A New Tune [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

She Cries Again

A few days ago I composed this tune, "She Cries Again", inspired by rendancer's poem of the same name. Actually, I was playing it two octaves lower, but figured more people would be comfortable reading it in treble clef. In my LJ "scrapbook" there's a copy with the title and my name on it, and when I get around to figuring out how to do certain things from anniemal's Mac or when I get home, maybe I'll post a copy in bass clef if anyone cares.

I was thinking of rendancer's poem when I wrote this, but not precisely "trying to set the poem to music". Each section of the tune is twice as long as a stanza of the poem, but what might work is to sing four measures, play four measures as an instrumental, etc. (For the harmony line, I made no attempt to line notes up with words. It was just a cool extra part that unfolded on the guitar.)

I had this in mind as a fairly slow song, but since I forgot to include a tempo marking in the ABC file, when I fed it to a web-based converter, I got back a MIDI file that played a lot faster than what I'd been doing on the guitar ... but I think it sounds kind of cool at that speed as well, however very different the feel is.L

And now I just hope I haven't screwed up any of these links, as I'm writing this while not very awake...

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Thanks. It's lovely.

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Thanks!

Now I need to practice the harmony part so I can play it as a duet with someone -- I can play both parts together a little clumsily on guitar, but the two-voice effect gets lost on the unison notes, so I'd rather do it on two instruments ... but I've written exactly the kind of harmony line that I tend to stumble over rhythmically when I'm not playing both parts at once! (And if it's guiar+recorder, I'm pretty sure the guitar wants to be on the bottom.)

Either that or I need to hang out with cellists more often so I can play the melody on guitar or recorder and have the cello underneath.

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Very nice. Just played it on my keyboard. Sounds really good played on "vibraphone."

Its georgeous. Wonderful left hand action.

I'd like to hear it at the original tempo. In this rendition the rhythm gets lost in the 3rd and 4th measure of the B section. Knowing you that's probably intentional. However, I think what you're trying for is a kind've syncopated hemiola. If that's the case I think it needs to occur 1 eighth note later. So the B would be something like

|: a'gf e3-|edf e3-|edf e2 c-|c d2-dGb|a3-a2 a'|...

Thanks. And yes, "syncopated hemiola" is exactly what I was aiming for there (that very phrase popped into my head as I was trying to figure out how to transcribe what I had just played). Let me know how you think that phrase sounds in the slower MIDI (http://www.darrenzieger.net/sca.mp3) that

darrenzieger posted in a comment below. (It is the one spot I wasn't sure I liked when I heard it at the faster tempo.) In the meantime, I'll be playing and listening to your suggested edit and comparing it to the original. If I decide I like it, it wouldn't be the first time you've come up with an improvement to something I've written.

I think the tune is really pretty, and I like it at the fast tempo. What web-based ABC converter are you using? The one I had been using seems to be all goofed up, so it would be great to have an alternate site to try.

I mostly use ABC Convert-A-Matic (http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html) for quick previews (and smallish JPGs) of sheet music and to check syntax I'm unsure of, but their MIDI button doesn't seem to be working. For prettier typesetting (in PNG instead of JPG, if that matters) and a MIDI file, I go to one labelled simply An ABC Tune Converter (http://abc.story5000.org/), but which appears to be an attempt to build a library of tunes as well as providing the web-based conversion service, because any tune you enter there gets stored and indexed.

To generate PDFs (and MIDIs when I'm at home), I run 'abc2ps', 'ps2pdf', and 'abc2midi' on one of my Linux machines, but having the web-based tools can still be awfully convenient.

I played around with the MIDI file in Cakewalk. You can download an mp3 of a version of the tune at a slower tempo, down an octave and using an acoustic guitar sound here.

Of course, now that I've got it in cakewalk, I may have to play around with it further...

And now, because no one asked for it -- and because I'm bored -- I present "She Cries Again - the techno remix"

Go to here to download the inevitable consequences of having too little to do and too much music software.

D'Glenn -- I hope you don't mind. It wasn't my intention to spray graffiti all over your delicate composition. Just having fun with a piece of software (Acid Loops) that is very powerful but basically useless to me in most circumstances.

Enjoy.

Thank you for posting the slower MIDI. As for the techno version, I like parts of it but think the percussion track needs a bit of tweaking under the syncopated parts, and find one of the transitions late in the track jarringly abrupt. Overall, that treatment works a lot better than I would've expected it to!

oh, it's definitely a crude mix. i was using a demo version that doesn't allow for any kind of fading in or out, or effects, or anything. I may take another crack at it now that I upgraded to the full version of the software, and downloaded some more samples to work with.

Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

A New Tune

She Cries Again

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wonderful...

Re: wonderful...

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January