Wigglewhumpus

Immersion in sound.
Wavemaker is novel writing software.

Film mixing.
Alex North biography.
Optimizing Kontakt. This is a YouTube video for an older version of Kontakt so I don't know how much is still relevant.
Cinematic Studio Strings sound great.
Reading orchestral score.
2016 Stereo Room by Eventide Clockworks. VST plugin.
I don't know I'll ever keep the Strauss' in my brain.
Ear training.
Moar ear training.

Almelem

Mac Rogers as John the Baptist in Almelem.

I mean that's all you really need to know.

Wigglesnork

Cinematic Strings.
Evolution Media Music briefs.
Chicago citation generator. I really don't understand how to use it more than just entering things in by hand.

Auto Hot Key.
Pasting text without formatting using Auto Hot Key.
I'm still using notepad myself.

Wordslike

Heed the Call.

artefact
normalisation

Those are a couple words I'm likely to spell incorrectly as I am writing papers using UK English.

I am prejudiced toward Chicago Style, I admit, but I have to say that MLA (with all those in-line citations) is harder to read (Bellware, 2018.)

Mourning and Music in Blue Velvet.

One big thing I have learned whilst working on my Master's degree is where the bar is. I get so up in my own head that I can't hear things. And just having a tutor once a week to tell me if I'm standing on an island or sinking in the middle of the ocean is really incredibly helpful.

Aforetain

My first assignment is due on Monday. Oddly, it is a graded assignment, yet it does not count toward my grade. Indeed, there is a lot of work which is ungraded.

To try to get better at this kind of work I'm going through the Thinkspace seminars on Orchestral Mixing with Jake Jackson.

Things:

ProTools finally allows you to apply "gain" to individual clips. That's pretty much all you can do with the individual clip, but at least you can do that now.

I probably need to deal with mixing stems right back into the project. I haven't been doing that yet. in my life.

Man, they spend a lot of time dealing with the inherent limitations in ProTools. I forgot what a pain in the tuchus it is to just add a reverb to the end of a bit of a track. Holy cats.

Guy Michelmore's pedagological sense really works for me. Technically it's his sense of androgogy or some such. But he's able to articulate pretty much everything. You know I have this whole thing about the difference between a "master" of something and, say, a "journeyman" is the ability to teach the thing (er, disregarding the sexism in the terms.) It's his ability to articulate complicated ideas that works for me.

Interleaved stereo -- apparently the mastering person at AIR thinks they don't sound as good as separate tracks. I suspect that ProTools just sucks.

Convolution reverbs -- I'm gonna guess that most of the differences between different convolution reverbs is the impulse responses they use but there's probably some maths differences too. I suspect it's a case of everything else mattering first.

We're not the best people in the world

The Citation Machine makes citations. I think JSTOR does too.
University of Oxford online library system.

Okay. So I have two weeks to do the first assignment. But these first three assignments each are from a pool of 6 possible choices. So I kinda need to figure out which of these six in the pool I'm doing for each formative and for the summative assignment.
Interestingly the assignments are different from the chapters in the module. And the chapters in this module are actually in a course I took over the summer in order to do a better job on the portfolio I submitted.

Required Viewing

I've seen all these movies but one. The Social Network.

Obviously, I'll be watching them all again, I just thought that was interesting.

Required Viewing (for both Film Music in Practice Modules)

American Beauty. (1999). [film] USA: DreamWorks SKG: Sam Mendes.

Batman. (1989). [film] USA: Warner Bros: Tim Burton.

Casablanca. (1942). [film] USA: Warner Bros: Michael Curtiz.

From Russia With Love. (1963). [film] GB: Eon Productions: Terence Young.

Gladiator. (2000). [film] USA: DreamWorks SKG: Ridley Scott.

Gravity. (2013). [film] USA: Warner Bros: Alfonso Cuarón.

King Kong. (1933). [film] USA: RKO Radio Pictures: Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack.

King Kong. (2005). [film] USA: Universal Pictures: Peter Jackson.

Lawrence of Arabia. (1962). [film] GB: Horizon Pictures: David Lean.

North by Northwest. (1959). [film] USA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM): Alfred Hitchcock.

Psycho. (1960). [film] USA: Shamley Productions: Alfred Hitchcock.

Skyfall. (2012). [film] GB: Eon Productions: Sam Mendes.

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back. (1980). [film] USA: Lucasfilm: Irvin Kershner.

