paul R. Martin

I think I may get the hang of this after all!

[ This Message was edited by: paulrmartin on 2002-03-18 19:00 ]

eliam · Post by **eliam** » Mon Mar 18, 2002 8:13 pm

Paul, be at peace, and pass your commands to the Cosmic Mind. It always responds, as long as the demands are constructive.

Ken- I think I can partly understand what you mean, because making music in front of a computer screen is sort of unnatural, and for me, the only means to have it sound like a band or orchestra is to imagine that I'm everyone in the band at the same time... It's not that difficult, it's just a switch in perspective which permits to visualize a musical ensemble as a single entity and examine each element in relation with the whole. It requires training, but then we become the composer/orchestrator/director/interpret. Kind of feeling like God ruling over it's creation, without rebellion, cause notes don't have a free will of their own (at least not like us!)
About filtering, it makes the whole difference when it comes to create a tonal direction in relation with the dynamics inside a partition, whatever it is. Attack filtering and low-pass filtering are the key to create an organic texture within our musical composition. I wrote a whole thread around these concepts and I'm about to resume the lessons in the STS discussion area.

Au revoir!

Post by **garyb** » Tue Mar 19, 2002 1:17 am

it's all good as long as the piece of music works,tho i agree,these days,music is not always too deep.........and expression is rather limited.(by the modular nature of the "acid paradigm")
too much of anything can be bad.the main problem about a thing like acid is that it really narrows the realm of "acceptable" sounds since the same exact ones are constantly recycled.expression must suffer in that scenario.makes the guy paying to get work done (ad execs 'n' record co accountants) happy tho.they know that they'll get something that sounds like that other thing that they wished that they owned because it'll have the same building blocks.the mcdonalds theory of market acceptance.absolute conformity.i like things from scratch.(o.k. o.k. i like a good loop too!)

it's all tools,
as in every time it still takes a good operator.
it's much easier for the talentless to ape talent if everything is already formated.
a brave new world.

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2002-03-19 01:21 ]

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Tue Mar 19, 2002 3:34 am

Paulmartin! You know how I feel! Maybe I should get a band. I do jam once in a little while, but these days with most of my friends having day jobs, it's really hard to get together. Especially when "fiends" live 2, 3 hours away.. Tokyo is a BIG city! So maybe it's that vibe I'm missing. It's something you definitely can't create with yourself. But I guess we have a global vibe going on with Nestor's experiment.

Eliam-The sample optimising sure does help.. Something I need to spend more time with I guess. I dunno, I guess the old fasioned composer still lives in me that thinks composing should be more about creating an atmosphere through performance technique, not as much post production knob tweaking and filter animation. I'm always oscilating in between.. Other times I feel like doing acid blocks.. I guess it's just that urge I get when I do something too many times. Great way to keep my balance perhaps.

Garyb-Macdonalds.. hehe, never heard of such a comparison, but it's true. It's sad because many times the building blocks let the untalented, "ape" talent.. Much easier than what it was before. And of course the idiot A&R people will be happy. (there are some very understanding ones too, tho)

Anyway, I'm just having this phase of "rethink what I think my music should be" because I've got this HUGE composing project coming up next month.. 20-25 minute piece for a theater performance that goes from ethnic orch (like that samurai piece I did), hiphop, electro.. I need to get myself straight before I do something that big.

Sorry to take you guy's time with my personal gibberish, but then again, these are good things any composer thinks about.

Post by **garyb** » Tue Mar 19, 2002 10:03 am

cool gig!
o.t. how's tokyo? my stepson's in japan teaching english.(that's a laugh)

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Sat Mar 23, 2002 6:51 pm

Very interesting indeed!

First of all, just a question to Ken: How can you right such a good English, are you bilingual or something like that?

Well, it's funny but I agree with you all! With Ken when he writes: “we need more dynamism, expression” this is SO important. With Paul when he writes: “we are lonely studio guys” desperate to share with other musicians and experience feelings of real time playing, at least three people together. I absolutely agree with Eliam when he writes: “imagine that I'm everyone in the band at the same time... It's not that difficult, it's just a switch in perspective which permits to visualize a musical ensemble”. With Garyb when he said “it's all good as long as the piece of music works”.

