Dear
Musicians,
This is
issue #84 of the Pizzicato musical newsletter. It is intended to
help you to better know and use Pizzicato. You will find in it
various articles about Pizzicato, its use and aspects, but also
references to the music course and links to other music related
sites.
You may
send us any information to publish about music (performances,
festivals, exhibitions, music training sessions, Internet
links,...). You may also tell us any difficulty you have with
Pizzicato so that we can explain the solutions in the next issue.
This letter is for you.
We hope
you will enjoy reading it.
Musically,
Dominique
Vandenneucker,
ARPEGE-Music
29, rue de l'Enseignement
B-4800 VERVIERS
Belgium
We wish you a happy
Christmas and New Year time,
for you and your family. Let 2010 be a year full
of music, emotions and happiness!
Phone/Fax
++32 - 87.26.80.10
info@arpegemusic.com
Visit our site: http://www.arpegemusic.com
Copyright
2009, Arpege Sprl, all rights reserved.
Editorial
Read all previous
editorials on page http://www.arpegemusic.com/editoriaux.htm
In our last article,
we presented a way to look at the rhythmic aspects of music
through the use of harmonics.
Harmonic is just
another term to say "multiple of". "2" is
a multiple of "1". The quantity of "1" is
doubled and you get the quantity of "2". So we say
that "2" is the second harmonic of "1".
Similarly, we say that "3" is the third harmonic of
"1", etc.
When we say
"quantity", what do we mean?
Well, we can apply
"quantity" to practically anything we can observe
in the universe. Length, weight, duration, size,... Nature is
built on quantities. In music, we can apply this principle to
the duration of notes and the time intervals between notes.
Music is a
sequence of events happening on a time stream
Obviously, music is
organized through time. Without time, there would be no
music. Time is the main ingredient on which to build music.
We will not go into
speculations about what time really is or is not. The
explanation of what time is, is the subject of many
interesting speculations by physicists as well as
philosophers. Most of us seem to perceive time as something
continuous in which things can "happen" and for our
purposes (analyzing and composing music), this is a practical
definition that we can use.
So, on a rhythmic
point of view, we can place notes in a dimension called
"time" and organize them. The result of this is a
piece of music.
If we throw many notes
randomly in a specific time interval, there is almost no
chance to make some music that will be appreciated by anyone.
So we need to put some orderly sequence of notes if we want
to compose music.
Music is the
art of dividing time
Considering time as a
continuous medium, we can introduce order by dividing it into
equal or similar intervals. Music becomes the art of dividing
time intervals and making these intervals sufficiently
related to each other so that they seem to make a whole that
makes sense and conveys an idea, an emotion, an action to the
person who listens to it.
In music, the most
obvious time division is the beat. It gives you the relative
speed at which you can predict other notes to appear. It
establishes a time frame around which all the notes of the
music will be organized. We talk about a tempo of 60 quarter
notes (crotchet) per minute. This tells you that in one
minute, you should play 60 notes. This tempo value may change
and vary, but during the music it stays the general reference
around which all the musical events will take place.
The tempo (general
speed) of a piece of music will sure have an influence on the
emotion or action it can convey. This has a direct
relationship to what happens in life regarding time. As a
general rule, for highly positive emotions and actions, the
tempo will be faster than for lower negative emotions. The
tempo of a funeral march will obviously be something slow. A
happy dance will be faster. A music that accompanies car
stunts in a film will have an adequately fast tempo.
So the use of tempo is
very important in relationship to the emotion or action you
want to convey. You can vary the tempo to change the general
mood of your music, for instance going from a low level
emotion (sorrow) to a higher level (enthusiasm), you can
progressively increase the tempo. Many effects can be created
with a change of tempo in a music composition. This is used
to the fullest extent in film music, as the music must then
convey the action or emotion of the scenes.
Listen to the
following examples and examine them based on the tempo and
what kind of emotion and action they convey to you (on
YouTube):
Music notation
and time
Since the early
beginning of music notation, the need existed to represent
time in a written form, so that a composer would be able to
write his music for others to play.
As time is not
something you can 'touch' or 'draw on paper', it was
arbitrarily associated to a space dimension and represented
as something that 'happens' from left to right on a piece of
paper. Please note that this is only a practical way to
represent time in a written form, as time itself has no
similarity with space, on a physical point of view.
So we write the music
notes from left to right on the paper and at the end of the
line, we go to the next line and again from left to right. A
note placed to the right of another note is going to be
played after that note. Very easy.
Now, the beat is the
main time division of the music. We must then have a graphic
symbol to represent that main time division on paper. We
often use the quarter note (crotchet) as the symbol for the
beat :
The vertical line
(either up or down), with the note filled in black,
represents the quarter note. The tempo is often written
explicitly at the beginning of the score, specifying how much
quarter notes there are in one minute. So if we write the
following:
Listen to this example...
it means 8 notes
played at the same speed of 80 notes a minute.
