Discuss Notion Music Composition Software here.
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I love using Notion / Studio One 6 for composing Baroque / Early Classical music. But I am very disappointed that only the piano voice responds to trills, not the harpsichord. This has been reported way back in 2014 and still nothing has been done about it.
I have also tried the Synchron Player / Harpsichord and it doesnt work either.
I am looking into Dorico to see if it can do it.
I hate to stop using Notion but this is a primary function for my style of composing.
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by davidlarson6 on Tue Mar 14, 2023 11:52 am
Dorico does all kinds of trills.

DKLarson

Windows 10, i9, 64GB, 3X 1TB SSDs; Macbook Pro M1 Pro, 32GB, 1TB SSD
Audient iD14, Atom SQ, Keystep 37, Studiologic SL88, Moog Sub Phatty, Kawai MP11SE, Roli Seaboard.
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by tomdaigon on Tue Mar 14, 2023 3:46 pm
Yes, I just got it. Thrills and trills. :)
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by acequantum on Tue Mar 14, 2023 4:48 pm
Hi,

Looking through the Notion 6 manual it does state certain mordents, trills etc. while marked in the score, will not play back. The suggestion is to add a second instrument staff, notate it as to how the trill/mordent etc should play back, then hide that staff. The playback from the hidden staff will still occur but not be visible.

This doesn't fix the issue of an automatic trill, but gives a work around for playback. Check out the attachment.

harpsichord trill.notion
(74.14 KiB) Downloaded 56 times
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by tomdaigon on Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:49 pm
Thanks! But Ive moved onto Dorico. No trill work arounds needed. And a much more robust notation program.
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by Surf.Whammy on Tue Mar 14, 2023 11:12 pm
A trill is like a preset or automagical device akin to the Hypnotica preset in EW ComposerCloud X . . . :)

THOUGHTS

Obviously, there were not automagical virtual trills in Mozart's days; and everything was played--notated or suggested . . .

I like Mozart's music; and I studied 12 Variations "Ah, vous dirai-je, maman" KV 265 until it started making sense . . .

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A while later, I did an experiment where I started with a bit of Mozart and interspersed my Pretend Mozart ideas with Mozart's ideas, which was interesting . . .

Here in the sound isolation studio, it's all about geometric patterns; and once you identify the geometries, there are no mysteries . . . :+1

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Can you tell which bits are Mozart's and which bits are mine? :reading:

It might be a bit of "extra" work to notate trills; but I think you discover more of the nuances of trills when you notate them rather than use trill symbols . . .

On a related note, Elvis Presley did uvular trills on the "H" of "Hound" in his stellar hit song, "Hound Dog" . . .

[NOTE: This is heard most clearly at 1:59 in this YouTube video. I think the chord phrase at the start of Scotty Moore's second lead guitar solo starting at 1:21 is the one Keith Richards (Rolling Stones) describes as mind-boggling. I discovered how to play it, but I cannot transcribe it to music notation. It's a "feel" type of thing that you "just do" once you are in the correct frame of mind . . . ]

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How did 21 years-old Elvis know to do uvular trills?

Did the producer at the recording session tell Elvis about uvular trills?

Vocal coach?

One of the singers in The Jordanaires?

Or did Elvis do it intuitively to get more clarity when the song was played on AM radio?

I have listened to and studied "Hound Dog" since it was released 1956, but I only noticed the uvular trills a few years ago . . . :shock:

Lots of FUN! :)

Surf.Whammy's YouTube Channel

The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
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by davidlarson6 on Wed Mar 15, 2023 8:49 pm
Surf.Whammy wroteIt might be a bit of "extra" work to notate trills; but I think you discover more of the nuances of trills when you notate them rather than use trill symbols . . .


Well, "trill symbols" are actually the way that trills are notated. For the musicians to read and know what to play. :)

DKLarson

Windows 10, i9, 64GB, 3X 1TB SSDs; Macbook Pro M1 Pro, 32GB, 1TB SSD
Audient iD14, Atom SQ, Keystep 37, Studiologic SL88, Moog Sub Phatty, Kawai MP11SE, Roli Seaboard.
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by Surf.Whammy on Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:26 am
davidlarson6 wrote
Surf.Whammy wroteIt might be a bit of "extra" work to notate trills; but I think you discover more of the nuances of trills when you notate them rather than use trill symbols . . .