One of the many points we could talk about is why do we spend so much time learning software instead of learning to play an instrument?

I think it is irreplaceable to learn to play an instrument, when we come to leading melodies. LEADING MELODIES are death if we do not play them in real time. There are occasions you can play it without loosing the feeling, but it's never like the real thing! Have you paid attention to the way Pat Metheny plays sometimes it's melodies, like flouting in the middle of the space? Anyway, he is never out of time. It's sort of a wave that moves into the main rhythm and he is dancing upon it.

I have a theory, but it is difficult to expose it here because it's a complex idea and I've never written it down properly, just thought much about it, that's all. Well, basically, I'm convinced that psychology is the VERY reason of music sounding one way or another. I mean, WHO you are behind the clothes at a given moment. Today you are 15, so you like a particular kind of music, but tomorrow you are 20, your taste has radically changed. Later on you rich your 30 or whatever age and your musical ideas changes again deeply, in accordance to your experience in life. If you have been a sad guy, or a happy one, if your Dad died when you were 8 years old, or he's still alive, everything will give an impact in the way you FEEL music. There is traumatic music, there is joyful music, there is depressive music, there is unruly music, and there is brainless music, and so forth.

I don't hold up when people struggles saying: “Tecno is better than Rock”, or “Rock is better than Tecno”, or fights of words of that sort. I think that there is a TIME for everything, and MATURITY is the key to the way you compose. As a matter of fact, music is pure spirituality to my understanding of life.

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Sat Mar 23, 2002 7:47 pm

When I was 16 was getting some maths insight, I liked to dream of one big modular, which only needed know tweaking and barely no sequencing. I though with mathematical models of how a song should sound, what instrument should arise or fall in any way. ie. Most simple example: a bassdrum that fades w a cross-side chain compressed open hi hat, to form a bd-hh loop/combo. Opening gate(r)s or LFO's would make bd sound and thus sequence, blah blah. I hope you get what I mean.

Ken lately said "maybe I should consider tweaking more knobs instead of playing" and of the playing, he does a great job. He's a good composer. Same as with Paul Martin. Both have done dance music, but I lack the tweaks. Both have very high composing and harmonic skills. That does a great job for 'classic instruments', but techno needs tweaks, that's how the author's energy is largely translated.

Listen to an early Laurent Garnier (who is live still the grandmaster for me) or more Detroit orientated minimal techno, and you'll hear all the mini mini changes in sounds in an apparent loop. At first, when the music is on the background, these changes don't really work for the listener. But on higher volume, or in a disco, the music has an effect on me that's to compare to the shaman's monotone and multi voice singins or didgeridoo's from the Aboriginals. It can bring the listener (and author;) in weird states of mind, something like the Zzz state John talks about. And I'm not talking dope, for your good understanding.

I sincerely think that's an art that's little discussed or thought about. There's few people around that control it. I think psycho accoustics courses could come in handy.

I also think that being able to play a real instrument (preferably more than one of it's kind) will make that all even more interesting. But I'm not sure weither the Shaman's do know a lot of composing. But neither as them, my music might never make it to the radio

at0m.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Sat Mar 23, 2002 9:00 pm

Hey AtOm, do you like kind of meditation music as well? I've done sort of meditation music, I don't know if I should call it that way. It maybe is World Interiour Music,or something like that. If you whish, I can put a track so you can leasten to it in the forum. I've never put something like that, because I think it is not interesting for everybody.

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Sat Mar 23, 2002 10:24 pm

If you call it like that yeah

It's not really relax at first listening though! It seems overstressed sometimes, but if the dj/final mixer doesn't tweak it too much, that hard techno gets me this floating feeling, Especially on the dancefloor, where it's the music that can get me airborne.

It's not only meditation music that uses that used these tweaks. Ie. If you listen to Kylie's 'Can't get you out of my head', the bass seems[/b] always to be the same loop, it's so simple. But if you listen carefully, there's a lot that hides behind or within. For example the attack varies, it get smoother in quiet passages and seems to be filtered different etc. according to the mood at that time in the song. Or is that all just compression and EQ in the final mixing and Mastering? Don't think so, they've been tweaking knobs. Knob tweaks are the 'real player's' inputs. Just like a guitar player hits his strings never the same way and never has his fingers exactly on the same chord.

Now, the guitar player is also listening to the music, his playing is influenced by the way he feels it, as he's moving. Now with electronic music, the instrument's abstract and dance is the feeling.
My ultimate dance music's producer seems to know exactly what moves I, the dancer, need to hear to relax. The basic 4/4 is most important to me, as breaks seem unnatural. Nature is more periodic. Only a couple of times someone got me floating on DNB, must have been some industrial. I do like DNB to listen to at home, jungle is more for summer outdoor or something on the beach <at0m wants summer soon>

I was most impressed by Orbital on a festival last year, got totally carried away. They did a very good example of anticipation. It's important to warn the dancer for (abrupt or not) changes in the music, so he feels confortable. Then the trick is to do it in non-conform, original ways.

Here's atrick I like to use: you can now easily change the LPF on your bass line to HPF and tweak it till it's a HiHat, like the HH your about to play. You can do that quick and remotely, I'm testing a modulated filter/phaser/disto combo which looks nice, also Reason's SubSynths allow me do to that trick. I bet there's lot's more gear that can do that. It's even cooler when the notes on your bassline synth (which becomes a hihat in short periods in the song) change at the same time to anticipate for the percussion that's coming with the hihat, but with the sound of the hihat. For that short while (a couple of quick) notes.

Another trick I like to do to announce sounds and variations it is to use sidechain or midi modultated effects, which can for example gate the high synth (preferably full, long sounds) whenever the percussion or HH should come. You could use a moonizer or rhino, or hardware like sherman filterbank. Or use editors in your sequencer to convert the notes from the to-come percussion in midi CC# to remotely control gates, filters etc. Geez I suddenly miss Cakewalk's Application Language, the .cal files snif snif.

Looooots more of these at the right time make my techno artist I don't care about volume fades, I want the modular making the sound coming in and going away by filters, pitch, delayed and delay line taken over by other instrument etc. etc.

People who learned to play classic instruments mostly don't look at it that way. And I know, I'll have to learn some basic stuff about notes, composing and harmonics and rythm etc

Hey Nestor don't forget to put up that track! There's a 1000 members here, that's a thousand tastes. I'm still waiting for the first reggae song too

at0m.

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Sun Mar 24, 2002 1:12 am

Another thing about Kylies song apart from knob tweaking is that the tempo is constantly changing thoughout the song. Its very slight barely noticeable, they do it on a lot of computer generated songs lately in an attempt to make it sound less mechanical.
Or to emphasise the chorus. Ive heard sometimes it can be a little bit of a Dj's or remixmers nightmare.

[ This Message was edited by: remixme on 2002-03-24 01:13 ]

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Sun Mar 24, 2002 2:01 am

Yeah, I noticed the tempo changes too. My housemate (dj) was struggling hard least year to get this Barry-White-tempochanger sync with another disk, he finally managed to let it play the whole song together w another one and sampling from a third one... must not be easy idd. It takes very long practice, but the dj's gotta be creative and not juke-box too much

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Wed Apr 03, 2002 7:57 am

Man, this thread's grown. I'll write some details later, lemme answer a simple question.
Yeah, I'm bilingual.. err, quadrilingual. I speak English, Japanese, Chinese(mandarin), and Taiwanese, which is a dialect of Chinese. I also do pretty good in Indonesian and write a bit of Arabic. (lol)
So, all these languages may have something to do with my ears liking many different kinds of sounds and my "linguistic" viewpoint of things.
Anyway, cheers to ya all. It feels being quoted.

And yes, I need to tweak 'em knobs. That's something I'll need to incorporate into my September project.
peace!