So far Pit Orchestra has really gotten in the way of our progress. Each day I have to play 4 and a half hours of trumpet for the musical. Along with whatever extra curricular/doctor appointments Owen has to do, we have not gotten a ton of practice time in. Either way, the little time we have had went along way. We have the basic chords of each song written out but all of the lines need to be filled in. I need to do my job and make up horn riffs for each song as well as making up lead guitar parts. Hopefully, these problems will be solved by next week when the musical finally comes to an end. To further make our lives difficult, my guitar teacher was going to teach me how to use Reaper, a free recording software program but because of rehearsal, I have had to cancel my lesson. On the bright side, this experience is definitely teaching me a lot of music theory, fitting in guitar parts with the chords I play over them is much easier said than done.
BY THE WAY... if you are reading this before March 7th, remember to buy your tickets from me for the musical, I must sell 15!
So, since my guitar teacher has not been there to teach me how to use Reaper, I have had to use a lot of my own research to figure it out. Most of the time it was just me monkeying around on the program itself trying to get my bearings but several websites have come to be helpful.The first major problem was non amplified instruments. Guitars are very easy to record as all you do is plug them into your recording device and then play. Horns and Drums are a lot more difficult to get a hold of. Both of them require complete and utter silence to record over so that nothing interrupts the sound. Next, the recording device must be right next to the bell of the horn or essentially where the drummer sits on a drum set. Although of course we are not near the recording stage just yet, it's something to keep in mind when we get there. (By the way, sorry for the black text on the links, I don't know why it won't change)
Speaking of horns, one of the mini goals of this project will be to use trombone with at least one or two tracks. One of the major songs I composed requires a lot of trombone to harmonize with my trumpet. I own a trombone but actually learning to play it is a hole new conflict. Since I already play trumpet, learning the embouchure is not a huge challenge but actually knowing slide positions and reading bass clef is a major one. To help me along my way, I have gathered up a couple resources to help me to play this new challenge. This first one is a human being, Chris Annunziato is already a trombone player and being a good friend, is willing to teach me the basics (Check out his blog http://kuroy22.blogspot.com/). The second is a blog by somebody incredibly awesome for creating this blog titled "How to Play Trombone" (Check that one out at http://play-trombone.blogspot.com/). Once the trombone playing task is done and over-with, all of the horn sections parts should sound much stronger.
~~ Max Benowitz
Hey max, first I think it is a good idea to use a resource such as someone as awesome Chris. I also think if you actually plan on learning how to read bass clef you should give more time for that. I tried to read treble clef, and I was expecting it to be a lot less time consuming that it actually was. Overall I think that your project is good, but I'm not so sure you will be able to complete it is the time required.
ReplyDelete--Chris
Max,
ReplyDeleteTo quote you, "it seems like you really have your work cut out for you". Being an incredibly un-creative person, I'm really surprised and quite impressed that you were able to come up with prototypes for all of your songs in just one week, while at the same time still getting all of your other stuff done. As for the software, I think that it will be a great asset to your project once you learn it inside and out. Based on your post, I'm sure that your guitar teacher will be able to teach you the software in no time at all. Honestly, I can't wait to see how yours and Owen's project ends up. If you end up selling albums, I'll buy one!
- Isaac
All the progress you seem to be making (from my point of view, without any musical experience)looks pretty great. The pit orchestra thing eating up your time seems really annoying though. by the way...nice musical advertising. Very discreet and subliminal ;).
ReplyDelete