Well, "trill symbols" are actually the way that trills are notated. For the musicians to read and know what to play. :)

Surf.Whammy's perspective is that "tr." and its variations are like the infamous "secret handshake" that members of the "club" use to identify themselves to each other . . . :P

THOUGHTS

This perspective includes the fact that one of the primary reasons for elaborate and often mind-boggling "rules" in the realm of "music theory" devised centuries ago--when there were no personal computers, no virtual instruments, no Digital Audio Workstations (DAW), and no NOTION--was to restrict the ability to compose music and to have it performed, which included not only composers but also musicians and singers . . .

The response to all the "rules" was the creation of something that soon was called "Folk Music" and for the most part was not transcribed because few people knew enough about the "rules" to transcribe anything . . .

In more recent times, this led to the customary practice of transposing guitar notation downward by one octave but never telling folks who taught themselves how to play guitar, such as myself . . .

Based on the idea that everyone always tells the truth--the antithesis of transposition--I thought the 3rd-fret on the low-pitched "A" string of an electric guitar at standard tuning ("Concert A" = 440-Hz) was "Middle C" . . .

This skewed my understanding of music; and it was only a few years ago that I discovered "Middle C" on electric guitar actually is the 1st-fret on the high-pitch "b" string . . .

Among other things, this led me to think the Beatles were sopranos, which was consistent with my belief that I was a soprano--mostly since nobody told me anything different in the over half a century since I was in a liturgical boys choir and actually was a soprano . . .

Folks might wonder, "Surf, are you really so naive?"; and the general answer is "Yes!" . . . :roll:

The required epiphany occurred sometime after I discovered Scientific Pitch Notation and studied the chart of pitches and common note names . . .

Scientific Pitch Notation ~ Wikipedia

Discovering and studying the Equal Loudness Curve provided more relevant and enlightening information, which for reference was discovered and documented by researchers at Bell Labs in the early-1930s as part of the effort to determine the optimal frequency range for telephonic conversations and transmission thereof (Harvey Fletcher and Wilden A. Munson) . . .

[NOTE: The Equal Loudness Curve (see below) explains why a studio monitor system must have deep-bass subwoofers. It's logarithmic; and it shows that to be perceived as being equally loud, deep-bass needs to be approximately 50 times higher in volume-level than a 1,000-Hz note ("High C", more or less) . . . ]

Equal Loudness Curve ~ Wikipedia

Fletcher and Munson discovered what I call the "Midrange Dip" in which the human ear and perceptual apparatus are most sensitive and was the frequency range used by telephones at the time and continuing in many respects well into the 21st century . . .

[NOTE: The electric guitar is the "perfect" instrument for recording due to its mind-boggling ability to create sounds in the "Midrange Dip" as well as its ability to generate all its sounds with electromagnetic characteristics that make it ideal for mapping and storing to audio files and associated formats, including magnetic tape. This is the reason it's so difficult to mix when electric guitars are present; because if not ruthlessly constrained, an electric guitar will dominate the entire mix. Voice and singing are equally troublesome due to the naturally wide range of dynamics, which ultimately requires the use of "ducking" and compressor-limiters. This also explains why trained singers prefer condenser microphones and "work" the condenser microphones by adjusting the singing distances based on their singing dynamics . . . ]

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Curious coincidence? :roll:

No!

These are two of the most highly-hidden facts of music . . .

It's the reason Elvis Presley and the Beatles in the early years were portrayed by skilled photographers and graphic designers as being "childlike", when actually they were baritones--not sopranos . . .

Harmonics and overtones--their "odd" cousins--are important up to 10-kHz; but the true action occurs below 500-Hz, which for the most part are the strings of an electric guitar continuing to the 8th fret on the high-pitch "e" string ("Treble C", "Tenor High C", or "C5" in scientific pitch notation) . . .

[NOTE: "Middle C" appears below the treble staff, so it's logical for C5, which appears on the treble staff, to be called "Treble C". This makes "High C" the C that appears above the treble staff ("C6") . . . ]

For practical purposes the notes above the red line and below the blue line are what matters . . .

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Even more important are the facts that there are 12 notes and 10 octaves--two of which octaves are provide to entertain bats, birds, cats, dogs, dolphins, porpoises, sea turtles, and whales, since they are the only biologicals that can hear them . . .

The octave determines the frequency range of a note; and when there only are 12 notes and 10 octaves, this keeps everything mathematically and geometrically elegant and easy to remember . . .

I suggest that most folks do not know this until either (a) they do extensive research and discover it or (b) someone tells them . . .

