xRisingForce

That's good to know. What do you mean? The drums are boring, lol. Definitely harmonic, and in one measure it even accented some color tones. For the most part it's harmonic. I'm not sure if it's counterpoint in this case, but it mirrors the piano lines towards the end of Wind Scene. This is on a tangent, but the main purpose of bass to me is to augment the groove and support the harmony. I use higher voices (~1000-3000 Hz) for the melody. Also, it's nice when that lower cavity of sound that'd otherwise be vacant is filled. The bass phrases always start on the tonic when the chord changes Now you're preaching to the choir. Victor Wooten is a monster. Yes, but I was kinda/sorta hoping to avoid it. I guess it can't be helped :\ They're really mainstream in Japan. M-Flo's an R&B artist as well as Koda Kumi. Hahahaha, what?? You sound very supportive, and I really have to thank you for that. The piano can be fixed- that's the post-composition stage though, and I want to keep critique strictly compositional right now (like the drums). But, did you use muzak for lack of a better word? Because that's borderline insulting to me.. Muzak is like the various Wii channel music, not this D: I do admit you said this is unique, so maybe I succeeded in creating my own sound.

Yeah I can, I actually changed the left hand piano harmony to ~75 while the melody is 90-100. This is all post-composition stage for me. After I finish the song, I trim it up with dynamics, vibrato and bends (of course, for instruments that can), EQ, compression, repan, rebalance, all that jazz. It'd be awesome if you could tell me where the song really needs the velocity levels fixed to sound more organic (the intro maybe?). As of right now though, I'm focusing on the composition. This guy said something similar. Thing is, I said "R & Bish." I'm not trying to do R & B, I'm not trying to do Jazz, I'm not a purist, and I'm definitely not trying to stick to a genre or anything of the sort. I'm being myself. Genres are stereotypes anyway. Hmm.. could you elaborate on this? Again, I'm not adhering to the restrictions/defining characteristics of any style. I want the drums to take a backseat here, I'm getting the primary groove from the bass. Is that preference? I thought lackluster drums were a staple of R & B. I'm being completely honest here- I have no idea why I didn't think to, lol. It might be because when I was testing out the stock patches, the R & B kits didn't have crashes so I didn't think to use them. Is there a way to implement crashes without having to change the patch (because this one doesn't have crashes either)? One of my compositions I'm working on is stylistically the same, and that's void of crashes too- they'd so fit though. Back to the drawing board! Yeah it is haha. I wish I had a better knowledge of the drums. I'll give this a try. I get a lot of my ideas from Koda Kumi and M-Flo; ever heard of them?

I actually have a keyboard with weighted keys upstairs but I don't have any cords to connect them to my computer.. Did you notice that the first part is in halftime? The song is arranged at 140 bpm, so the "Chorus" of Wind Scene plays comparatively twice as fast. I really want that part to hit you in the face, so to augment the increase in speed I would need in your case what would be the "fully built" bass line, right off the bat. As well as the "fully built" piano that's extremely syncopated. Basically I'm intentionally skipping most of the rising action for an intended effect, but not all of it. The climax will be as you said. I am gonna change the bassline under the C and C7 though; it sounds terrible to me. Really this arrangement as it stands shouldn't extend past Wind Scene, but I threw in Lost Woods just so you could get a gist of how it would sound. I'm not even really sure. The left hand is a maj7 but I see that the right hand adds that top ninth. Yeah as of right now I don't have a transition between the two so I just lazily let the song ring out a measure, lol. Like stated above, the flow gets disjointed and offset at the transition, but that's because of the half-assed way I added in Lost Woods. The bass fill idea sounds tight to me, but mostly because I love bass but because it's kicking so much ass up to that point it might be excessive. On the other hand, I'm not really sure how to approach R & B drum fills. Could you throw me some ideas? Thanks for all the great critique!

Here's something I put together in two hours last night, and it's still very rough and incomplete but I wanted to get some feedback on my progress so far. It's an R & Bish remix of Wind Scene, Lost Woods, and Great Fairy's Fountain. I have yet to add in Corridors of Time. http://www.tindeck.com/audio/my/wnlw/600-A.D. What do you guys think of the composition? Don't comment on the production because it's definitely not at that stage yet. Version 2 (June 5th): http://www.tindeck.com/audio/my/gcfn/600-A.D. - Added heavier reverb to piano - Completely new drums - Polished the bass progression under Cmaj7 to C7

I'm glad you took it upon yourself to solo in the right key. Chip and others approve of your synth solo, so some judges may like it, or may not even notice it. Liontamer doesn't play an instrument, so.. he goes purely by what sounds "cool." There are some that do catch the dissonance though, like NekoFrog. At any rate, I think it would be in your best interest to shift the tonal center of your synth and guitar solos to B just to see how it sounds. P.S.: Evktalo, that's definitely.. not modulation.