Music written using
only the beat will sound monotonous or will need imagination
from the composer on other musical aspects to make it
interesting (instruments, melody, chords,...).
The measure -
Another way to organize time
The next natural way
to organize time in music is by the use of measures. A
measure is a group of beats that form a unit. It is not
arbitrary, as it is related to a slower beat in relationship
to the main beat (here, the quarter note).
For instance, the
'4/4' measure contains 4 quarter notes. These 4 quarter notes
form a musical unit that can be distinguished by the auditor.
On a music score, the measures are separated by vertical
lines and a time signature symbol at the beginning of the
score shows how much beats are present in the measures. The
following score:
means that two
measures of 4 quarter notes must be played. To learn more
about the time signature symbol, see the lesson on the time
signature at www.arpegemusic.com/manual34/EN340.htm
If all notes were
played exactly the same, there would be no sense grouping the
beats into measures, except maybe as an intellectual
exercise. You could as well group them in 4 beats, 9 beats or
157 beats and nobody would hear the difference.
But in most cases, the
division of time into measures that contain a given number of
beats, corresponds to a time interval that is perceived as
itself by the listener. It is a periodic time interval that
can be recognized as a whole and that adds some personality
to the music.
As the measures
contain the same number of beats, there is a high level of
order because the beats are perceived as a sub-division of
the measures. Or you could say that the measures are
perceived as groups of beats that form a unit. Both
propositions are valid. They establish a relationship between
two different time units : the beat and the measure.
How does one recognize
or establish the perception of the measure then? The simplest
way to establish the measure is to set the first beat into
prominence, for instance with an accent on it, or by using a
second instrument that will only play the first beat of the
measures :
Listen to the example...
But there are many
ways to achieve this. The melody will often assert its main
notes on the first beat. Harmony can change on the first
beat. New instruments or effects can enter on the first beat,
... You can also create a pattern of different instruments
that will make the measure unit very plain and obvious.
The selection of the
measure to use while composing a piece of music is quite
important, as the mood of the piece will be much influenced
by it.
Determining
the time signature of a piece of music
When you hear some
music that you want to transcribe in music notation, how do
you determine the measure and the beat?
There can be more than
one solution to this problem, but according to the above, you
must first locate and perceive the main beat. This main beat
is probably best defined in practice by the way you tap your
foot on the ground to follow the music.
To find the tempo,
count how many of these beats you hear in exactly one minute.
Take a clock and start counting when the minutes change, then
stop counting at the next change. If the number is between 50
and 140, you can probably decide it is a quarter note. If
faster, it can be an eighth note for instance.
To find the measure,
try to perceive a small group of beats that seem to form a
single periodic unit and count how many beats there are in
that unit. Standard numbers are between 2 and 4, but other
numbers can be used also.
This is partly
arbitrary. The basic principle to follow is to make music
notation easy to read. In theory, you could almost write any
music with any beat and any measure, but there are often only
one or two solutions to make the music notation as clear and
logical as possible for the person who reads the score.
Listen to the
following examples of the use of various measures and notice
the mood that is conveyed by each one. Notice also the
various ways the composers divide the time and group beats
together into measures.
Time division
- the next steps...
There are still three
other ways to organize, divide and group time in a music
composition. We will examine them in our next newsletter. I
suggest you to listen to many different music and hear them
with the above explanation in mind, so that the measures,
beats and time division and organization become part of your
musical points of view.
Dominique
Vandenneucker
Designer of Pizzicato
Pizzicato
in US and Canada
An article about
using Pizzicato in a real situation
By Blair Ashby, Pizzicato representative for US & Canada,
Denver, Colorado
A few weeks ago a client of
mine, Jim, wanted some help with a song he had written,
however, he had some stipulations. First it had to be
playable live by his band and second, it had to be
cheap. He only had a budget for one hour of time.
He had a melody and chord progression already, he even had
his guitar part worked out. His band had put together
an arrangement but he didn’t like it; he felt it was too
similar to the other songs they performed. He wanted
something new.
This was a perfect
situation for Pizzicato to really shine. I created a
new document and started in the Conductor window. On
the top left side of the window is the libraries pane.
The very first “+” sign is a document called
“Instruments and Templates”. When you click
on the “+” it unfolds to show several
folders. About half way down this list is a folder
called Harmonic Spaces. Click the “+” next to
it (you can also double click the folder or folder name) and
three choices are presented to you.