It's the same with trills, turns, shakes, mordents, appoggiaturas, acciaccaturas, glissandi, slides, nachschläge, and the always popular whammy; and this is the reason I suggest being specific, as delineated in the following charts:

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If you belong to the "Club" and know the "Secret Handshake", then fabulous; but otherwise the various squiggly bits and text-based symbols are meaningless . . .

Lots of FUN! :)

Surf.Whammy's YouTube Channel

The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
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by davidlarson6 on Thu Mar 16, 2023 9:03 pm
Surf.Whammy wroteIf you belong to the "Club" and know the "Secret Handshake", then fabulous; but otherwise the various squiggly bits and text-based symbols are meaningless . . .

Lots of FUN! :)


Just a guess on my part, maybe, but I'd say that the people who are going to be playing those various ornaments do in fact belong to the "Club" and know the "Secret Handshake." :)

As a keyboard player of questionable aptitude, and a composer who uses not only the treble and bass clefs, but also the tenor and alto clefs, I've been exposed to a lot of those squiggles over the years, and I've learned that they are actually easier to read and execute while playing a musical piece than it is to read an extended series of 32nd notes.

I also know why a lot of instruments, like your guitar example, have transposed notation. It's, again, for the benefit of the musician, because it's harder to read music with a lot of ledger lines than it is to read notes on or near a staff. (And that's also the reason for the existence of those other clefs.)

Fabulous! :lol:

DKLarson

Windows 10, i9, 64GB, 3X 1TB SSDs; Macbook Pro M1 Pro, 32GB, 1TB SSD
Audient iD14, Atom SQ, Keystep 37, Studiologic SL88, Moog Sub Phatty, Kawai MP11SE, Roli Seaboard.
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by Surf.Whammy on Fri Mar 17, 2023 6:00 am
davidlarson6 wroteJust a guess on my part, maybe, but I'd say that the people who are going to be playing those various ornaments do in fact belong to the "Club" and know the "Secret Handshake." :)

You're probably right, but I like to see the actual notes--at least until I memorize everything . . . :)

THOUGHTS

I'm working on a new song which is inspired in part by "Radio" (Rammstein); and the keyboard player is incredible . . .

He plays a very rapid phrase at the start of the song and then a few times later; and this is a new puzzle here in the sound isolation studio, because it's what I call "chromatic" and is too rapid for me to identify the notes easily . . .

I should be able to decipher it; and I am resorting to the 50+ years-old technique of playing it at half-speed--with some but not a lot of success . . .

Being a keyboard player, perhaps you can transcribe it?

[NOTE: The puzzling keyboard phrase first appears at 0:34 . . . ]

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I also like the rhythm guitar syncopated chords; but I can play this "by ear" on a real guitar, which I plan to do now that my MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid external digital audio and MIDI interface is working and I can use it to get the real guitar audio into Studio One Professional 6.2 . . .

On a related note, I am going to add all the Baroque trills, mordents, shakes, and so forth from my previous post to the new Surfstein song, "Du Bist Schön" . . .

The tempo is 142 BPM, which is a bit fast; but so what . . .

[NOTE: I used 16th notes instead of 32nd notes due to the tempo . . . ]

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Lots of FUN! :)

Surf.Whammy's YouTube Channel

The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
User avatar
by acequantum on Fri Mar 17, 2023 1:47 pm
This is a quick western music history lesson (ha!) with lots of missing information, but maybe hints at the idea of markings for trills and such.

If we dial the clock back a few hundred years, and if we take a look at clavichord or harpsichord music, we can find that these instruments were often used kind of like a jazz rhythm section might be used today.

Often something called a basso continuo was used for keyboard players which is basically a lead sheet or a "fake" sheet. There would be a bass line (or even implied bass line) and chord notations. Ornamentation was added as markings (like trills, mordents, whatever) . The keyboardist would support the other instruments but was allowed to tastefully embellish the music with little flurries of keys and nuances and "hard" intervals. This was pretty standard and everybody (that was any good) kinda knew what to play based on the markings. Often there would be few actual music notes written beyond the bass line. It was up to the keyboardist to interpret the markings based on the type of music and other instruments and melody lines involved.

