source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 07:02:13 -0800 Subject: post for Brian McLaren From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@compuserve.com> Brian M. points out: > To get more pitches per octave than > this, you must either [1] reduce the > range of your instrument from 7 octaves > down to some smaller ambitus; [2] use > multitracking with SMPTE sync and > create multiple MIDI files which break > up portions of your composition into > different keyboard ranges, and then > build up the entire composition out > of multiple passes via multitrack > recordings; Interesting! Therein lies the difference between a fellow with a piano background (Brian), and, for lack of a better word, a solo-instrument background (me). In my life, I have played (mostly) viola, bassoon, classical guitar, and now soprano saxophone, rather than piano, organ, or harpsichord for example. That being the case, the idea of having the entire musical pitch range laying out in front of me simultaneously is alien to me. Limited range on an instrument is, on the face of it, a limitation, but in another sense it's something of a liberator in that lack of range on a single instrument never even would have occured to me as being problematic. I've just always assumed that if I'm writing something for the entire musical pitch range, that I'll have to think in terms of a larger ensemble than a single instrument. Or driving it the other direction, devise the ensemble that makes sense for a particular impression I'm trying to get across, and let the range fall as it might for that particular ensemble. But along the lines of piano overdubbing Brian mentioned, I suppose there is one fairly natural way to approach that, which is the old "piano four hands" approach. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 20 Dec 1996 16:04 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA14702; Fri, 20 Dec 1996 16:06:59 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA14700 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id HAA20855; Fri, 20 Dec 1996 07:06:56 -0800 Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 07:06:56 -0800 Message-Id: <009AD21733A3E1E0.DF58@vbv40.ezh.nl> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu