And just like that, another year is gone! Here is a look at my posts for the year.
The blogging year started in March with my favourite book arriving, “Behind Bars”, which I preordered in 2010. It is definitely the most used book on my shelf! I then talked about two approaching projects:
October was the kick off of the Rugby World Cup here in New Zealand, I talked about my involvement in the opening ceremony and also made a post about what exactly I do when “preparing music” and why you would need someone like me to do it:
December means Christmas and I posted some Christmas carols that I prepared for my students. I also composed a new “holiday” piece for my Christmas post:
I often talk to people who are surprised at the types of music preparation jobs that can be done, so I thought I’d dedicate a post to talking about my work as a copyist and what I can do for you!
Why do people need someone else to prepare their music? Can’t you just do it yourself? What do you pay for?
Expertise. Those experienced in music preparation have the eye to prepare beautifully clear and accurate music, and the ability to spot and resolve potential issues prior to it being rehearsed or performed. They also have extensive knowledge of theory and notation, the styles and conventions of different genres and specific requirements of different orchestras.
Meeting a deadline. Music preparers often get the music incredibly late (or be working on the start as the composer finishes the end!) and a deadline has to be met. Just recently I worked through the night to prepare the score and parts for a piece and a couple of hours later it was being rehearsed in Paris.
Efficiency. With extensive software knowledge, work can be done considerably faster and without hassles.
Assurance. You can pay many thousands of dollars to have musicians sitting there ready to record your music, or you could have worked hard for many years to have an orchestra perform it in a concert. Whatever context, when the players sit down or the conductor studies his score you need the assurance that everything is clear, accurate and very simply – it must work!
Ability. Many composers still write by hand and then pass it on to be prepared. Likewise, many composers and musicians don’t know how to write notated music, and will pass on MIDI files from other software to be notated.
Independence. To publish your music, traditionally you would have had to pass your music over to a publisher to have it expertly typeset and prepared. But you would have had all of the commitments of having a publisher and would only get a fraction of sales. Now, with composers having their own websites, people are publishing themselves and just need their music expertly typeset, edited and proofread – that’s where we come in.
What sort of things can be done?
Typeset music from handwritten manuscripts (or scribbles!).
Edit and/or proofread music that is already set.
Prepare instrumental parts – sometimes just as PDFs and emailed, other times I can provide the library service where I will print/copy and organise/distribute the parts at rehearsals/recording sessions.
Singers often need their pieces in a different key – I can transpose these with a very quick turnaround.
Tidy and typeset music from programs such as Logic or Pro Tools, adding all of the dynamics, articulation and other technical considerations.
Recreate a missing orchestral score from the instrumental parts – can be a lifesaver!
Transcribe music from audio.
Create reductions of larger scores – such as a rehearsal piano part for an opera.
On the 21st and 22nd of May was the 2011 48 Hours Film Festival. This year I was on board with Sideways Productions and masterminds Allan George and Ben Fowler. They approached me to work with them last year, but I couldn’t due to other commitments, so it was great to finally get things rolling with them.
The genre we got was revenge movie, and Allan and Ben put together a good script. I packed up some gear and followed them around their two main locations, fine-tuning initial draft ideas as the structure and feel of the film came to life.
I was reasonably happy with the result, loved the feel of the music, but not so much the final edit of it in the film. Have a listen to a few of the tracks below:
Or check out the movie here:
Although initially gutted not to get through, the team were then awarded the “Sexiest Images & Sound” award for Auckland and therefore nominated for that award at the nationals. Well done guys.
The team was Director: Ben Fowler Producer: Allan George, Ben Fowler Writer: Allan George, Ben Fowler Actors: Andy Nicholson, Yulie Great, Gwendoline Taylor Editor: Ben Fowler, Manuel Castelltort Sound / Music: Ryan Youens Cinematography: Allan George
My new work for orchestra, “blimp”, finally landed in Auckland on the 1st of May – premiered by the Auckland Symphony Orchestra at the Auckland Town Hall. It is a short work commissioned by the orchestra and their conductor Peter Thomas. It received a second performance on the 8th of May at the Bruce Mason Centre in Takapuna. This was followed by its inclusion in their “Proms” concerts on the 18th and 19th of June. A great first month and a half for a new work!
The orchestra during soundcheck before the premiere. Photo by Keri Moyle (www.signsoflife.co.nz).
“Blimp [noun] a small, non-rigid airship or dirigible, especially one used chiefly for observation.”
The idea I tried to portray is that for me I think of blimps as being slightly odd, awkward to get off the ground and driven by men who are a little loopy; but, once in the air, they jauntily go about their purpose.
The brass during soundcheck before the premiere. Photo by Keri Moyle (www.signsoflife.co.nz).
I was extremely happy with the performance, the orchestra did a wonderful job and loved playing it. It was also great to get such positive feedback from the audience after all four concerts.
