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Bowlerhat

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  1. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to Hemophiliac in Where to find userid?   
    Yours is 30366.  It's in address bar for your profile page.
  2. Like
    Bowlerhat got a reaction from djpretzel in OCR04335 - Chrono Trigger "The Secret Was Clarinet"   
    Cool stuff!! 
  3. Thanks
    Bowlerhat got a reaction from BloomingLate in Minor or Dorian? Finding the right scale to go with a melody.   
    Writing in Dorian is a completely valid thing to do and nothing to be afraid off. Great job on figuring these things out and jumping into advanced music theory! Definitely don't overthink it too much, if the Dorian scale fits the whole tune and the tonal center is B Dorian then that's probably just what it is.
     
    To get a bit into dominant tonic resolutions in Dorian: 
    In modal music, such as Dorian, cadences have different functions. If we for example take your B dorian tune, the different degrees look like this:
    Im7 B-D-F#-A
    IIm7 C#-E-G#-B
    IIImaj7 D-F#-A-C#
    IVDom7 E-G#-B-D
    Vm7 F#-A-C#-E
    VIhalfdim7 G#-B-D-F#
    VIImaj7 A-C#-E-G#
     
    Which makes the V, which normally has a dominant sound in Western tonal music, as you've correctly observed indeed minor. You don't have to go to the I with a dominant chord, like the IV though, if you don't want to. You can approach it in minor from the V or from anywhere else you want. Something I personally really like is approaching it from the IIm7, since that's a uniquely Dorian sound. In the end, in modal music it's more about staying in the tonal center of B Dorian rather than having sub dominants and dominant structures. So the worst thing you can do in a tune that's in B Dorian is take a IV-V-I to A major for example, because you then lose the Dorian sound, despite keeping the same amount of sharps and flats. It's of course still something you can do though, musically speaking, if that's something that you want to do. But for writing Dorian it's a no-go. Play around with these degrees and see how they relate to the I tonic, modes are really interesting and bring many beautiful chordal structures that you lose by thinking too much in old fashioned neo-classical music theory. 
  4. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to bluelighter in Final Fantasy 9 – A Royal Tournament in Cleyra   
    Here is an orchestra arrangement of "Cleyra" and "One danger put behind us" from Final Fantasy IX
    Original music : Nobuo Uematsu
    Arranged by me :
    Flute : @Bowlerhat
    Violin : @Chris ~ Amaterasu
    I had several influences for this arrangement: Celtic, movie, march band… I came where I wanted, following my inspiration and my mood of the moment.
    Enjoy!
  5. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to Wiesty in Mode Seven: A Jazz Tribute to the SNES - History   
    Hey Everyone!
    So life gets in the way of big plans more often then not, but some exciting news for the community!
    The OC Jazz Collective is WELL into production of this album. We've got your favourite artists and arrangers such as....
    @XPRTNovice
    @DrumUltimA
    @Bowlerhat
    @Fratto
    @JohnStacy
    @Nostalvania
    @audio fidelity
    @Damashii!!
    @Wiesty
    Anthony Lofton
    And more guest arrangers and artists!!!
     
    We've currently got 9/10 tracks written and being recorded, from your favorite SNES era video games. Our goal is to have the album out for you by November, 2020!!!
     
    Need something to wet your whistle in the meanwhile? If you didn't check it out, here is a track we recorded for the Material Album "Epoch" entitled "How Deep is the Ocean Palace?" 
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOQEGYIuVs8
    https://bandcamp.materiacollective.com/track/how-deep-is-the-ocean-palace
     
    !!!!!!!More to come!!!!!!!!
     
     
     
     
  6. Like
    Bowlerhat got a reaction from Rozovian in Signatures disabled   
    Reading along for a while made me think that it's maybe worthwhile to start a "how to keep OCR hip" threat in order to generally discuss what it is that the community wants and what they're hoping to see on this platform. I'm personally not much of a forum gal, but I do still love the whole video game remix exchange/discussion/whatever thingy that people have going on here on multiple different levels and in many different ways. However, I do also feel that it might be worthwhile to up the game on social media and such and get more involved with whatever the youngsters are doing these days. It actually took me a few days to find out that my own remix got posted a few days ago, since I'm not on the forum so much, and it simply didn't show up on my Facebook feed or on Instagram and such, even though I follow OCR on all these platforms. These are the places people are on nowadays, and I think that that's the place to hook people into the OCR life and keep them coming back.
    On the other hand, this might not be what OCR is going for in general, as this would also imply a shift in focus from traditional "foruming" to a more involved and generally bigger and different kind of OCR medium. I remember the discussion on the decline of reviews on remixes from a few years ago where people were already discussing the influence from Youtube and such and how this was influencing the decline of people making reviews on the forum. This might be a bit unrelated to the disabling of signatures, but reading all the suggestions and discussions above gave me the feeling that different people have a different idea of what OCR is and what it's going to be and what it's supposed to be and how to get there and why to get there and all that, and discussing this very important (and in my opinion also urgent) question among the community could be a good idea, seeing how this topic and issue keeps popping up in varying specific threads. I think it's time to start looking at the bigger picture. 
  7. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to Ramaniscence in Signatures disabled   
    A few points worth noting:
    The site's UVP is the incredible game music arrangements. The community has been valuable for many of us, but it is secondary. The vast majority of the users on the site never even touch the forums. I'd imagine most of the people who still use the forums have for years. Those that have left, as others have mentioned, probably just got too old/busy. With that said, most major music sites don't even have forums. Maybe they have a subreddit, but not a forum. YouTube and Soundcloud killed OCR's community momentum, not the changes to the site. Gone are the days of finding MP3s on P2P networks. You don't have to have your own web hosting or submit to VGMix/OCR/whatever to share your music on the internet.  The internet is social. A lot of people don't like it, but a huge portion of the internet does. This is where blogs/pages/whatever would need to come into play. If you want to build a large internet community, it has to be a pseudo-social network. The vocal minority will hate it. The top sites on the internet right now are either social media (instagram, reddit, facebook, twitter, linkedin), "video sites", YouTube, which is a mash-up video and social site, and then Amazon, Wikipedia, and search engines. Forum activity has dropped, but Discord activity is booming. "Booming" may be a bit of a stretch, but it's far more active than IRC was when it died. That's because Discord is used by a lot of people and the age range is like "13" to 40. It's just most accessible.  And if you want talk about user experience, I can take this a bit further:
    The web is dead. Web traffics across the board has dropped drastically in favor of mobile apps. This is partly also why social communities and focus'd web/mobile apps have become popular. People do not sit and traverse large chunks of content anymore. People consume content in short bursts, "micro-breaks", on commutes, in shopping lines, on the toilet. It's not true for everyone, but it is for the vast majority of the planet. There's no room for noise and visual clutter. Anything that keep that comes between a user and the content their looking for is noise. Noise makes users go elsewhere.
  8. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to djpretzel in Signatures disabled   
    Yep, you really nailed it there. Way too close to home. When I read your post, I spat out my yerba mate and dropped my artisanal scone on the ground - "They're on to me!!!" I thought, as I frantically started shredding documents & eliminating any hard evidence of my "post-modernist" UX/UI plot to monetize OCR by getting rid of forum signatures. No one can ever know... My entire business model is in shambles because I was banking on getting rid of forum signatures leading directly to the vast, untold riches that have thus far eluded me in twenty years of running this non-profit community. This was it, this was the moment, and now it's been shamefully exposed...
    Ahem... at any rate, in my experience you get respect when you give respect. Making relatively outlandish, bad faith accusations is not giving respect, nor is calling anyone elitist, nor is assuming that because you're not being agreed with, you're not being heard...
    As @Ramaniscence alluded to, the paradigm of the online forum itself has eroded a bit, and while I've never felt pressured to follow every last design fad, I also feel like we - along with everyone else - are competing for the time & energy of human beings that are increasingly being bombarded with information. In the context of a thread, the additional secondary/tertiary, unstructured text & visual information provided in signatures is a bit distracting. Since we plan on leaning on the (streamlined) forums more in months to come, this is a preparatory step to make them not just more "modern" or "post-modern" but more focused, plain and simple. The purpose of this post was largely to explain the rationale & get ideas for equivalent functionality, and not to debate the decision, and we appreciated the good faith comments we received and will keep them in mind for profile enhancements or other ways of letting artists & contributors showcase their works, talents, & availability.
  9. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to Mr. Hu in OCR04025 - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "To See Like Me"   
    Incredible version. Like something from a Mario Odyssey version of Zelda. Some stuff here is a teensy bit raw, vocals included, and the take sounds a little loose, and it just makes it all even better. 
  10. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to FlashX in OCR04025 - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "To See Like Me"   
    Hey this is great! just a personal gripe, at times it feels like each instrument is fighting for attention, but that is just me and im no expert on sound, something to think about anyways.
    Great Job!
  11. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to Ybrik Metaknight in OCR04025 - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "To See Like Me"   
    Hot holy damn this is good
  12. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to Vaizar in OCR04025 - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "To See Like Me"   
    I can't express how good this is sheesh y'all are amazing
  13. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to Geoffrey Taucer in OCR04025 - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "To See Like Me"   
    .....