And if you look in community, I actually did write a response to this. Because I've already gone out of my way to write it, I thought I might as well post it in WiP and get some feedback from anyone interested in listening. It isn't a VG remix, but it is still heavily Japanese inspired and a work in progress (at least, on a production-value level). This is not an antagonistic gesture *cough* Darkesword *cough*. It's called Yume no Natsu (working title), and was composed in Reason 4.0. Reason only exports in .wav, so to compress it I used iTunes. If you have no other means of listening to .m4a files, download VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html (9 mb). I started work on it indifferently, but as the song picked up I really got into it; in all I contributed 12 - 14 hours to this piece (because of that the production value is extremely low). The song is dominantly Japanese R&B, but fuses elements of American, Japanese, and Korean R&B as well. Keep in mind that the expression of the song is explicit; a summer night out on Tokyo. Enjoy. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5AWWXF45 Note: The chord at 1.36 is supposed to be half-diminished, but I used a M7.. minor, minor fix.

Fair enough! I wouldn't argue with that anyway.. I would like to continue this discussion here: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16350

As for me, I wrote the song to prove myself- I don't feel a need to follow up with another. Why don't you contribute?

Thanks man. The melody's actually my favorite part of this song, haha. Maybe it's not your cup of tea, but it definitely expresses what I set out to do, no? Check out the string break towards the end. There are a ton of grace-note passing tones. Regardless, does usage of passing tones (or lack thereof).. in itself make a good melody? Would anyone like to continue this discussion over AIM? We could actually make use of the chatroom function, lol.

Holy hell, ASHANE did that? Funnily enough I actually have that song from a friend, but I had no idea that Ashane wrote it. That's insane. More on topic though, the instrument accompanying the Japanese instrumental break sounds more like a shamisen than a koto, but regardless it sounds awesome. It's got some serious Hiromitsu Agatsuma grooveage. Some suggestions: - What evktalo said. - The timing of the riff at 2.58 is off. - The whole solo section from 3:00 - 3.23 (especially the bend at 3.16 and the ending bend) sounds really out of key; it sounds like you're using E modes (do I hear some chromatic licks?). The tonic for that section is in B, however. If you transposed your scale, the notes would fit way better, such as the blues note at 3.20. - Is there a way you can get your hands on an acoustic guitar? The part itself at 2.03 is tight, but the nylon-stringed rhythm guitar sounds flabby and weak. Other than that, I have nothing to say. I'm loving the use of the synth throughout the song. What is it, square?

You said I could respond however I want. You wrote a cool aggressive piece, and I'm responding passively with my song about a summer night out on Tokyo. It's called Yume no Natsu (working title), and was composed in Reason 4.0. Reason only exports in .wav, so to compress it I used iTunes. If you have no other means of listening to .m4a files, download VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html (9 mb). I started work on it indifferently, but as the song picked up I really got into it; in all I contributed 12 - 14 hours to this piece (because of that the production value is extremely low). The song fuses elements of American, Japanese, and Korean R&B. Enjoy. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5AWWXF45 Note: I just got up, so I am posting past the deadline, but I only worked on this song from 12:00 A.M. - 2:00 A.M, so I didn't break the deadline. One more thing, I just realized that the chord at 1.36 is supposed to be half-diminished, but I used a M7.. minor, minor fix.

Haha yeah, that would've been. They say we all look alike. *Shrug* P.S.: I'm extremely impressed/blown away by your Moonsong arrangement. Your mom's violin lines are as clear as Perlman's.

Can't say that I am. Who's he?

Frank Zappa's a good guy to quote. I thank you for actually reading it, but there's a lot of substance in there, a lot less verbiage than the usual. In regards to the song- what do you want me to do with it, if anything it all? Do you want me to respond with one of my own compositions?

..I can't believe I missed it. I guess I'll erase my post.

Why hasn't anyone linked this yet?