Watch the live performance from 8th May here:
Or listen to a good audio recording here:
The orchestra and Auckland Town Hall during soundcheck before the premiere. Photo by Keri Moyle (www.signsoflife.co.nz).
During this year’s New Zealand Music Month I wrote 31 musical microscores, and far out, what a month it was! I decided back in this post that I would do the project – each microscore would be from 30 to 60 seconds and I would do them in a maximum of one hour each day.
I was initially unsure how it would shape up musically – would they all be completely different, how would they relate to each other – but once underway it was clear that small sets of microscores was going to be the way to go.
Another thing I was unaware of was the difficulty of taking one hour out of an already extremely busy working day, especially for 31 in a row. I made it though, with a few catchup days here and there.
It was interesting to see the voice that came out through the compositions and how they relate to each other even when they are for very different instruments and based on a very different idea. Some I wrote for instruments I know well, others I wrote for instruments I have not worked with much.
Below are most of the microscores – have a listen. The rest are still on their way due to technical disasters.
Below is the full list of microscores:
FOR PIANO, a response to my piece for orchestra, “blimp”, which was premiered on May 1 at the Auckland Town Hall by the Auckland Symphony Orchestra.
May 1: “the pilot” Yes, it is about the pilot of the blimp.
May 2: “the view” Yes, it is about the view from the blimp.
May 3: “the flock” Yes, it is about the flock of birds that hit the blimp.
FOR PIANO, the development of my favourite idea from all microscores written in May. And I also happened to sit on a rather large swiss ball to write all 31 microscores.
A friend of mine, Anna Donald, has a project for 2011 – she is a young mum and to keep living an exciting life, she is trying something new each week and blogging about it here: Mi Cosa Nueva.
On Facebook she asked for ideas and I suggested she write some words to a song and I would set it to music. Within the hour Anna had written the lyrics, she continues:
“I flicked it on to Ryan, and he replied immediately, saying he’d ‘whip it up’. A couple of days later I was stunned to hear that he had not only written the music, he’d also recorded the backing track with piano, guitar, drums and bass. He suggested that I come over and learn it and record it with him. By this stage I was so excited that I nearly wet my pants.”
Anna came over and recorded the singing while Wendy, my wife, got clucky looking after her baby, Rosalie, upstairs.
I then produced everything and I’ll let Anna continue:
“Ryan turned up to my husband’s 30th a few days later with the complete package of CD, chords and sheet music, all professionally bound with some photos of me recording the song. My husband, for whom the song is written, is quite smitten with the song and has been humming it around the house ever since. (‘Da da da da soul food…’)”
I’m sitting on the plane after a fantastic two days in Wellington at the 2010 NZSO/SOUNZ Readings.
It seemed very relaxed this time around as the format was slightly different. Usually the pieces are purely workshopped and are often early on in their development. This time the pieces were chosen from previous NZSO/SOUNZ Readings to be recorded properly and then released. So it was a nice relaxed atmosphere with no nervous composers, or players for that matter. Also the fact that one piece had pulled out meant all of the other pieces got extra time, which made it even more stress-free.
Photo by Anita Rodley from sounz.org.nz.
The pieces were a nice mix from Tom McLeod’s epic film work, to Claire Cowan’s very clever Legend of the Trojan Bird, to the heavier pieces by Gillian Whitehead and John Rimmer. All fantastic composers, so it was great to hear their recordings being created.
My piece, Rakaia, went really well. I knew everything worked, so it was just a matter of getting a good solid recording. Well, what do you know? After rehearsing a few spots, they nailed it very early on. I was very pleased – it sounded incredible.
Photo by Anita Rodley from sounz.org.nz.
You’ve got to wonder what these players, and conductor Luke Dollman, are made of, as the NZSO/Todd Young Composer Workshop was (rather ambitiously) scheduled in the two days before the SOUNZ workshop. All up, in four days they recorded fifteen pieces – pretty good effort and great to see so many New Zealand works getting workshopped and recorded.
During the trip I managed to pop in and see the new SOUNZ office. They are now nicely situated just off Cuba Street and they’ve got a wonderful view of Wellington City. Also great to finally meet Julie Sperring, the new Executive Director of SOUNZ, who’s going to be a superstar ambassador of New Zealand music.
Musician? Got your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad? Well, what are you going to put on it? As a musician, sharing my time between rehearsals, conducting, composing and teaching, I have fine tuned a collection of amazing apps for my iPhone that I find are absolutely essential and I hope will help you save you a lot of money and give you some great tools. Just a note, I’ve used all of these on an iPhone but they are all available (if not now, will be very soon) on the iPad.
Field Recorder – This is an outstanding digital recorder for the iPhone. One review of it says “Audiofile Engineering’s FiRe application is by far the most advanced stereo audio recording application we’ve seen for the iPhone and iPod Touch, going far beyond the limitations of previous go-to apps…”. It is a professional quality recorder and the list of features is huge so check out the link. It has a beautiful interface, the quality of recording is amazing, you can edit in the app and can export as WAVE, AIFF, CAF, AAC, Apple Lossless, AAC, Podcast, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC. So handy for capturing a rehearsal or auditions, taking field recordings and pretty much endless possibilities.
Dr. Betotte TC – There are many metronomes but few powered up for the music professional. Dr. Betotte TC has all the normal features of a normal metronome such as playing any time signature, beat divisions, the ability to save your tempos and settings to a playlist, tap in a tempo – but it has got so much more. For a start all of the rhythmic divisions have their own volume sliders, one click halftime feel, options for swing tempo, you can import your own audio samples and the playlist can auto advance. Some nice other features (which are so easy to access) include an alarm timer that syncs with the metronome and customisable gradual up/down, step up/down and quiet count buttons. These step up/down buttons are so handy for students learning a passage, as it gradually gets faster over time (or however you set it up). What I do like about this metronome is its visual capabilities – it’s often really unhelpful just having a “beep, beep” metronome. For learning scores or for reference in rehearsals it is so handy to just have a ticking needle, or a huge “1, 2, 3, 4, …” being counted on screen. This is by far my metronome of choice.
Stay In Tune – There are a lot of tuners available, a lot of good ones and generally they all have the same features. It’s how they deliver the features which makes the difference. Stay In Tune is my favourite – it has a wonderful, clear interface, you can also easily produce tones, calibrate and select specific tunings for different instruments. It is also one of the most accurate and gorgeous I’ve found.
Backline Calc – It’s a musical calculator and perhaps the last app you would think about looking for, but once you have it you’ll realise how handy it is. There are six categories and some examples include: Length (sum times, compare tempos, song length, beats to tempo, time to samples), Pitch (MIDI note, frequency and wavelength conversion), Timecode (frames to timecode, convert timecode), Electric (power, voltages), Acoustics (distance to time, sound pressure level, panning) and Files (file size). These are only a few examples – a very handy little app.
Chordmaster by Planet Waves – The most advanced and intelligent guitar chord reference. You can make chords easily with sliders, you can strum them and the overall interface is beautiful. It’s also nice to see a popular and well known music accessory company delving into apps.
SoundHound – We all hear a song on TV and want to know what it is and there are several apps who help you out with this, the most popular being Shazam – but these don’t go much past the novelty factor of holding the device to a speaker and finding out the song. I like SoundHound as it provides a few more features such as effectively picking up you singing personally, or you can just type the title, album, artist or lyric. Also, in the results, it provides iTunes links, all the lyrics, YouTube videos and the ability to easily share.
Karajan® – Music & Ear Trainer – Karajan is by far the finest ear trainer. It is powerful and very customisable in each of the categories – intervals, chords, scales, pitch and tempo (bpm). It has detailed statistics so is great for students using in lessons or for your own interest. Personally, I use the tempo recognition all the time (great for conducting) and the pitch recognition is handy too. The pro version is entirely worth the money. (iPad screenshot below)
Oxford Dictionary of Music – Yes, your dream has come true. The entire Oxford Dictionary of Music is available on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. It has a wonderful interface, easy search and is regarded as the most up-to-date music dictionary out there. Also good to note that no internet connection is required to use the app. These guys only do dictionary apps so they know what they’re doing. This is a must.
Circle Theory – Based around the Circle Of Fifths, this is a handy reference tool. I use it mainly with students using the more straight forward functions like seeing the relationships between notes, key relationships, key signatures, intervals and triads. But I’ve also used it myself for transposing between keys, checking notes of transposed instruments and as a reference for modes. A great little app.
Virtuoso Piano – Well we have to touch on some instrument apps. I’m sure the first app any musician gets is a piano but many are very basic. My favourite is Virtuoso Piano Pro as you can have multiple keyboards, easily flick between octaves, calibration and record/play features. Another really great app.
Guitar: Play and Share – Without question this is the finest acoustic guitar app. I’ve been playing around with it a lot lately and it is wonderful. Very clever, very easy to use and the sound quality is fantastic. Loads of features and ways to customise, different guitars – who needs a real one?
I won’t mention any more instruments as there are so many good ones (and far more that are rubbish). But if you’re interested in these, the video below is a great watch. It is from the Rend Collective Experiment featuring David Crowder and they produce the whole song from iPhone instruments. Awesome.
ProRemote – This is the only app I don’t own due to the whopping price tag (NZ$124.99, US$99.99), but it gets my attention and admiration. It is a remote control for ProTools, Ableton Live, Apple Logic or Soundtrack Pro. They say it “is like having four Mackie Control Universal Pro’s but better because it is wireless and much less expensive. You get almost $5000 of hardware for the price of ProRemote.” Very impressive. (iPad screenshot below)
Well it is an amazing series of products that I hope you will all enjoy checking out and using. I have found them all to be essential with my day to day work, saving so much time and hassle. Please let me know any other feedback, any great apps I have missed or your comments.