    ......

    .........

    ...... holy shit

    Yeah, this might be the best mix on the site right now
  14. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to timaeus222 in OCR04025 - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "To See Like Me"   
    Incredible, reminds me of Snarky Puppy almost. I will definitely be song requesting this on twitch streams
  15. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to Black_Doom in OCR04025 - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "To See Like Me"   
    Wow, just WOW. I'm writing this during my first listen and I'm just about halfway through, but oh my gosh, I know I'm gonna love every second of this masterpiece. I'm a huge sucker for some smooth jazz jams and this is certainly right up my alley! You nailed it with your initial collaboration, Jorik, but this is just beyond any levels of awesome. Really reminded me of another modern classic of videogame music - "Jump Up, Super Star!", which is saying a lot, I think  This one is a little less festive, sure, but the attitude is absolutely the same. Jeez, I think I got chills like 100 times while listening to this track - that was scary good. Mind-blowing work by your crew! Keep it up!
  16. Like
    Bowlerhat got a reaction from Pavos in Reflections on being an artist in a modern consumerist society and the role of social media in re-shaping the relationship between artist and fan   
    As another Dutch person i thought it would be interesting to shed my light on the scene as well. Not particularly because I'm Dutch, but I find the subject to be engaging and worth talking about and also found it a nice coincidence. 
    Like you said, there's an abundance of music at the moment and sticking out among the crowd is difficult. I agree with this. However, what I find interesting about your post are your reasons to make music. You name "the desire to express yourself" and looking for a "connection" with people. Personally, I'm a jazz artist. I used to study music composition in the Netherlands but I'm currently located in Germany. Of course, "expressing myself" and connecting with people has been a big reason to continue making music but I wouldn't call it the driving force. At all. This is naturally a subjective thing, but I do want to share my personal thoughts on this since I feel like it might open up some possibilities for other people as well. I make music to create music. For me the reason is very intrinsic. I love music, and I love writing music even more than that. For me the art of discovery and the excitement of finishing pieces, playing in ensembles, organizing concerts, making promo photos, the whole gizmo, it's amazing. Of course, when I make music I express myself, I also connect with other people, but I think that to realize that the fact that you're making music is fun and thrilling and emotional and generally just very wholesome is vital to keep doing this thing. Generally, want I want to say is that I'm simply not dealing at all with the things you're stating above. I'm getting a lot of satisfaction from making music. 
    With that in mind I want to immediately stress that there's different ways of producing music. Personally, I write music in Sibelius and then I get the musicians together and we rehearse. Then, there's a concert and people pay to see that concert and I use that money to pay the musicians. That's like, the basic version haha. With this method I personally have a great way of "expressing myself', connecting with people (both the musicians I work with and the people who consume my music) and I'm also just having an awesome time with the whole thing of writing the music and organizing everything. Besides that, as an arranger I also make arrangements for big bands and such and sell those, and I also play gigs as a flute player in orchestra's, jazz ensembles or just random other gigs. Now, I'm going to quote something I found kind of funny about your post:
    The thing is that "the latest dance track" isn't so different from Mozart, or Bach or whomever else at all. That is, in principal. These people, especially Mozart were pouring out arrangements by the hour as well. The difference is that you cherry picked some of the finest musicians of their century against "a random guy on the internet". But honestly, they didn't spend that much more time on their music at all. In the end it all comes down to talent and creativity. And this thoughtlessly producing music is something I personally do as well. For example when I have to arrange something I don't really like for some kind of ensemble but I also do have to pay my rent so i do it anyway. It's like how Mozart did it, how Bach did it, how Thad Jones did it and how most arrangers and composers did it and still do it today. As you mentioned in your post, time filters things. But not just obscure artists, but also obscure pieces from famous artists. Mozart wrote a lot of music. Like a lot lot. And some of it is brilliant, and honestly some of it is sh*t. The point I'm trying to make here is that quantity isn't just a necessary thing for being a serious musician, it's even a good thing. Doing things more gives you experience and makes you better at it, it's as simple as that. 