A Harmonic Space is
really just a tool which uses musical theories to define
which chords are easily matched with other chords in a
Harmonic or Musical Scale. As I knew Jim’s writing
style, I knew he had a tendency to write progressions using
very few chords and almost never used chords with a seventh
in them. I chose the second Harmonic Space labeled:
C-Major - 3 Notes Chords - Notes in Common. This space
gave me no more than 5 chords to choose from when starting
from any of the chords; in other words, I wanted to limit my
choices to only a few chords as I knew this would be adequate
for Jim’s song.
I dragged the Harmonic
Space onto the Conductor Window and instantly a new score
group with this Harmonic Space was created. I quickly
created his chord progression by clicking the ok on each
chord I wanted.
This whole process
I’ve described so far took only a few minutes to
complete, 55 minutes still left in the hour. I was now
ready to start introducing Jim to new ways of hearing his
music.
I opened the Music
Libraries folder. In it are more folders and near the
bottom is a folder called Prepared Styles. I have
purchased and downloaded hundreds of styles for
Pizzicato. I started previewing them for Jim by
clicking on the Score icon which played the style for Jim to
hear. After a few styles Jim heard something he
liked. I dragged that style onto the Conductor Window,
renamed the score after the style name and kept previewing
new styles for Jim. After 15 minutes we had found six
styles which had something in them that Jim was attracted
to. All six were sitting in the conductor window.
40 minutes to go.
We then started to
listen to each style individually under the influence of the
chord progression. I dragged the first style into the
score group and the real time arranger in that score group
played the style through the chord progression. We
found that Jim really liked the bass line from that style but
not anything else. I muted the other instruments in
that style. Onward to style number two, then three and
so on. After 20 minutes we had the six styles narrowed
down to just the instrument parts in that style that Jim
liked. And, because the score group played all the
styles in synchronicity, Jim could hear what all the desired
instruments sounded like while playing his chord
progression. We only had 15 to 20 minutes left in
Jim’s budget.
This next step was
easier. By dragging the little square in the lower
right side of the score we could make the score repeat as
many times as we needed for each section of Jim’s
song. By copying the score we could place different
scores in different places in the score group to achieve more
a dramatic effect during the song. For instance the
bass didn’t play fast in the beginning nor the end but
was the only instrument besides the drums which played during
the bridge of the song. Additionally, by holding the
shift key and dragging the lower right square in the bass
score to the left, we effectively doubled the tempo of the
bass for the bridge. Then on the last chorus we copied
the bass score form the first chorus and now the bass went
back to the normal tempo after the bridge. Time
spent? 18 minutes. We had only 2 minutes left.
The last step was to
click and drag the little green square in the top left of the
score group onto the Conductor Window. This merged all
the styles into a new score outside of the score group.
I deleted the muted instruments, clicked print and only three
minutes late, Jim was out the door with a printed score of
his song for the band to learn their new parts from.
Time spent: 63 minutes.
When I heard the band
play the song live a couple weeks later it was
excellent. The audience loved the bands new style, Jim
was happy because it broke down some creative barriers in the
bands musical arranging and I was pleased because once again
it gave me an opportunity to help someone make music.
In my world, it just doesn’t get better than that.
Using styles and the
score group feature are efficient ways to create high quality
music. If you have questions about using the score
group feature or using styles in your music, feel free to
contact me via email: info@music-composing.com or call me at 303-252-1270.
Blair Ashby - www.music-composing.com
Aspects
and applications of Pizzicato...
Discover
the various aspects and applications of Pizzicato
Creative
use of an external MIDI keyboard
One of the new
features of Pizzicato Professional 3 is the virtual keyboard.
Its purpose is to extend the playing possibilities of a
single musical keyboard and let you play several instruments
on one keyboard. This principle is frequent in a lot of
synthesizers and it is often called "performance".
It is a set of sounds programmed on the keyboard that can be
used to play.
A virtual keyboard is
a musical object that can contain several instruments. It
gets its data from a musical keyboard connected to a MIDI
input port. If you do not have a musical keyboard connected
to your computer, you can nevertheless use a virtual keyboard
but in a more limited way because using the mouse is not easy
to play on a keyboard drawn on the screen.
The virtual keyboards
let you setup a MIDI musical keyboard connected to the
computer to play various prepared instruments. You can for
example play chords that are then held while you play a bass
whose notes are doubled by a vibraphone 3 octaves higher for
example. Another area lets you play a melody, doubled by an
oboe. All of this while having some keys reserved for
percussions. The whole set is played from one keyboard only,
as you program it.
To prepare and use a
virtual keyboard with Pizzicato 3 (even in demonstration
mode), see the page http://www.arpegemusic.com/manual34/EN830.htm
Tips and
advices for Pizzicato...