This is wrong. A melody is ambiguous without chordal context, so a melody would be like the outline of a picture, not lyrics. The colors which fill the outlines are the chords/harmony. I present my point of view: The Augmentative Role of Lyrics 1. The aim and purpose of all art is self-expression. 2. Arts’ fundamental disciplines are different solely in the inherently exclusive mediums through which self-expression can be realized. 3. Music is a fundamental discipline of art and is inherently exclusive in that its self-expression is realized through pitch and rhythm (2). 4. Literature is a fundamental discipline of art and is inherently exclusive in that its self-expression is realized through words (2). 5. Expression realized through words is literature by inherency and not music (3 + 4). 6. Lyrics are a derivative of literature. 7. Because lyrics are a derivative of literature, they are uninherently musical (5 + 6). 9. A song is a piece of music. 10. If a song’s expression is built on pitch and rhythm it is inherently musical (7 + . 11. "Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant forces; their sum, when their directions are the same -- their difference, when their directions are contrary. Further, every resultant is clearly traceable in its components, because these are homogeneous and commensurable. It is otherwise with emergents, when, instead of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a co-operation of things of unlike kinds. The emergent is unlike its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference.” – G. H. Lewes (On Emergence and applicable to chemical reactions) 12. If the nature of x is unemergent and x is inherently y, augmenting x through z does not affect x’s inherency in the case that z shares properties of y because x’s inherent congruency is preserved. 13. A song is unimergent by nature. 14. If a song is inherently musical, in the application of lyrics do lyrics take on the inherently musical property of pitch, and can a song thusly retain its musically congruent nature (12 + 13). Conclusion: Since the resultants of music (songs) are unemergent, if it is inherently musical, augmentation through lyrics does not affect its musical inherency (11 + 14). There’s a definite way to use lyrics- it’s just that most of the world is completely ignorant of it. If you want my stance on how to use lyrics, this is neither the time nor place but I will post defense on what constitutes good lyrics. LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! I’M 100% KOREAN! Can anyone say WRONG??? And that’s what you get for trying to prejudge me. I think roughly 5,000/7,000 of the songs in my library originated in Asia, 7,000 songs by 281 very diverse artists. I read it; I didn’t value it. Lurk more in logic. The Correlation Between Emotional Spectrum and Musical Taste 1. The aim and purpose of all art is self-expression. 2. Music is an art, so music is a form of self-expression. 4 A song is a piece of music, so a song is a form of self-expression. 5. If one likes a song, one finds worth in the song’s expression. 6. People naturally have predilections toward songs that express what emotions they value. 7. Broadening the spectrum of my emotions will increase the amount of emotions I value. Conclusion: Broadening my emotional spectrum will increase the amount of songs that I value (5 + 6 + 7). Logically, people love different music because for many reasons that I won’t list here, they value different emotions and expressions. You should like a song because you like what it expresses, nothing else. Read a bit more carefully. It’s not the emotive potential in itself I’m downplaying, rather the degree of expressibility. -Close-

Direct response to analogy: This is an alright analogy, but any similarity is skin-deep. You're essentially changing a piece through interpretation, where trivialities like when to give the child lunch, what to give, when/if to play what games is inconsequential to how the child is going to turn out in even the smallest degree, because the essence of babysitting is temporary oversight. Also, the fact that bad babysitting (i.e. spoiling the kid) is unarguably bad makes this analogy uncomparable to music in that the base of your pro-interpretation argument is that it is void of restriction. Childbirth is a double-edged sword in that the biology of a child is absolutely uncontrollable; it’s quite different with composition. What kind of good composer thinks like this???

