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Author Topic: Writing tunes?  (Read 17372 times)

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Pete Dunk

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #40 on: February 25, 2010, 12:26:38 PM »

I would be apprecitive to anyone who can convert to ABC, or offer any advice or critique.
First is a waltz (thanks to Nigel for getting me started with that) its in C coz its for the 'tina.

A Lady Of Our Time

X:25
T: Lady of Our Time, A
C: LdT
R: Waltz
Q: 1/4=140
L: 1/4
M: 3/4
K: C
c/d/ e c | f d2 | B/c/ d d | e c2 |
c/d/ e e | f d2 | B/A/ G/A/ B/d/ | e c2 |
c/d/ e e | f d2 | B/c/ d d | e c2 |
c/d/ e e | f d2 | B/c/ d/A/ G/F/ | e c2 |
A/c/ e e | c e2 | d/e/ f f | d e2 |
c/d/ e c | c d2 | B/c/ d/B/ A/B/ | e c2 |
c/e/ g g | c d2 | d/e/ d2 c/ z/ | d e2 |
c/d/ e e | c d2 | B/c/ d/B/ A/F/ | e c2 ||

 ;D
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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #41 on: February 25, 2010, 01:05:53 PM »


1/4 = 2/8 so isn't (4 1/2)/4 just 9/8? (and i.e a slip jig?)  ::) ::) ::)

No!

6/8 implies 2 groups of three (tripletted quavers, a march: the Irish march in 6/8 - try marching to 'Lark In The Morning' etc. and see how fast you go). 9/8 implies three groups of three - like a tripletted waltz.
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Anahata

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #42 on: February 25, 2010, 02:03:11 PM »

Actually I came up with something last night that fits your requirements
Oooh...Can't wait to hear it.
Well, at great inconvenience because I'm at work and this involved shuffling files about on my PC at home by remote control... well, never mind all that, here's the dots.

We've just sent this to Annie Dearman who's celebrating a significant birthday around now (think bus pass, don't tell her I told you...) and she's also from Essex, so accidentally lucky choice of title...

Get the last two bars of line 3 and beginning of line 4 right, and the rest is easy... MP3 or video will be available some time soon if needed.

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Owen Woods

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #43 on: February 25, 2010, 02:22:48 PM »

I could write a tune today instead of working (:) Good idea! :P
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Sandy

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #44 on: February 25, 2010, 02:30:28 PM »

Well done LDT,

Wow, I thought I was doing well with a tune a year. That's amazing. Maybe the D in LDT is 'dynamic'  :D

cheers
Sandy

ladydetemps

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #45 on: February 25, 2010, 02:34:48 PM »


Well, at great inconvenience because I'm at work and this involved shuffling files about on my PC at home by remote control... well, never mind all that, here's the dots.

We've just sent this to Annie Dearman who's celebrating a significant birthday around now (think bus pass, don't tell her I told you...) and she's also from Essex, so accidentally lucky choice of title...

Get the last two bars of line 3 and beginning of line 4 right, and the rest is easy... MP3 or video will be available some time soon if needed.

Cool. Thanks.
Wish I had a buss pass. I hate being young coz you have to be 'responsible'.


I could write a tune today instead of working (:) Good idea! :P
I am sooooo bored with work..there's plenty to do but I'd rather be doing something else.

Well done LDT,

Wow, I thought I was doing well with a tune a year. That's amazing. Maybe the D in LDT is 'dynamic'  :D

Thanks...although I think with me its quantity over quality. ::)

Stiamh

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #46 on: February 25, 2010, 03:10:50 PM »

Things that helped:
  • Having to produce a tune of a particular type (rhythm, speed, length) to order. Limitations like that concentrate the mind wonderfully. You could decide to restrict it to a range of notes, or not have an F# anywhere in it, or whatever...
  • Taking a musical style that you'd like to emulate and trying to copy it (you won't exactly succeed, but the attempt produces a lot of creativity)

Good points, those. Tchaikovsky was apparently frequently given insanely precise and restrictive instructions by his choreographer  - x bars of this type of music with this type of tempo and mood leading into x bars of the other - and came up with the sublime ballet music we all know and love in response.

More recent example - closer to home for me: 12-suites for one-handed tin whistle composed by my good friend Jean Duval. As a challenge (inspired by Packie Byrne) and to amuse himself on long drives to and from work every day (with one hand on the wheel and the other on the whistle) he came up with an astonishing variety of really good tunes in different keys and styles, with (most of the time) a gap of two consecutive whole tones in the middle of the scale. Mind you, he is what I would call a composer, as opposed to someone who comes up with a halfway decent tune about every five years or so (that's more my profile).

Quote
  • Big insight for me: a whole tune doesn't come into your head all at once. You try things out, pull it apart, put it back together in a different order, find answering phrases to fit what you already have, discard stuff because it "doesn't work" and also be prepared for it to go off in a totally unexpected direction.

Agree about the whole tune not coming into your head at once - usually I find there's a need for a considerable period of work and refinement, sometimes very considerable, and sometimes I end up scrapping the whole venture.

On a few happy occasions though I've been lucky enough to have the opposite experience, when it really feels that a good tune has come to you, needing only tiny adjustments, dropping straight out of the sky as it were, rather than your having done anything towards composing it. Then there's always the worry that it must be an existing tune (as mentioned by Tom earlier) but so far - touch wood - this hasn't happened to me. These little windfalls definitely don't happen to order though >:(

LJC

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #47 on: February 25, 2010, 07:31:53 PM »


1/4 = 2/8 so isn't (4 1/2)/4 just 9/8? (and i.e a slip jig?)  ::) ::) ::)

No!

6/8 implies 2 groups of three (tripletted quavers, a march: the Irish march in 6/8 - try marching to 'Lark In The Morning' etc. and see how fast you go). 9/8 implies three groups of three - like a tripletted waltz.

I was just being facetious with the maths of an impossible time signature, and am well aware of 6/8 and 9/8 - ignore!  ;D
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Ebor_fiddler

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #48 on: February 25, 2010, 11:25:24 PM »

And I thought it was 41/2/4 = 5.125!  >:E
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Steve_freereeder

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #49 on: February 26, 2010, 12:04:24 AM »


1/4 = 2/8 so isn't (4 1/2)/4 just 9/8? (and i.e a slip jig?)  ::) ::) ::)

No!

6/8 implies 2 groups of three (tripletted quavers, a march: the Irish march in 6/8 - try marching to 'Lark In The Morning' etc. and see how fast you go). 9/8 implies three groups of three - like a tripletted waltz.

I was just being facetious with the maths of an impossible time signature, and am well aware of 6/8 and 9/8 - ignore!  ;D
1-and-a 2-and-a 3-and-a)
Instead, the pulse of the tune was 1-and 2-and 3-and 4-and-adiddle-diddle-um diddle-um dum dum, but the conductor will beat a lop-sided 3 like this:  1, 2, 3-and
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Anahata

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #50 on: February 26, 2010, 01:27:17 AM »

1-and-a 2-and-a 3-and-a)
Instead, the pulse of the tune was 1-and 2-and 3-and 4-and-a

Exactly the same as Dave Brubeck's Blue Rondo A La Turk which I posted about earlier.
All those Bulgaruian and Macedonian tunes in strange time signatures like 11/8 are actually made up of a much smaller number of beats which they call long and short beats, corresponding to 3 and 2 quavers respectively. So a Gankino Horo in 11/8 is really 5 beats: | short short long short short | per bar which you still have to get used to but it's always the same pattern all the way through the dance and tune so it's not all that hard.

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #51 on: February 26, 2010, 08:23:47 AM »

1-and-a 2-and-a 3-and-a)
Instead, the pulse of the tune was 1-and 2-and 3-and 4-and-a

Exactly the same as Dave Brubeck's Blue Rondo A La Turk which I posted about earlier.
All those Bulgaruian and Macedonian tunes in strange time signatures like 11/8 are actually made up of a much smaller number of beats which they call long and short beats, corresponding to 3 and 2 quavers respectively. So a Gankino Horo in 11/8 is really 5 beats: | short short long short short | per bar which you still have to get used to but it's always the same pattern all the way through the dance and tune so it's not all that hard.


Yes - that's it, Anahata. I'm always fascinated by irregular time signatures and rhythmic pulses. I go out of my way to seek them out, and as you say once you get the idea of the patterns they are not that hard at all and can feel quite natural.

As a general observation, we do seem to be so conditioned and constrained by 'ordinary' time signatures, so much so that we get tripped up when something apparently a little more complex comes along. In my orchestra there are still players (professional music teachers, some of them) who are freaked out when a 5/8 or 7/8 time signature appears in front of them.  :|bl
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Anahata

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #52 on: February 26, 2010, 12:08:55 PM »

Yes - that's it, Anahata. I'm always fascinated by irregular time signatures and rhythmic pulses. I go out of my way to seek them out

In that case, Linsey Pollak's Macedonian Folk Music (the red one) is recommended for hours of instructive and challenging fun. The accompanying CD is nice too but you won't find a single melodeon on it.
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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #53 on: February 26, 2010, 12:12:25 PM »

I've written a couple of 5/4 tunes in the past. It's a pleasure to see the look on the faces of guitar, bodhran, bass players when they try to play along.

Here's one of them:
X:366
T:The Estonian Fiddler
R:Reel
C:Nigel Hallett
M:5/4
L:1/8
K:G
GABc d2 c>A f2|cAFA cA G>B D2|GABc d2 c>A f2|cAFA c>A G2 G2:|
c<eAc e2 d>B G2|cA-Af af g>d B2|c<eAc e2 d>B G2|cAFA c>A G2 G2:|
K:G Dor
Bd-dB GB A>^F D2|Ac-cA ^FA G>B d2|Bd-dB GB A>^F D2|AccA ^F>D G2 G2:|

Have fun
Nigel

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Anahata

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #54 on: February 26, 2010, 12:51:42 PM »

T:The Estonian Fiddler
Have fun
Ooh - I will - that looks nice (just staring at ABC rendered into dots on the screen now, looks promising)
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ladydetemps

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #55 on: February 26, 2010, 01:18:57 PM »

Okay...now this is going to sound really wierd but I see tunes as shapes. And my problem is I have a shape in my head but I can't get what I play to represent that.

Anahata

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #56 on: February 26, 2010, 02:43:41 PM »

And my problem is I have a shape in my head but I can't get what I play to represent that.

Well, it's got to be 8 bars in 6/8 time (:)
(and your post crossed with mine in another thread)

I hear the A music of "Tafarn Y Wheatsheaf" (Welsh for "The Wheatsheaf" Pub):
X: 0
T: The Wheatsheaf
Z: Anahata <anahata@treewind.co.uk>
B: LLewelyn Alaw Pocket Book ed. Robin Huw Bowen
O: Wales
M: 6/8
K: G
gfg d2B | cde d3 | cac BgB | Adc BAG |
gfg d2B | cde d3 | caf gdB | cAF G3 :|
BAB GAB | cBc ABc | Bdc BAG | FDE FGA |
BAB GAB | cAF DEC | B,CD EFG |1 AGF G3 :|2 ABc def ||

http://www.treewind.co.uk/melnet/wheatsheaf.png
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Anahata

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #57 on: February 26, 2010, 04:43:39 PM »

(1)
I promised I'd upload a performance of The Essex Girl so here it is on a 1 row in C (I think it suits that box well) - http://www.treewind.co.uk/melnet/essexgirl.mp3 (MP3, sound only)

(2)
That "Estonian Fiddler" tune in 5/4 is an absolute cracker! Thanks for that and I'm totally learning it. Apart from the time signature, going in to G minor for the last section on a D/G melodeon will score a lot of "surprise factor" points when I toss it into our local session ;D ;D
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ladydetemps

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #58 on: May 03, 2010, 12:08:55 PM »

Just attempted to write a tune....erm...without writing it down.
http://www.onmvoice.com/play.php?a=19894
oh it sorta has words too...well a chorus
"its a grey and stormy day today, that's why I can't go out and play...."
« Last Edit: May 03, 2010, 12:13:56 PM by ladydetemps »
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Anahata

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Re: Writing tunes?
« Reply #59 on: May 03, 2010, 06:53:35 PM »

Just attempted to write a tune....erm...without writing it down.
http://www.onmvoice.com/play.php?a=19894

That is gorgeous and going to get written down here even if you don't do so, and learnt.
Just the right mixture of familiar structure and nice surprises!
You've struck oil this time  :|glug :|glug :|glug
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