This new video focusses on how Synfire relates to and deals with counterpoint techniques, that are mainly used for orchestral music (although almost every musical genre makes use of it, actually).
It's an excerpt of an in-depth presentation about figures, harmony and textures and how they help the composer shape orchestral drafts with ease and fun. The techniques shown work for all styles that predominantly build on melodies. The presentation concludes with a few detailed edits on an example arrangement, giving insight into the general workflows Synfire encourages you to use.
Not much about libraries, though, because the point here is to understand how raw material transforms into music, rather than how raw material is collected.
I hope you enjoy it. Any feedback is welcome.
Comments
Fri, 2015-07-10 - 00:19 Permalink
Think its a good video and gets its points across well. I liked your presentation style although Id love to see a video of you giving a proper 'lecture' to a real audience as that might be even better (even if we never see the audience, think you may come across even better).
Good to see more on the finger board thing, reminded me to start making use of it (think thats what you called it).
The separation of melody and harmony, and the use of simple figures is something that catches out a lot of people new to synfire. This really does demonstrate that simple figures leads to complex music and also how melody and harmony are combined by synfire.
There were a few bits that were rushed over that people may not have noticed. For instance, when you change the articulation. It might be worth just stating you are changing the articulation, so its obvious to people less familiar with synfire. Likewise when clicking in the finger board to change the key of the progression, maybe mention what you are clicking on, or make the click more obvious. The section on arrangement didnt really cover the nested nature of synfire, again maybe a quick comment to explain inheritance of parameters, figures and harmony, etc. However I apprieciate the video is short and only part of a full 'lecture' so maybe things like this are covered earlier.
Im really 'nit picking' to bring these things up, I really did like and apprieciate the video.
Fri, 2015-07-10 - 09:52 Permalink
Thanks. Basically this is more of an inspirational intro, than a tutorial. Rushing over things is inevitable, given the many features involved. For every new video, it's a challenge to decide what to focus on and what to skip.
Fri, 2015-07-10 - 11:24 Permalink
After succesfully working with Synfire in dance music, watching such tutorials made me dive into orchestral or more complex music, also. I am now preparing two songs with one of the most appreciated soprano singers from my country (local star at the National Opera). One of them has an orchestral approach, featuring a X-Factor finalist, and the other one sounds more like in the lounge/chillout area, featuring a rapper with a killer flow. I almost feel like I'm cheating when using Synfire, compared to how long would it take me to make a song from scratch, not to mention that my songwriting skills are barely medium, since most of my projects were related to recordings and mixing/mastering, so far. I love your videos, keep them coming! (Also, if you'd like to have your recordings get cleaned up of the ambiental noises, I would be glad to give them a try).
Fri, 2015-07-10 - 14:41 Permalink
Interesting it revolves all around the chord progression what dictates the figures, from educational view not strong ( it is not a learning video, because there are no explanations) ..it is more showing a example how things can be done.
Modulations yeah... i spend in the past a lot of time on it on the forum try to get grip on it and it is still troublesome to perform for me.
The video shows a approach to chance a composition in a another key and makes it more musical varied , unfortanely can't follow all steps.
Mon, 2015-09-14 - 07:54 Permalink
how did the figures get there? automatic or composed by human in advance?
Mon, 2015-09-14 - 08:32 Permalink
The figures were drawn by hand (lines drawn, symbols shifted around). It's easier than you might think. Some melodies were recorded with a keyboard but mainly for capturing the rhythm only.
Tue, 2015-09-22 - 22:43 Permalink
Thank you VERY MUCH for these videos.. You not only explain the workings of SFP.. But we get to know you.. and I think that is important.. And some of the descriptions and dialogue you use gives us insight into how you create process music.. which is very important for us to understand and learn to use SFP to it's best ability.
I hope to YOU continue to make the videos and interject it with some 'asides', cause we get more insight.