The Adventures of Robin Hood. (1938). [film] USA: Warner Bros: Michael Curtiz.

The City Lights. (1931). [film] USA: Charles Chaplin Productions: Charles Chaplin.

The Dark Knight. (2008). [film] USA: Warner Bros: Christopher Nolan.

The Godfather. (1972). [film] USA: Paramount Pictures: Francis Ford Coppola.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. (1966). [film] IT: Produzioni Europee Associati: Sergio Leone.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. (2001). [film] USA: New Line Cinema: Peter Jackson.

The Mission. (1986). [film] US: Warner Bros: Roland Joffé.

The Pink Panther. (1963). [film] USA: Mirisch G-E Productions: Blake Edwards.

The Social Network. (2010). [film] USA: Columbia Pictures: David Fincher.

There Will Be Blood. (2007). [DVD] USA: Paramount Vantage: Paul Thomas Anderson.

Day one

I can confirm that Andrew does have an unconditional place on the following course:

COURSE: MA Profession Media Composition

START DATE: September 17th 2018

END DATE: September 17th 2019

MODE OF STUDY: FT1 (Full Time - 1 year)

COST: $12,950

Today was the first day of induction.

New monitor, bun card

Sceptre 43" Class 4K (2160P) LED TV (U435CV-U)

Out of the box, as a computer monitor, the text is rough - even turning Sharpness down in the menu only helped a bit. The key is getting into the factory menu - Press "Menu" then the numbers 7343 while at the main menu - and changing the Sharpness curve to 0 across the board.

My monitor is dying a horrible death. So I had to order a new one from WalMart. I know.  Anyway, those instructions above are from a review on the WalMart site. Monitor is $189 plus tax.

I like Postable for sending fun cards for birthdays. I made my own design for this year. Will probably draw another animal for next year.

Demented 6th Chords

I think this is right: If you find yourself on a IV chord, Option one: put it in the 1st inversion (b) and play it. In C the IV chord would be F major, in first inversion the bottom of the triad is A, the middle note is C, and the top note is F. Then you get to make an augmented sixth! Just lower the bottom note of that triad (this would be an A going to A-flat) and raise the top note (F to F#.) Now you have a triad that's Ab, C, and F#. This is the Italian augmented sixth. It resolves (by step) to a I or a IV chord. Alternatively, do all the above steps and add a flat seven to the chord (this would be an Eb.) That is the German augmented sixth. It normally resolves to a I because it's hard to avoid parallel fifths resolving to a V (because that Eb makes it hard.) Option two: there's the French aug 6. That's on a ii chord. The ii chord (say, Dm) is put in the 2nd inversion (c) such that the triad is A, D, and F. Lower the bottom (A becomes Ab), raise the top (F becomes F#) and add in a flat 7 (this is a C because we're flatting the seven of the ii chord) and resolve to the I or V.

7 9 11 13

As a general rule, whenever you have a chord that goes above a seventh, you would include the note it goes up to and the seventh, missing out the other notes. This would meant that in C11, you would include the F, which the chord goes up to in order to make it C11 and the seventh of the chord, B, but you wouldn’t need the ninth, the D. If you went further, say C13, you would miss out the ninth and eleventh of the chord, but include the seventh and thirteenth and so on. The most common note to be omitted from the chord would be the fifth as the root as the third gives us the strongest feel of a major or minor chord, as the case may be. So in order to create a C9 chord in 4-part harmony, you would have C – E – B – D. If you wanted C13, it would be C – E – B – A, with A the thirteenth of the chord.

Pivot

Pivot chords are chords that are the same in two different keys. They're used to modulate from one key to another. Since V I establishes your key more than anything, you probably want to avoid them as pivot chords. Pivot chords really only works within two keys on the circle of fifths.

Dunes I

Sand dunes.

Harmony

NotePerformer is a set of alternate sounds for Sibelius.

Accented passing notes mean notes which land on a new chord but are passing notes between the new chord and the chord previous. Un-accented passing notes mean you go from a chord and then make a passing note before you hit the next chord.
I'd never actually understood what "suspended" chords are. I mean, I play guitar so the term is all there, I'd just never gotten it. But you can suspend any note of one chord when you hit the next chord. An anticipation is the opposite of a suspension. You bring a note in early. (And frequently they're in a dotted form.)

• Passing notes
• Auxiliary notes
• Suspensions
• Anticipations

Reflecting motifs and counterpoint.

- High and low pedals.

- Alberti bass and broken chords.

- Bringing parts in and out.