On a related note: Your premise loses all significance in that the fact-of-the-matter is, you are aware that Soft Cell didn’t write “Tainted Love.” b. Through Application You’re half right Sil, and this is a great way of putting it. Let’s say the intention was meant to draw a sphere (the diameter is irrelevant here, although it certainly translates to my point as well). Different people would, by virtue of individuality, fill the sphere with a different color. If the sphere was meant to be a very specific shade of navy blue, we would only be able to approximate the saturation and luminosity of it. So yeah, I don’t believe that the composer’s mind is inscrutable to the point where we couldn’t even visualize the circle- then any potential for artistic appreciation would be nonexistent. I’m saying we can understand the tip of the iceberg (the circle) through listening, and through methods similar to understanding videogame music, maybe even close to the shade. But we can’t grasp the shade completely; even the grasping of a similar shade isn’t intrinsic in us, but acquired through the fruits of our labor. And that in and of itself connotates a ton of artificiality. In application, take for instance a song about the serenity of walking along a coastline at sunset. Person x is a well developed musician and grasps the beach but misses the sunset, but what makes his beach serene is that he spent his honeymoon there, so in all of his performances, emotions derived from his wife carry the performance, not the inherent serenity that a beach and sunset exude in combination. Person y is a well developed musician too, but for him the beach is synonymous with death, because the first time he went there, his 13 year old son was wearing jewelry, swam too far in, and was killed by a shark. To make this more feasible, let’s say Person y listened to this song not too long after his son’s death. A mental block prevented him from going to the beach because he doesn’t see any worth in it, and he’s stupefied at the supposition that people can see beauty in it. In this subconscious equating of two things, he doesn’t even think of a beach when he hears the song, but rather his wife because he equates serenity with that. However, mere serenity is not what drives this song, and in missing the point, he has a fundamentally incorrect and ultimately incomplete grasp on the song. Serenity is the circle. The beach and sunset are the shade. Blaming a situation on the side-effects of a condition rather than the condition itself is a very subtle fallacy that people commit every day. The veracity of analyzing such a situation and coming to the conclusion that a side-effect was the primary cause is deceptive, because it appears to be perfectly correct. This is relevant to the interpretation as well. Take for instance, the death metal musicians who respect Yngwie so immensely. It is unarguable that he is a technical freak- and this is exactly where and precisely why they are short-sighted. His blisteringly quick licks are purely a consequence and entailment of the musical aesthetics that fundamentally drive his desire to play fast, because what Yngwie aims to express can only be realizable as such. That is to say, the speed is definitely not in the vein of self-servitude that so defines death metal musicality. That is a skin-deep interpretation of Yngwie’s speed. All this goes into making the statement: a single circle to two different people means two different things; a beach to two people means two different things; and an expression to two people means two different things is reflective of OCReMix’s subjective type of interpretation. The very reason why you all enjoy your own interpretations more is because it reflects you, but that’s not true appreciation. The compositions are about the artists, and true appreciation is within the nature of the connection: how we can connect with them because we connect with what they are expressing, not morphing the meaning of their work to suit us. That is extremely arrogant. Understanding the circle is the easy part. Understanding the color is what makes a good interpreter, and essentially, part of what makes a good composer. DrumUltimA, in this sense, it’s not that music isn’t for everyone, it’s that it isn’t understood correctly by everyone. As for me, I’m all about interpretation; correct interpretation. I’m not so pretentious in slapping my own emotion to the piece and arguing that I’m correct, because correct interpretation of a piece is NOT relative to us, but objective in the case of specific intent. This is why the most valid interpretation of a work is by its composer; fictional literature has its roots in spoken word; music has its roots in performance. Why our culture prefers books and mp3s is because they are more accessible and modern technology can make for longer books and deceptively talented artists. The appeal of modern live performance doesn’t even have its roots in music anymore; the appeal is almost entirely visual and social. That’s at least true for rock, but then again rock is characterized by deviating from classical convention. Leave it to the orchestra to provide the live musical experience in the vein of spoken word orators. Dhsu, absolutely not! And this is where you’re right! It’s not that music isn’t meant for everyone, it’s that some are better, some are worse. In such a day and age where the fallacious “You can do anything through hard work” mentality is so promoted, there exists a tremendously large amount of people who plague the industries of their disciplines because they are extremely inept. It’s an utterly sad realization that many aren’t adept at what they’re best at. Best and quality are adjectives exclusive of each other. On a related note, I also believe that not everyone is suited to be a parent. Childbirth is biologically intrinsic within the human race, but there are many infertile women who ache to bear children so badly, and fertile women who donate their children to foster homes, who neglect their children, who sexually assault their children, who have massive shortcomings in being a good parent. The numerous mentally ill children of the world are indicative of that. Besides. If the composition is so crappy what incentive would there be to play it? This is a ridiculous argument.