As things progressed we have "toccata" or touch techniques. Listen to J.S. Bach and you'll know what I'm talking about. Fast and accurate finger playing technique was the name of the game. Again like jazz, there was a certain "soloing" aspect where you'd have all kinds of trill markings to tastefully ornament the music. If you were a member of the secret club, you'd know what to play. If you had a good ear for the music, you'd also know what to play. Sometimes, the composer wanted very specific flourishes so they would write them out in the margin or on the staff itself and associate it with a particular marking so you would know when you see that marking, what intervals or style to play. You'd also have cadenzas which were for the true show offs! The performer could solo for several bars usually at the end of a piece.

Again I equate it to jazz. Music theory seems to contain all sorts of rules and special markings that one has to learn etc. Often people want to skip that and just go on to playing music. I'm all for that but I think one can miss out on some crucial elements. I would argue one should understand the tools and the "trials and learnings others have been through (aka rules)" of an art before they can throw them away. The fluidity and organic nature of music comes from understanding culture, the instrument and ones self. Like a jazz player, one understands music enough that a single marking or chord opens up an entire world of possibilities. And if you play and read enough of Mozart or Beethoven's music for example, you start to understand the implications of the composer as you understand your own heart - and when you see a marking or notation, you feel what to do.

All this trill talk has got my interest up. I've never composed anything for the harpsichord before - heck I don't even know how to play it (it's not quite like a piano). I'm gonna sit down and maybe write a minuet type piece since that's mostly my impression of harpsichord ready music. Since I mentioned a trill workaround for harpsichord in Notion, I'll make sure to throw in some of those.

Hopefully, if I don't run out of gas, I'll finish it and post it here.
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by Surf.Whammy on Sat Mar 18, 2023 1:19 pm
acequantum wroteIf we dial the clock back a few hundred years, and if we take a look at clavichord or harpsichord music, we can find that these instruments were often used kind of like a jazz rhythm section might be used today.

Often something called a basso continuo was used for keyboard players which is basically a lead sheet or a "fake" sheet. There would be a bass line (or even implied bass line) and chord notations. Ornamentation was added as markings (like trills, mordents, whatever). The keyboardist would support the other instruments but was allowed to tastefully embellish the music with little flurries of keys and nuances and "hard" intervals. This was pretty standard and everybody (that was any good) kinda knew what to play based on the markings. Often there would be few actual music notes written beyond the bass line. It was up to the keyboardist to interpret the markings based on the type of music and other instruments and melody lines involved.

All this trill talk has got my interest up.

I knew about basso continuo but had forgotten about it . . . :+1

THOUGHTS

I also knew about trills and had found the charts several years ago when I was working to make sense of Mozart's compositions . . .

For a while, my primary knowledge of music theory was from being in a liturgical boys choir where I learned to sight-sing liturgical music as a soprano . . .

This is the reason I prefer to do everything on soprano treble staves, because it's what makes intuitive sense to me . . .

Yet after being in the liturgical boys choir, I switched to what at the time was Rock & Roll and taught myself electric bass and electric guitars "by ear", where the strategy was to focus on popular songs that I would play on a record turntable at double-speed to hear bass parts clearly or half-speed to hear lead guitar solos as if they were bass parts, which by that time I had mastered . . .

When bass parts are played at double-speed they are soprano, and I knew soprano; so after making sense of bass, I switched to learning lead guitar, and playing lead guitar solos at half-speed or slower made them sound like bass parts . . .

This might make sense only to me, but it worked . . .

I was playing bass in nightclub musical groups when I was 15 years-old; and it paid very well, at least for a 15 years-old . . .

The piano player was 14 years-old and (a) owned a house, (b) was married, and (c) owned and drove a car (paper driver's licenses with no photos in those days, and he looked older) . . .

The piano player knew I did not read bass clef sheet music but knew the names of keys on a piano; so he provided clues for bass and chords with his left hand, which I watched . . .

Sometime later, the Beatles appeared; and in those days the Beatles played songs with totally complex rhythm guitar chords . . .

I learned Paul McCartney's bass parts by playing Beatles records at double-speed and soon was able to play the bass parts to Beatles songs, although not so elaborately as Paul McCartney who did a lot of what one might accurately call "ornamentation and embellishment", most of which I did not hear or even understand at the time . . .

Without knowing about basso continuo, my garage band compadres--who also were "by ear" musicians--devised a "secret" shorthand for memorizing songs, where the general rule was that to play nightclubs and dances, you needed to know 40 or so songs . . .

How do you remember 40 songs?

We discovered that a lot of songs had common chord patterns; and this led to a "secret" set of mnemonics focused primarily on five songs:

(1) "Louie Louie" (The Kingsmen)
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(2) "Walk Don't Run" (The Ventures)
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(3) "Sleepwalk" (Santo & Johnny)
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(4) "Heat Wave" (Martha & The Vandellas)
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(5) "Stormy Monday" (T-Bone Walker)
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There are a few other definitive songs; but these five map nicely to every popular song over the past 100 or so years--especially when used in combinations with chords from several songs, which is what the Beatles discovered . . .

James Brown was very popular at this time (pre-Bootsy), so we studied his basic rhythm section (drums, bass, rhythm guitar, and Hammond B-3 organ) . . .

As time moved ever forward, we started focusing on specific rhythm guitar chords, where the rule was to name each unique chord after the first song in which we heard it being played . . .

This led to the obvious "Purple Haze" named chord, and a few others like the "James Brown" chord, which also was used in "Stormy Monday" but had its own name since "Stormy Monday" was reserved for what I suppose is "12-bar Blues" . . .

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Adding the two sets of trills, mordants, and so forth to the extended verses of "Du Bist Schön" (Surfstein) was helpful since I tend to learn by writing and transcribing; and my current thinking is that the synthesizer part in "Radio" (Rammstein) probably was derived from a trill or might actually be an elaborate trill . . .

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Somehow, exploring trills in detail tends to make me feel smarter . . .

Lots of FUN! :)

Surf.Whammy's YouTube Channel

The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
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by acequantum on Sun Mar 19, 2023 7:41 pm
Ok,

Here's my harpsichord composition. Like I said, I've never composed for this instrument before. The piece started to take on a life of its own sometime after the middle section and I was able to reign it back in here and there. You'll be able to tell when things get big and then get pulled back to a a more simple counter point. I like the piece though I cranked it out pretty quickly.

The title says it's in C but it modulates many times. You'll hear Cmaj, emin, Gmaj, amin, Dmaj and even Eaj. A lot of subject and answer kind of stuff going on and it became a little trickier to play than I had planned.

Anyway, the inspiration to write it came from the idea of manually adding trills to compensate for Notion 6 not responding to the markings for this particular instrument.

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by davidlarson6 on Sun Mar 19, 2023 8:28 pm
I like it! Especially the "mayhem" from letter F to the end! :)

DKLarson

Windows 10, i9, 64GB, 3X 1TB SSDs; Macbook Pro M1 Pro, 32GB, 1TB SSD
Audient iD14, Atom SQ, Keystep 37, Studiologic SL88, Moog Sub Phatty, Kawai MP11SE, Roli Seaboard.
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by Surf.Whammy on Sun Mar 19, 2023 8:29 pm
acequantum wroteHere's my harpsichord composition.
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Very nice! :reading:

THOUGHTS

I think your Pretend Mozart is better than mine, even though it might be Pretend Beethoven . . . :+1

Lots of FUN! :)

Surf.Whammy's YouTube Channel

The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
User avatar
by acequantum on Mon Mar 20, 2023 11:35 am
@DL and @SW

Thanks!

It was a fun exercise - and it was really easy to manually notate the trills how I wanted them on a separate harpsichord "trill" staff, mark the trill on the main staff, then hide the trill staff.

Of course it's convenient just to mark it and have it play back by the program, but when you notate it yourself, the playback can be whatever you want.

@DL - As a minuet it's a bit fast from the beginning however, yeah, at letter F it turns into the Baroque equivalent of a mosh pit! At the beginning everyone in their powdered wigs, falling bands, capes and bustles are politely bowing and curtsying walking delicately hand in hand in circles... then by then end they are slam dancing.
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by michaelmyers1 on Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:56 pm
What trilliness around here! And fun!!!

iMac (Retina 5K 27", 2019) 3.6 ghz I9 8-core 64 gb RAM Fusion Drive
with small AOC monitor for additional display
macOS Ventura 13.4
2 - 500 gb + 2 - 1 tb external SSD for sample libraries
M Audio AirHub audio interface
Nektar Panorama P1 control surface
Nektar Impact 49-key MIDI keyboard
Focal CMS40 near-field monitors
JBL LSR310S subwoofer
Notion 6 + Studio One 5 Pro

http://www.tensivity.com
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by Surf.Whammy on Sat Mar 25, 2023 11:28 am
It's tempting to do a few "trill" versions of songs . . . :P

THOUGHTS

"The Long and Winding Trill" (Beatles)

"All You Need is Trill" (Beatles)