    Then, going back to my first point about producing music. I don't know what kind of art or music you make but assuming from your post I assume that it's something that you create by yourself and then release upon the internet. This is an entirely different approach than mine, and it isn't any better or worse, just different. And this is important to keep in mind. Because, what you're basically doing is that you're using this media, the internet, which you have many opinions about that directly contrast the way you want your way of making music to be, as your only way of releasing your music. It's counterproductive. I personally would never want to make a living from just uploading songs to the internet and having them be consumed by people I don't know. For the exact same reasons as you. But, I personally chose to just not do that. Of course, I still have to maintain a social media account for my band, book gigs, schedule rehearsals, write music for annoying people that you really don't want to work with but have to because they're paying you for making that arrangement, and other such things that proper adults do. But that's life, it's the way professional musicians in my field deal with things. And that's a completely different way other professional musicians in their respective field deal with things. My way might not be your way. But if the way that you're doing music currently isn't satisfying for you, then realize that there's other ways to do it as well. 
    And here's why it's funny again that we're all Dutch here, because we're basically all growing up in the same environment. And yet we can all have different experiences, different perspectives and different working tools even though we're all just trying to make music. Which I think is also a nice proof that it isn't too late to change your way of looking at music, and the way you make music and produce music and find something that suits you and gives you the satisfaction that you want to get out of music. Because it's all possible, and in the end it's also the most important thing. To somehow have making music be intrinsically satisfying for you.
  17. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to Pavos in Reflections on being an artist in a modern consumerist society and the role of social media in re-shaping the relationship between artist and fan   
    Interesting read, although I'm a little less disheartened than you are I believe. I think this post has a lot in common with the "do you still make ReMixes" thread of a while back, since it touches upon why you are an artist, and what you expect to get out of it. If you truly want a personal connection with your audience, then I understand the online world can be a little disheartening. I find that the best connections with the audience come from live shows. But, other personal connections I get is with peers, and that is MUCH easier online. Working together with others, getting feedback from judges at OCR, discussing exactly the things we are discussing now - those are valuable things only made possible through the possibilities of an online community and social media.
    Yes, social media (and/or internet 2.0/3.0) can bring out the worst in people and there is indeed so much content that it makes it hard to stand out. But I have YouTube videos, music, art and more that I frequently enjoy and keep coming back to and I am certainly not alone. Yes, it makes it hard for us to be noticed when there are so many others out there, but without it we wouldn't be noticed at all. I wouldn't be able to be an artist and to do the things I do without these technological developments. Furthermore, I think that we now live in a period where apps and social media rise just to get that personal connection with an artist as long as you are also an artist "offline". Especially here in the Netherlands (where you're also based I see) there are more and more initiatives to be able to meet personally with artists, see niche performances or art and to connect on a deeper level. So while I really recognize and understand the dark side of it all (and we've all had bad experiences), I also think it gives us possibilities that we didn't have before. It's up to us to determine why we do what we do and what we want to get out of it, and then decide on the ideal platform to pursue that. Because just randomly dropping something online (facebook/youtube/wherever) will indeed lead to just a consumerist connection. At least that's what I think of the issues you described
     