On a related note: You're using "different" very generically. You have to specify a context, because well, yeah, of course being different isn't bad. I'd much rather be of a world characteristic of identity rather than uniformity, but I want extremes of neither, you know? I don't want identity to the point of irrationality, where modifying works is seen as proper social decorum. I will reiterate what I’ve stated above: What this translates to is music having an overall less creative capacity than other arts because playing off of abstract contexts entails a certain level of dependency on mediums through which these emotions are feasibly expressible. Music plays off of things already known to man. What accounts for difference in music is that you can take 100 composers, have them all write a song about a simple emotion like anger, and get 100 different pieces. They express the same thing differently, but music by nature cannot create new emotion; that's actually one of its undeniable drawbacks. Perhaps not grammatically, but if anything I want you to know how musically open minded I am. I give everything a chance. ii. In a Classical Context Fratto, the validity of your argument begins and ends with classical context. I’m now aware of the fact that the harpsichord was dynamically singular, and whether Bach left out dynamic markings in harpsichord pieces out of intention or limitation is ambiguous, but I lean a bit more towards the latter. I’m also aware that Bach intentionally left out tempo markings in his Inventions because it was in the spirit of baroque, and that the magnitude of dynamics and musical markings is, funnily enough, ambiguous. Like the relationship states, the lack of a specific intent gives equal validity to all interpretations, so long as they remain within the general framework (the notes, etc.). This logically allows Horowitz’s interpretation of Beethoven to be valid; however it is not any more valid than Gould’s. I have changed my opinion on classical performers. A relevant example within the context of this website: the limiting nature of SNES music. I’d be really excited to hear the composers’ performances of great 80s and 90s videogame music. Note: Because this is a very modern practice, it is inapplicable to classical music and does digress from the explicitness of this thread, but while we’re on such a broad topic I might as well clarify. I want to make the point that the more explicit the intentions, the less feasible it is to transcribe such vision to sheet music. Classical music relies heavily on sheets, so yes, I am wrong because the composers could not transfer their direct intent other than through concert. So classically, yes, this is quite an unfeasible idea, but with the advent of midi and ultimately, programs like Reason, you can control down to the hundredth-place value the velocity of every note, the degree of rubato of every passage, the amount of decibel increase in every crescendo, the amount of decibel increase rather than use vague, historic dynamic markings, and so forth and so on. Such practice is extremely feasible and by virtue of, in practice. No, no, no. The entire point of that post was me debunking that interpretation is something magical by virtue of unobservability, through the logic that what you hear sounds that way for very real reasons. And that does away with the rest of your argument, since in essence, I agree. In conclusion: iii. The Validity of the Composer’s Intentions a. Through Premise The probability of anonymous invention inversely relates to the amount of personality in the invention. Art, like Shadow Wolf says, is the ultimate glimpse into a person’s mind- the chance that someone else would have the exact same musical aesthetics as another is less probable than the existence of identical snowflakes, and you know what they say about snowflakes. I’m not sure but I think I read somewhere that the human mind is far more complex than a snowflake. Of course, this relationship also gives credence to the virtue of anonymous-invention regarding simplistic three chord songs. And in this sense, you’re right, the sandwich doesn’t display inherencies exclusively characteristic of the Earl of Sandwich- he just happened to be the first to invent it. The less a composer knows how to express himself, which leads to simpler songs, the better chance that someone else can use the melodic and harmonic elements of that composer’s song in creating a far more expressive piece. However, the inverse is more relevant to my argument; the more a composer knows how to express himself leads to far more personal songs with inextricably personal elements in the song’s melody and harmony, which decreases the possibility of anonymous invention and any virtues of anonymous invention’s utility to the point of nonexistence. Why do you think in a book to movie or manga to anime adaptation, the book is almost invariably better? The answer isn’t rocket science; the composer holds a far better interpretation in representing what he/she wanted to express. Of course one could (and in this day and age, would) argue that the nature of cinematography doesn’t entail as-profound character development and there are time constraints, blah blah blah etc. [insert useless jargon here]- the composer holds a far better interpretation in representing what he/she wanted to express. A good example of correct interpretation is that when we all visualize Hogwarts, the important thing is that we’re all visualizing castles. The visualization of a beach would be completely wrong, and make a significant remark on the level of your literacy. The thing with interpretation is it’s much easier to make this mistake because of the very inexplicit and ambiguous nature of 12 tones as opposed to reading “Castle.” To make an interesting point, it’s through this very explicit nature of words that songs which are lyrically based lose musical credibility, because the usage of words extends beyond a mere crutch in conveying the expression; it uses it as a fundament.

IV. General Interpretation Before I start, I’d like to present an idea. Room for interpretation is because of a lack of vision or because of specific intent. They are fundamentally different. Artistic shortcomings constitute the former and artistic intention the latter. Take George Lucas for instance. The very creation of Star Wars: Episode I lacked vision. In designing the Naboo Starfighter, Lucas sat down very closely with the lead airship designer to run by a conceptualization of it, not a realization of it. He then has the designer run multiple designs by him until it struck a chord in him. Both of these co-operantly work towards the minimization of interpretation. This is the very way Mitsuda wrote music for Kato in Chrono Cross. This is precisely why bands form: artistic shortcomings because all its members have singular instrumental fluency. If Jimmy Page could sing exceptionally well and write lyrics, he would have absolutely no need for Robert Plant. Yngwie, regardless of whether you like his music or not, delivers an extremely personal vision in that composition of every instrument is done by his truly. Why is this? Because of something he blatantly lets people know: he is a man of incredible vision. This is exactly what I'm talking about- you are only fluent in one instrument. Peter Jackson, like many directors, allows room for interpretation through specific intent. Part of good cinematography is letting the actor shine through because people, essentially, are characterized by exclusive personality. He minimizes the occurrence of incongruent (to his vision) interpretation through a process commonly known as personal hiring. The creation of a game like Super Mario is 99.9% if not 100% vision because the simplicity of the game’s construction allows Miyamoto to feasibly oversee all decisions. The reason he has to hire workers is, obviously, the sheer scale of videogame creation. By that very reason are bigger games far less personal, but rather a collective vision by circumstance of human limitation. In the creation of an rpg like Final Fantasy X, a director, plot author, composer, battle system developer, artist, and their respective subordinates must all work co-operantly. What’s important to take from this is although unfeasible, in theory the most personal game would come from a single person who’s well versed in fictional literature, cinematography, exciting interactivity, and music. That's what I'm talking about. Whatever composers you’re referring to are extremely lacking in vision. This is not rocket science: the ultimate performer is the composer (and this can be realized in a live-setting through backing tracks recorded by the composer). i. On Understanding a Composer’s Intentions There are two battling viewpoints in this thread. One is Sil’s: and the other is ProphetofMephisto’s: I’m of the latter persuasion. “There are times when I hear other music, but I mostly get inspired when I see things -- paintings or other things. When I see things, music just pops into my head. When I'm scoring a game, once I actually see it, that's when things come into my head. If there's nothing to see, I have a hard time.” – Yasunori Mitsuda As a musician, what bothers me is the notion that music as an expressive outlet is limited. Take for instance Star Wars. George Lucas created Bespin, what is essentially a city in the clouds. Being associated with the sky, there's a certain surreal, elated feeling you get from it that any existing city in the world can't provide. Everything about it from its unique architecture to its culture is a pure, Lucas brainchild. He has basically invented a new emotion (along with the writer of Chrono Trigger inventing Zeal, and other historical incarnations of the sky-arcadia), through inventing a completely new world. Williams, while a fine composer, writes to augment every thematic niche in Star Wars, and while he too may express a new emotion not yet done through song by writing a theme for Bespin, he has to use Lucas's cinematic context as a primary fundament and footstool. What this translates to is music having an overall less creative capacity than other arts because playing off of abstract contexts entails levels of dependency on mediums which these expressions are feasible. Literature, cinematography, videogames, or really any art that entails a level of visualization as necessary in its appreciation is easily more adept in expressing the fictional. Why is this? Because words and pictures carry far more explicit connotations than what 12, ambiguous tones could ever hope to achieve. If Williams was independent of Star Wars and was trying to write a song that conveyed the above-outlined emotion of witnessing a floating city, he would have to visualize it first since the expression is intrinsically visual. He could not have done this if he was blind. This means the full potential of music cannot be realized exclusively auditory; there’s a visual aspect as well. In this very vein, playing a game is, in most cases fundamental towards the well-understanding of its respective music; the contextual analysis of when pieces are played and why. Unlike you said earlier, this isn’t arrogant at all Sil; in fact, it’s in most cases the only sensible way to approach comprehension.