Frequently asked
questions about Pizzicato
Accessing
the Pizzicato 3 help menu on Windows
If the
Pizzicato help does not function correctly under Windows,
delete the following files with the Windows Explorer:
My
documents\Pizzicato 3.4\HelpPrefs.dat
My
documents\Pizzicato 3.4\HelpRunning.dat
(If
you have Pizzicato 3.2 or earlier, these files are located in
C:\Program Files\Pizzicato 3.2)
Then
start Pizzicato again.
If the
help menu still does not work, you can start it from the
Windows menu Start, All programs, Pizzicato 3.4, User manual.
You
can also send a shortcut to the desktop from this menu, to
access it easier.
Switching
between documents in Windows with Pizzicato Professional
If you
open several documents with Pizzicato Professional, you can
switch between them with the following shortcut : CTRL + TAB
key. It is indeed a standard shortcut applicable to any
program.
Using templates
With
Pizzicato Beginner and Professional, you can start on a
template document of your choice. By default, when you launch
Pizzicato, a score appears. It is by default a piano page. By
going in the "Options" menu, "Global
options" item, a dialog box appears. The "Template
by default" option lets you select the score which will
be automatically open when Pizzicato starts and when you use
the "File menu", "New" item. A sub-folder
in Pizzicato is called "DataEN\Templates" and
contains several prepared score templates. According to the
Pizzicato version you have, some templates will not open (for
example Pizzicato Beginner does not permit size reductions,
so reduction templates will not open with this version). The
template by default is "Templates\Templates\One piano
page.piz". If you often use the same score style, you
can create a personal page layout and select it as the
default template.
The
beginner's corner...
Musical
basics and access to the Pizzicato music course
The scale
and the musical keyboard
We
have seen that there are 7 notes named C, D, E, F, G, A, B.
The next note is again called C and the sound generated
vibrates exactly two times faster than the sound generated by
the first C. This interval from the first to the second C is
called an octave. In a more general way, an octave is the
interval separating a note from the next note bearing the
same name, such as for example from G to the next G. Here is
an example with C:
This
series of notes from C to C is called the scale of C. As this
diagram is repeated higher and lower, we will limit ourselves
to explain the contents of the notes from C to C. The same
explanation is valid between two successive C.
These
notes correspond to the white keys of a piano or organ
keyboard. You can easily locate them by observing that the
black keys are laid out by groups of 2 and 3 between the
white keys. The C are the keys which are just to the left of
a 2 black keys group. Here is an illustration:
The
white keys located between the 2 C follow the same order as
on the staff:
The
black keys of the keyboard are also notes that can be played.
They are located between specific white keys. With 7 white
keys and 5 black keys, you thus get 12 different notes. The
thirteenth note is again a C and the same diagram is
repeated...
...To
read the full lesson, see the lesson
on music The scale and the accidentals on our site...
The
commercial page...
EarMaster
5 - Interactive Ear Training Software
Have
you ever thought about what might be the difference between a
good musician and a REALLY good musician?
The
answer is very likely to be Ear Training!
Ear
training is the process of connecting theory (notes,
intervals, chords, etc) with music (the sounds we hear). The
more you will exercise to recognize this connection, the more
you will appreciate playing music, because you will learn
to understand what you play.
For
more information, go to www.arpegemusic.com/earmaster.htm
You
can buy EarMaster at https://www.arpegemusique.com/acheteren.php
News,
links, ...
http://artslegacy.com - The need for
arts in our lives. Melanie Richards, sounding the alarm for
the arts, demonstrates how we are denying ourselves and our
children an artistic way of living, thinking, and learning,
thereby creating an artificial life for them and a legacy for
the future that is wanting in substance. If we ask some
difficult questions about where we are as a society today and
what legacy we are indeed creating for future generations, we
come up short on our understanding and living of the arts,
and how we expose our children to their influence. This book
brings up some hard truths about how we live today, and how a
true exposure to artistic living and its benefits, especially
that of using process as a tool for learning, would better
prepare our children for life.
Pizzicato
upgrades
With
the publication of Pizzicato 3.4, a series of updates are
available for Mac OS X and Windows, according to the version
you presently have.
If you bought
Pizzicato 3.2 or 3.3, you may download Pizzicato 3.4 for
free. The reference is the license number. All users whose
license number is greater or equal to 12794 can update for
free by going to the free update section on our website and
download version 3.4. See page www.arpegemusic.com/clients3.htm. Install it and validate it
with your original license/serial numbers.
Otherwise,
to know the prices and possibilities, see the update order
form on our site:
https://www.arpegemusique.com/achetermajen.php
In the
menu "You have", select the version you
presently have. The page will be redrawn and
will show the possible upgrades and their prices. To buy an
upgrade, fill in the form and validate it.
We
are at your disposal.
Our
purpose is to place music in everybody's hands
and
to bring people to more musical creativity
Use
Pizzicato and make music!