    P.S. I also have high regards for the "commercial" artists that are perhaps not always the best in their musical skills, but as entrepreneurs and business(wo)men, they have a lot of skills to be able to get where they are. If building a company or a brand is your passion, and you can combine that successfully with an art form, it takes a lot of determination and skills to be able to achieve success and I really respect that.
  18. Like
    Bowlerhat got a reaction from Eino Keskitalo in I'm not that great at doing transitions between melodic ideas. and I'm having trouble making songs fit together   
    While all the other points are really good, in my opinion this is the most important thing to consider when making transitions. I would personally stretch the point even further and say: "Why transition at all?" I think that there's a merit to having a transition between two (or more) songs if there's a justifiable reason to have multiple source material in the first place. And I'd assume that if there is a good reason to have multiple source materials, then it'll probably be because of a good link between the songs which makes the question kind of obsolete. I think that rather than searching for a "transition" it makes more sense to look for a "cohesion". 
    Of course there are some scenarios where you might be assigned to, or could even get paid to combine "contextually preferably uncombinable" things, and in that case I would definitely read the points made above a few times and really think about them because they're all very expertly made and elaborated on. This summer I got a job to write a big band arrangement for someone and she had some very specific form structure in mind that I personally would never use. But since I got paid to do the job, and she didn't really listen to my suggestions to change it to something more effective I just had to roll with it. It happens, and in such cases it's good to be able to do it. But these situations are outside of the point that I'm trying to make at the moment.
    To be honest, when remixing I think it's better to ask yourself: "How do I get more out of my source material so that I don't need to transition to a different song halfway". And when you really want to add another source tune, think to yourself: "What does this add to the music?: "How is this related to the rest?" "Where do I want to go?" "What do I want to say?" And when you're able to answer those questions with justifiable reasons, then the proper way to transition between songs will naturally come out of that. It's a very context specific thing, and the answer can be many things. In my experience, shifting too many times in one song between different genre's, source material, writing styles and all that good stuff takes away more than that it adds, and it's often a better idea to just write multiple tunes. 
    It might not be the answer you're looking for, but i did want to add my two cents, since I feel that many remixers and writers often overlook these kind of things and tend to jump into quantity rather than quality. Not saying that that's necessarily what you're doing since, as many have already pointed out, you didn't give any examples of your music, but it's something to always keep in mind when writing. And asking some of the questions in the previous alinea might also solve other problems you could be dealing with, such as problems with flow, dynamics, instrumentation, motivic development, style, diversity and musical coherence among many things. 
  19. Like
    Bowlerhat got a reaction from timaeus222 in I'm not that great at doing transitions between melodic ideas. and I'm having trouble making songs fit together   
    While all the other points are really good, in my opinion this is the most important thing to consider when making transitions. I would personally stretch the point even further and say: "Why transition at all?" I think that there's a merit to having a transition between two (or more) songs if there's a justifiable reason to have multiple source material in the first place. And I'd assume that if there is a good reason to have multiple source materials, then it'll probably be because of a good link between the songs which makes the question kind of obsolete. I think that rather than searching for a "transition" it makes more sense to look for a "cohesion". 
    Of course there are some scenarios where you might be assigned to, or could even get paid to combine "contextually preferably uncombinable" things, and in that case I would definitely read the points made above a few times and really think about them because they're all very expertly made and elaborated on. This summer I got a job to write a big band arrangement for someone and she had some very specific form structure in mind that I personally would never use. But since I got paid to do the job, and she didn't really listen to my suggestions to change it to something more effective I just had to roll with it. It happens, and in such cases it's good to be able to do it. But these situations are outside of the point that I'm trying to make at the moment.
    To be honest, when remixing I think it's better to ask yourself: "How do I get more out of my source material so that I don't need to transition to a different song halfway". And when you really want to add another source tune, think to yourself: "What does this add to the music?: "How is this related to the rest?" "Where do I want to go?" "What do I want to say?" And when you're able to answer those questions with justifiable reasons, then the proper way to transition between songs will naturally come out of that. It's a very context specific thing, and the answer can be many things. In my experience, shifting too many times in one song between different genre's, source material, writing styles and all that good stuff takes away more than that it adds, and it's often a better idea to just write multiple tunes. 
    It might not be the answer you're looking for, but i did want to add my two cents, since I feel that many remixers and writers often overlook these kind of things and tend to jump into quantity rather than quality. Not saying that that's necessarily what you're doing since, as many have already pointed out, you didn't give any examples of your music, but it's something to always keep in mind when writing. And asking some of the questions in the previous alinea might also solve other problems you could be dealing with, such as problems with flow, dynamics, instrumentation, motivic development, style, diversity and musical coherence among many things. 
  20. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to timaeus222 in I'm not that great at doing transitions between melodic ideas. and I'm having trouble making songs fit together   
    A few basic tips:
    Listen to songs that carry out the style you are looking for, and try to make sense of what the structure is. You can even put it into your DAW to try to tempo-match, and then break it down into how many bars until each section is over. Where's the intro? Where's the outtro? Bridge? How are the dynamics changing over the course of the track?
      Common transitions make use of cymbals and other transition sounds, or perhaps drum fills, but good transitions tend to connect both texture and contour (especially when writing orchestral, which has "only" organic instruments). Not just the density of the elements present, but also, the elements should feel like they're working together. Make yourself write a melodic transition sometime, and with time you'll hopefully develop that (voice-leading) as simply a core skill. You can do a simple melodic transition by writing a melody that sustains through into the next section, but later on, you could improve it by making all the little elements around the lead work together to lead up to that new section. For an example, I tend to share this, since it's what I consider my personal best arrangement. Maybe it'll help.
      Have your friends listen to what you have and give you advice... including us. That means post a WIP, not just "help me".
  21. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to JohnStacy in I'm not that great at doing transitions between melodic ideas. and I'm having trouble making songs fit together   
    Take elements of the things you are transitioning to and from and mix them together.
    If you're transitioning from something that is slow and legato to something that is a little faster and more detached, start altering some of the things near the end of the slow section to be more detached, so that the style change doesn't seem to come out of nowhere.
    Take themes from the later sections and introduce them as secondary themes in the current section.
    Essentially, it's just a matter of introducing stuff in little bits before you get there so that it doesn't seem like you suddenly arrived out of nowhere.
  22. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to Jorito in I'm not that great at doing transitions between melodic ideas. and I'm having trouble making songs fit together   
    Hard to say what to improve without a WIP to listen to. Having just done a 13 minute, 7 track orchestral remix myself, all I can recommend is to place your songs in an order that help you (e.g. putting songs in the same time signature together, be smart about preventing massive tempo jumps, etc.) and take the time in the arrangement to ease the listener into the various sections. The latter can sometimes be achieved by dropping out elements of track 1 and slowly introducing elements of track 2 (e.g. hints of the melody) before fully transitioning into it, and sometimes you can go for a dramatic stop or fadeout and transition the listener into the new section with a drum fill or a transitionary element like a held string note or the like. Again, hard to recommend anything if I can't hear anything.
    Anyway, your best bet is to carefully listen at other tracks and get some ideas on how others do it. Something like Sam Dillard's stuff might help, or if you really wanna go pro something like Final Symphony (a suite of Final Fantasy music performed by the London Symphony Orchestra) might do the trick. 
  23. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to AngelCityOutlaw in I'm not that great at doing transitions between melodic ideas. and I'm having trouble making songs fit together   
    "Transitions", as in, an independent little section or fill that bridges the gap between 2 distinct sections is honestly more of a thing in rock and electronic music. 
    This is something that was always a big topic around here back when I joined, but I actually think a lot of music is made worse by having these little 1 bar phrases and such between two different sections because it creates an odd (or even, depending on song) # of bars in a phrase and feels like it "resets" the tune to my ears rather than creates a flow into the next section.
    Like listen to these examples of orchestral or cinematic tunes:
    None of these pieces have anything I would specifically call a "transition". It just goes one section into another. They do however pay attention to two things:
    Anacrusis, and voice leading.
    An anacrusis is a few notes before the first measure of a phrase that "lead-in" to it. A very common variant is that, in a minor key, you might have played the 5th and the minor 7th before playing the root on the downbeat of the first measure of the phrase. 
    Voice-leading refers to how the voices (instruments) or lines move to another pitch. You want to avoid creating too many "leaps", that is: movement larger than a major third. You want stepwise motion as much as possible.
    So let's say that: Sections A and B are both 8 measures long. The melody note in the last bar of section A ends on the root, an octave below where you started.
    This means that section B should ideally start in the new, lower octave rather than having the melody jump all the way back up. If I do go back up into that higher register for the beginning of section B, than I would create an anacrusis leading into that pitch, with a different instrument(s) above the previous melody in the last bar of section A. Also, if you come back to the tonic chord in the last bar before a new phrase, have a quick chord change on the last beat or couple of beats in the last bar so that it will smoothly lead back to the tonic, or whatever chord begins the new phrase.
    You can use percussion like timpani and cymbals rolls to accent this or ramp the tempo a bit, but basically: There is nothing terribly special you should have to do to make two sections, even very different ones, flow into each other well if your voice-leading is strong.
  24. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to BloomingLate in A Song About A Feather   
    Haha, I'm guilty of a lot of vague and artsy-ness myself (well, maybe not so much with my music these days, but definitely with my old photography and poetry when I was younger...).
    It is interesting to think of our natural surroundings and to come up with music that supposedly reflects things, like a feather or breathing. What makes us associate certain sounds with objects anyway?
    Sometimes I get a piano sheet with some vague title like "Sand Castles" and I ask myself: "How on earth do I get a sand castle from that!?" (Or something about summer...or rain or whatever) :D Maybe I'll give that a try myself!
  25. Like
    Bowlerhat reacted to BloomingLate in A Song About A Feather   
    I like it. It's kind of relaxing and light...like a feather I guess What inspired you to write this?
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