III. Videogame Discussion Given the subject matter of this thread, addressing this topic is to digress but because so many people are bringing it up.. i. On Correct Interpretation Whew. More seriously though, This is a cool analogy. What I’m saying is that it’s retarded to evolve it into a Jolteon when your battle with Erika’s coming up. Or more appropriately in the vein of aimless remixing (Tensai), that’s like evolving your Eevee into a Flareon when the next badge lies in Cinnabar City (another thing to be noted is that the Charmander route is not just difficult in itself, but is no holds barred the most difficult out of the Squirtle and Bulbasaur route. This is Pokémon’s subtle and cleverly implemented “Choose Your Difficulty” option). This is especially relevant here in that defeating Blaine is a necessary process, much like having how having aim and direction is a necessary process in good remixing that must be taken in achieving the ultimate goal of the game: becoming the Kanto region Pokémon champion. Really, I should be thanking you for making such a great analogy. In no way did I belittle or am I belittling the double edged sword of curiosity. Luna Umegaki is in my humble opinion one of the greatest videogame composers of all time. Three of her songs, "Holy Land," "Esperanto," and "Freesia," are all entirely based off of a single, developed idea. Each incarnation of the melody is only affected subtly, and the chord progression remains unchanged. The cool thing is, even with this consistency what each song represents is very different from the next. "Holy Land" is a lament on the oppressive and persecutory nature of the government, "Esperanto" is an embodiment of a hero's indomitable determination, and "Freesia" is about the death of a friend, a hero, and loved one. The cool thing about this is that every piece is driven by the same feeling of sadness and oppression extremely specific to Rockman Zero, but the difference in the songs is reflective of how that single emotion could lead and did lead to different consequences. That shows tremendous adeptness as a composer on Umegaki's part. My point is that they're all similarly linked through expressing derivative expressions of that initial expression, and if you can work in a context like that, interpretation is extremely appropriate. You can do this through genre. Think about it: what is a genre in a musical context? It’s a completely different way of expressing certain emotions, and exclusive emotions. The derivation of emotion/expression can lead to a circumstance where a certain genre would express those ideas/emotions better. That’s the catalyst behind the advent of videogame music arranging. The drive behind your arrangement however, seems to be aimless and more a satisfaction of uninspired curiosity than anything else. If your drive is aimless, the resulting piece is going to be as such. I ask you: what is art without expression? You seem to know well what To Zanarkand is about, and it's extremely relevant when it does play, because you can view the song's message through the eyes of every party member and the resultant understanding would make perfect sense. It's about the intense adversity the group had to surmount to that point. It's about Tidus's state of mind as he has to digest the huge sacrifice required to get the final aeon. These are feelings of trying to maintain sanity when the current atmosphere is dominated by anxiety and unrest. To Zanarkand is about that, and more specifically, the success in finally achieving a mental state of calmness as everyone is gathered around the crackling fire, silently meditating upon the unearthly trials of tomorrow. The overbearing tone here is sadness. It's not an emotion metal really expresses well. Haven't you heard the Black Mages version? This is not to say it wouldn’t work in a metal context. Without direction, rearranging will not work in any context. Corridors of Time is much about sadness also, but it's not from any observable character's point of view. It's written from an anonymous third person perspective, and what's sad is his realization of the ignorance and infantile mentality that so summarizes the mentality of Zeal's inhabitants. The older citizens of Zeal think like teenagers. They have that same self-entitlement mentality; they believe that they deserve to be in Zeal when the state of things is completely due to circumstance and they hadn’t the slightest hand in it. They cast down those that live on the surface, suffering from a wintery holocaust. Those who have can't appreciate like those who haven't, but the way they say the most childishly arrogant things so nonchalantly is both disturbing and upsetting. And all that, believe it or not, is expressed within the Corridors of Time. What if you gave Corridors of Time a reggae mix? Would that relaxed, chill feeling so characteristic of it be at all congruent? Where are you sourcing this garbage from???

