So, I'm composing using Dorico for this movie, The Drowned Girl. I'm using a score-writing program because I have to present an actual score with/for my thesis for my PhD. I'm using Dorico because it will work with video playback somewhat reliably.
Problem one: if you change the video file Dorico will continue to play back the audio from the last video file with the same name. I don't know if Dorico is building a cached audio file for video playback or what, but when you make a new video file (and if you're doing film, you'll be making new video files), it needs to have a new name.
Mise-en-scène. I don't think I know what it is and I read the Wikipedia.
The Nuances Controller is very cool. I think I want one. They won't be available until February. Maybe I don't need one. I'm not doing a lot of the kind of composing that needs one lately. I mean, lately, composing with CC11 hasn't been my thing. I don't know if I ever make any sense. Probably not.
I got one of these Open Theremins. I dig my Paia theremin kit. But the Open works a bit better. I do wish it had a mute switch. I like the range of tonalities on it. I haven't really been super successful at getting it to output CV to a synth but I'm working on it. Oh wait, the button on the front is a mute switch. Okay, that's helpful.
I think I've finished the music for The Drowned Girl. Actually, I just rewatched it and I think I want to put some other things in the last act to underline some other moments. It's been a whole year since we shot that movie. It really should have been finished by now.
Next up is the actual recording of the music. And writing up my thesis of course. My defense is in March so everything has to be done by February.
Crest factors. Square waves are 0dB with a linear crest factor of 1. Sine waves are 3dB with a crest of 1.41. Noise normally has a crest factor of 4, or 12dB.
I'm trying to write music. I'm writing it for my thesis film and it's super hard for be just because it's hard and because I'm writing all in Dorico, and because the writing is all about my thesis (which is using dramatic theory as a framework for spotting film for music) I have to write somewhat less intuitively because of both those reasons. But the more work we do on this film, The Drowned Girl, the better it gets. I'll listen to some music I've written, hate it, and rewrite it. And I've done that three times now. I'd be enormously frustrated except that the movie is better every time I re-write it. My first draft was garbage. I hit all the right marks, but it just wasn't musical. Now it's getting more musical and better at illustrating the emotional reality. So I feel better about it. But it's been super hard. End of complaining.
Drama has an intrinsic ideology. You have to punch down. It's always about individuals. There has to be dramatic tension or conflict. The only way we learn about characters is through conflict and by what they do. What a character does is who they are.
A story is like the parody of old movie trailers: One man/girl/robot wants to do one thing and they make a decision to do some harder thing. Around then they meet a boy/talking dog/love interest which further complicates their earlier decision. Their goal becomes more complex before it all comes apart at the end. But then with those lessons they learned earlier, and probably with the girl/dog/minor god they met earlier they have a plan to overcome things. Then we're in act three and you know how that goes.
"Capitalism" is a structure or framework used to describe the political economy. It was invented by socialists in the mid-19th Century as a kind of straw man of what they were opposed to.
The primary inventor of "capitalism" was of course Karl Marx. And it was a pretty good theory about how the political economy operated. But then, of course, a bunch of people who were in favor of the status quo (whatever it was) took a look at the theory and said to themselves "Why yes, this 'capitalism' seems perfect. We are pro-capitalist." They did this without any irony.
A Marxist analysis of the political economy has a great deal of merit to it. It has famously been picked apart by a whole variety of thinkers, from Veblen to Bakunin, to feminist and critical-race theorists, and of course rather disingenuously by a lot of right-wing propaganda.
One of the big problems with Marxism, and consequently with any description of "capitalism" is its reliance on this binary: capitalist/proletariat each work toward their own self interest. In what we might call "capitalist economics" this even has a name "homo economicus." And this person... doesn't exist. People do things which aren't in their economic self-interest all the time. The Freakonomics guys made a whole career out of it.
Everyone is a Marxist.
Capitalism was (for all intents and purposes) made up by Marx. "Capitalist" economists are all "Marxist." That's neither good nor bad. But it does call into question what is non-Marxist economics? Not a whole heck of a lot, as it turns out. But by and large, all modern economists use a model of the economy which, although modified, essentially utilizes a Marxian framework of the political economy.
Anarchism And You
One of the earliest critiques of Marxism came from Bakunin and the anarchists. Interestingly, Bakunin was a Russian intellectual (and, unfortunately, super anti-Semitic), while Marx was a German with a Hegelian philosophical background.
I'm using Samplitude's electric piano and a free LABS sound from Spitfire on the keyboard. The pedals (which you don't see) are playing a Mod Duo X. Also going into the Mod Duo X is a Behringer 110 controlled by a 960 sequencer.
A Korg NuBass is the bass, a Volca Sample is the drum machine.
I mean, it's pretty cool, right? My doctoral supervisor suggested I listen to it because of Drowned Girl.
§
The thing I feel that's pretty brilliant, and strictly a Richard Byrne sort of thing to do, is the comparison between Goethe's Faust and Marlowe's. I mean, it's a very intellectual turn but it's a very emotional one as well.
I'm not quite old enough to have actually dealt with real old-school analog synths. Analog has always had the cache of being cool, but by the time I'd touched anything* even remotely professional in the way of synthesizers, they were pretty darn stable, if not digitally controlled, analog oscillators. And now I'm playing with the Behringer 110 which sounds great but boy oh boy it drifts. Just like old-school synthesizers in times of yore.
I'm using a 960 sequencer, which is WAY not stable. Boy, you flip the octave and it goes stupendously out of whack. I'm even using a quantizer and it'll sometimes bend an entire half-step out of tune -- straight-up playing the wrong note.
So, I've always felt that the way to making an analog synth sound like something other than bleeps and bloops has been a decent delay. Some pretty echoes are always better. And, these days, a groovy shimmer reverb is a way added bonus.
So I've been sending the output from the VCO/VCF/VCA that is the 110 into a Mod Duo X. Like this:
The topmost line is the analog input to the Mod Duo.
Basically, I'm throwing the signal first to a tuner (so I can have a clue about about where the tuning is), then to an auto-tune emulation (so I can get the actual audio to be somewhat actually in tune), then into a compressor, to a digital emulation of an amusing analog stereo delay, to a shimmer reverb, to a pretty chorus, a mastering compressor, and lastly a sub-bass processor. At the beginning and the end of the chain are a couple level meters and gain controls.
The middle row is just a quick little synth patch I have which is running from the MIDI input to the Mod Duo X. I play it using my organ pedals.
Using the CV input of the Mod Duo X I take the second output of the Barton CV quantizer and put it into a patch of the Mod Duo's internal CV synths. I can't figure out how to make those digital emulations seem in-tune though. That could be the Barton's natural variance. In any case, I auto-tune each of the two VCO's (technically those are DCO's, right?) inside the Mod Duo with their auto-tune emulation.
It's good for experimenting. I wouldn't say I've done anything satisfying musically with it yet. Because I haven't. But it makes some fun sounds.
*Other than an ARP 2600 that Rutgers University owned. I only had about an hour or so with it. I harassed the professor in charge of it a whole lot before he let me play with it.
In addition:
Put the trim pot on the opposite side of the board.
Write "Electric Princess v.XXX" on the silkscreen
Label each potentiometers' value on the silkscreen
The Matthews Architect Overdrive is quite a piece of kit. It's their Klon/fuzz and it sounds great. I love the additional boost switch. In fact, that's where I got the idea for the second boost on my Electric Princess.
Such a wonderful guy and such a talent. His students were awesome. Everyone he worked with was fabulous. We did a lot of theater too. I sound-designed some things of his. We seemed to do a lot of work about the Cambodian Holocaust. They were hard to take, but Ernest had a very Buddhist response to the horrors of that war.
I'm trying to cleanup my inbox. So I'm posting these notes from the Marsian Queene here:
Various color-corrections.
One thing about the theater - the first Triad scene around 9:43 is the right color correction. I think there is one after that, that is too dark, around 15:27. If we can't see the surrounding theater we get confused about why she is so tiny and distant.
I think? also maybe we lost the vignette in Popsicle in some later scenes.
Now I make the following rules and we can argue about them.
1. No weirdness inside scenes till after "fur coat" scene.
The weirdness has to build up. Right now I feel like the weirdness is all blended in. (I know this is not literally true but slightly true.)
So in the part before fur-coat, no snow in the junkyard, no water behind her in the Triad. We can use the "weird" takes, like the reflection takes in the junkyard and Triad. (I don't know if you have, but if you have it's ok under This Rule.) We can put lots of weirdness in the transitions between scenes (as you have done) but the scenes themselves should have no additional effects.
Exception: the very first moment "You ask about Jud Suss?" should be as weird as possible. I like what you have right now but it could be more? if you are tempted to do something else, more?
2. No dipping to black, no actual break from the action.
Need to fill in all the interludes with visuals. The last interlude with the redness is nice! We can't sit in blackness because it drops the build and rhythm.
3. No "swapping" the color corrections.
Popsicle needs to stay b/w and junkyard needs to stay color. Weirdness can happen but they can't switch. It could snow in Popsicle. Water could happen in junkyard. Vignetting can happen in Triad.
Exception: In Popsicle when she talks about Jugend and shooting it in color - keep what you have where she talks about how great it was to shoot in color. Then back to black & white as you have.
Other various color-corrections. Actually, two are the same I believe.
It's a cheap Telecaster. I know I won't be happy until I jump up many rungs and get a Fender Custom Shop tele designed just for me, but until that time, this is what I'm doing.
I have a '51 Nocaster bridge pickup for it, and a Twisted Tele neck pickup. I also have some compensated brass saddles. I am considering an armrest carve and belly carve. I'm also considering putting a D-shaped hole in it. But I'm definitely putting paisleys on it.
You'll note it is already quite light, so putting a relief hole (where the armrest carve would go) might not be the best thing. And without stripping off the poly, those sorts of cuts might not work at all. But the paislies? Oh those will work.
So, theoretically (heh) I have my viva voce for my PhD in March of 2023. Which means I have to finish writing the music (and doing all the audio post) for the Richard Byrne penned, Laura Schlachtmeyer produced, Drowned Girl, starring Annalisa Loeffler.
I also need to fundamentally re-write the actual thesis, and write a big ol' commentary explaining why I put all the music cues where I did.
I'm scoring in Dorico. Having to write out the score is 1. vital for any sort of academic work and 2. harder and slower than just playing into a DAW. But then there's also the fact I will likely want real players (alto flute, cello, harp, piano) to play on it so it needs to be laid out in a score anyway. Dorico is mostly pretty good. Sometimes it doesn't play back, sometimes it's a bit frustrating. But it works with my Spitfire BBCSO sample library so it's own output has the capability of sounding surprisingly good even without any real editing of the performances.
Now I put D'Addario EXL156 strings on my baritone. Those strings are actually made for the Bass VI.
24 34 44 56 72 84
Getting the low E (the 84) through the hole in a tuning peg was more of an adventure than I'd signed up for. But it works.
One of my favorite stills from Brazil.
I still can't figure out the relief adjustment on the Eden neck. There just doesn't seem to be anything to attach a wrench or screwdriver to. I'll call or write to them tomorrow to see if they can help.
A pair of snuggly mastodons. Don't you try to tell me about biology. I know what mastodons look like.
Remember that Mastodon is the Twitter alternative.
Taiko Project is an LA-based taiko group. They seem pretty cool.
BP settings. I suspect this was just for a very specific thing.
I put D'Addario XL Nickel Wound Baritone Medium Gauge strings on my baritone guitar. That's 14, 18, 26W, 44, 56, 68. Guitar still doesn't work properly, mind you. I have a lot of neck adjustment and pickup height changes to make before it's playable. But it has new strings.
I am pleased to inform you that you have satisfied the Board of Assessors for your Internal Evaluation, which took place recently, in accordance with the requirements of the regulations for your research degree.
This recommendation was ratified at a meetingof the Postgraduate Research Awards Board, held on 31 March 2022. You may therefore continue your course of advanced study and research.
Please ensure that you keep in regular contact withyour Doctoral School Administrator (email address copied into this message) who will provide you with details of all your future progression point requirements.
So, one more year to complete my thesis for my PhD.
