redtails Posted April 5, 2011 Share Posted April 5, 2011 The piano is a film directed by Jane Campion back in 2000. The main attraction point to me is its musical score, written by Michael Nyman. I finally got ahold on a paper version of the sheet music a while back. It was refreshing to review the music and to go over its main melody. As a tribute to the amazing music, I tried to arrange the main song of The Piano, namely The Heart Asks Pleasure First as realistic as possible. Velocity keys do help so much. Though, I must admit toggling reverb settings to acquire a realistic wet sound without engulfing the dry really is something. The arrange is Work In Progress (WIP) and all suggestions or reactions are welcome TL;DR : I copypasted The Heart Asks Pleasure First from sheet music. I wish to have feedback on its realism and general tips on improving my musics Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dPS-EHl-FE Arrange (WIP3, used suggestions posted below): Sorry no longer have this on my soundcloud account. I will finish this song in the future and republish it. If anyone is interested, here is a zip-file containing 3 individual midi-files which form the piano, vocals and strings. You can use them in any way you see fit, just keep in mind of the original copyright (Michael Nyman) that is still on this song: http://www.mediafire.com/?dt3tor2v51n0ps8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghetto Lee Lewis Posted April 6, 2011 Share Posted April 6, 2011 Well, first I must say, I haven't seen the movie, but the piano in the original song sounds really fake. Sustain pedal on a real piano doesn't stop abruptly the way it does in this song. It sounds almost like the piano has been harshly beat sliced or overcompressed by some dumbass engineer. For a movie that's supposed to be about a piano I'm really disappointed. The melody isn't particularly catchy either. It just sounds like the composer tried making something emotional sounding with a lot of movement. Quite frankly, I find this arranging/composing style to be really annoying and a disgrace to great late romantic composers like Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. Now, I'm listening to your version. In some ways it actually sounds better than the original, roflz. Slowing it down actually brings out the emotion better for one thing. However, I dunno if it's compression or what, my head is starting to hurt. The dynamics on the strings seem really over-the-top. They fade in way too dramatically (it's probably the samples you chose). The piano itself is way too bright sounding. It's just simply a bad sample (FL Keys or Florestan Piano soundfont?). I'd try Tonehammer emotional piano if you can(or I could render it for you if you send me a MIDI), or else maybe find better samples. It's hard to really judge how well you're sequencing the velocities of the piano due to the poor piano samples. I know it can definitely use more rubato (tempo changes) to add emotion. In this case, I think it would make sense to start off a phrase (each phrase is probably one or two measures in this song) with a slower tempo and accelerate towards the end of the phrase. Of course, the reverse principle often works in many situations, and other types of tempo changes you may find appropriate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redtails Posted April 6, 2011 Author Share Posted April 6, 2011 However, I dunno if it's compression or what, my head is starting to hurt. The dynamics on the strings seem really over-the-top. They fade in way too dramatically (it's probably the samples you chose). The piano itself is way too bright sounding. It's just simply a bad sample (FL Keys or Florestan Piano soundfont?). I'd try Tonehammer emotional piano if you can(or I could render it for you if you send me a MIDI), or else maybe find better samples. It's hard to really judge how well you're sequencing the velocities of the piano due to the poor piano samples. I know it can definitely use more rubato (tempo changes) to add emotion. In this case, I think it would make sense to start off a phrase (each phrase is probably one or two measures in this song) with a slower tempo and accelerate towards the end of the phrase. Of course, the reverse principle often works in many situations, and other types of tempo changes you may find appropriate. Personal opinion left aside, I'm thankful for your reply. It's good to know people check out the original if they have not yet heard of it Though, I am actually glad you commented on the piano. It's indeed a free soundfont I found, I'm not really a big fan of FL-keys because they lack velocity expression. I thought it was a rather nice patch, though it must lack detail to be used as a guiding instrument instead of a background instrument. I will be on the look-out for a more detailed soundfont, though your offer to render it is very generous. The idea of variable tempo is kind of advanced. I know what you mean and how it's often used in piano solos, and it really does bring life into a song. My main concern is how it often ends of sounding messy, especially when it's not just a piano solo. That's from personal experience anyway, I'm not a trained piano player. I will of course try it and judge for myself how will it ends up, thanks for the kind advice ！! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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