I. Introduction II. Classical Discussion i. Clarification and Restatement of Terms III. Videogame Discussion i. On Correct Interpretation IV. General Interpretation i. On Understanding a Composer’s Intentions ii. In a Classical Context iii. The Validity of the Composer’s Intentions a. Through Premise b. Through Application V. Thread-Related Offshoots I. Introduction I've slept on this, and am prepared to reapproach this topic more carefully. I'm glad that this topic is actually gaining some good momentum, and I also thank all, er, most of the people who've posted in this thread for providing me with how other people see things. My appreciation for music started as a listener, moved up to performance, and has ultimately graduated to composition. I want to address how this is a remixing site, and because remixing has its roots in interpretation, my opinions have been met with, suffice to say, fierce opposition. My mind has been opened a bit by the words of some. We’ve accomplished the point of this thread (an exchange of ideas), and some persuasion has come as a consequence of deep discussion. The points that I will now present are purely objective because they can be thoroughly argued without the inclusion of bias, so now I ask that you all, in turn, will seriously consider the veracity of my arguments through removing your bias just like Dhsu and Sil have commendably done. Now it's time to offer my opinion. And yes, the content in this septuple post will be massive, because I am attempting to collectively respond to 30-33 pages of discussion. In case it wasn't clear, I am fully aware that its breaking the rules. I cannot get this kind of message across incrementally. II. Classical Discussion Everything I’m writing in here is geared towards the assessment of the conventions which characterize the classical realm. i. Clarification and Restatement of Terms I've managed in finding two overbearing misconceptions regarding my argument here (just proof that I should be far more specific in regard to the connotations of my terms); what's difficult in pinpointing them is that one is nested in the other. I've tried my best in stringing together all the relevant quotes. Here's the primary misconception (followed by examples): … The construction of all of these arguments is extremely fallacious in that it has to capitalize on a false dichotomy to attain any veracity. You might as well say that the sound engineer is just as important in the music making process, because in modern times, many if not most artists who record rely on a sound engineer to commit their audio to mp3. Is recording a piece just as important in the “music making” process? DrumUltimA, you've put this into perfect perspective. The reason that so many people misunderstand this thread is because I don’t like saying “composer-performer.” The reason is, for me, composition entails performance. The naturality seems so self-evident. That’s why I think the dependency of a composer to performer relationship is not equally symbiotic, it’s way more one sided. Conceptualization of pitch is currently instrumentally dependent. If you literally play nothing, every midi programmer uses what’s known as a piano roll, so the way you conceptualize intervals and chords will be very fundamentally pianistic. He might as well play piano. What he listens to also constitutes a large part of his musical aesthetics, and whatever he likes is extremely instrumentally related. In writing for guitar you generally include a lot less apreggios because it's extremely difficult to phrase them fluidly, whereas on piano it's a lot more doable (in fact, elementary); you can’t notate bends on all stringed instruments (i.e. violin); every instrument has very inherently exclusive characteristics. What am I saying? He indirectly plays an instrument, and it’s stupid that he doesn’t pursue it further. Here's the nested one: Hollywood actors. I've stated my opinion on (and, this is many and not all) Hollywood actors. Those Hollywood actors that I do actually like (and for good measure, those who you all probably like as well), those are the ones who I view as Horowitzes, so to speak.

I don't think so- that's why you can have differently gauged strings on a guitar (like a set of 0.8s or 0.13s). And I think tension is directly related to pitch regarding any string instrument, so an open tuning would have essentially the same tension. That's why it's harder to bend 0.13s as opposed to 0.8s lol, because the gauge is thicker but the tension is the same. Probably. Thanks for the suggestion. I just wanted to share my observations to discuss. Wow, that's extremely cool how the fretwire is bent for every string.

A better title for this thread is: "On the Correlation Between an Instrument's Structure to Pitch." I saw this picture of a million fret guitar today: Then I started wondering whether such a concept was plausible. From convention, the 24 fret hallmark of Jackson and and Dean guitars is realizable through a structural hallmark: the cutaway. What this translates to is in achieving this, the neck isn't augmented in length in moving away from the body, but rather towards it. I'm pretty sure that the distance from the tuning pegs to the bridge is key and consequently reflective of a few things: 1. The distance from the tuning peg to the nut (the white vertical structure directly below the head) along with the distance from the nut to the bridge relates to the length of the neck. 2. A difference in 1 accounts for differences in the distances from fret to fret of two guitars. 3. That differences in fret distance between guitars in general isn't very pronounced accounts for the fact that the respective lengths from tuning peg to bridge of all guitars are very similar. 3. The distance between the consecutive frets is inversely related to an increase in pitch. 4. An increase in tuning-peg-to-bridge length doesn't correlate at all to an increase in range of notes. String tension in playing an open string on this guitar would be the same as on my 21 fret strat. However, the distance in pitch between the the representive notes of the first and second frets of this guitar is not at all equivocal to my guitar. Any ideas if something like this could cross over to other instruments as well?