"Norwegian Trill (This Trill Has Flown)" (Beatles)

"Trills" (ZZ Top)

"You Ain't Nothing But a Trill" (Elvis Presley)

"I Trilled It My Way" (Frank Sinatra)

"Luck Be a Trill" (Frank Sinatra)

"Du Hast Trill" (Rammstein)

"It's Only Make Believe Trills" (Conway Twitty)

"On the Trill Again" (Willie Nelson)

"Who Owns My Trill" (Miley Cyrus)

"Master of Trills" (Metallica)

Lots of FUN! :)

Surf.Whammy's YouTube Channel

The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
User avatar
by michaelmyers1 on Sat Mar 25, 2023 7:06 pm
Interestingly enough, I just discovered today that Studio One 6 now "performs" Trills and Tremolos. Not very well.

So I'm guessing this functionality is coming for Notion.

iMac (Retina 5K 27", 2019) 3.6 ghz I9 8-core 64 gb RAM Fusion Drive
with small AOC monitor for additional display
macOS Ventura 13.4
2 - 500 gb + 2 - 1 tb external SSD for sample libraries
M Audio AirHub audio interface
Nektar Panorama P1 control surface
Nektar Impact 49-key MIDI keyboard
Focal CMS40 near-field monitors
JBL LSR310S subwoofer
Notion 6 + Studio One 5 Pro

http://www.tensivity.com
User avatar
by Surf.Whammy on Sun Mar 26, 2023 4:41 am
michaelmyers1 wroteInterestingly enough, I just discovered today that Studio One 6 now "performs" Trills and Tremolos. Not very well.

So I'm guessing this functionality is coming for Notion.

In Studio One Professional 6.02 there are four trills and six tremolos but nothing elaborate . . . :)

THOUGHTS

These are the four trills:

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There also are tremolos:

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My university degree is in Computer Science, which at the time was part of the Mathematics department; and this makes it easier for me to develop elaborate lists, syntax analyzers, and parsers--all of which I learned the "old way" which is how it was done before people with nothing better to do started devising strategies which make little sense . . .

I learned how to write syntax analyzers and parsers from a teacher who worked with Grace Hopper when she was developing the programming language called "COBOL"; and it's a brilliant way of making sense of things, although it's so brilliant the "people with nothing better to do" expelled him from the department, but not before I took his class and learned how to do it the "old way" . . .

I used the "old way" to design and program algorithms that analyzed and understood SQL databases for a few companies that had SQL products and needed to be able to examine a SQL database to determine such things as tables and procedures based on having the code that created the specific SQL database . . .

The definition of the database language was all I needed; and it included definitions for creating, retrieving, updating, and deleting everything, which colloquially was abbreviated to "CRUD", but since procedures were executed, I added "E" to make it "CRUDE" . . .

Another colloquial variation was "ISUDE" for insert, select, update, delete, and execute . . .

The concept is that everything is on a linear paper tape that you examine like it is being pulled through a cardboard box with a single-character "viewing window"; and the goal is to get the information with as few passes of the paper tape through the cardboard box as possible . . .

The fewer passes of the paper tape through the cardboard box, the more efficient it is; and when convenient, you can look-ahead or look-behind a few characters . . .

Image

The high-level version is that you begin by eliminating all nonessential "white space", where for example:

Code: Select all
"SELECT        "

only needs one trailing blank; so you toss all the nonessential trailing blank characters to produce:

Code: Select all
"SELECT " 

The next step is to devise a set of what usually are called "tags" to be "delimiters"; and this is where the "old way" becomes brilliant while also being remarkably "stupid" . . .

For example, consider that "<lalalalamonkeybanana>" is guaranteed not to appear anywhere in the actual language or as the name of something important . . .

This gets you to:

Code: Select all
<lalalalamonkeybanana>SELECT</lalalalamonkeybanana>

and you have identified the start of a SELECT statement, where by using the "stupid" tag pair, you can eliminate the single trailing blank character, thereby making it more focused on what matters . . .

But instead of using something with no specific meaning like "<lalalalamonkeybanana>", use something with useful meaning that later tells you something helpful like "<22-select-keyword>" and "</22-select-keyword>" or whatever lets you make sense of things . . .

[NOTE: This is XML, and it's the way NOTION does a lot of its work internally, where the general format is tag pairs. For example, rules are stored this way . . . ]

Code: Select all
<tag> data </tag>

I did this in the "C" programming language with a few bits from "C++", although mostly "C" . . .

It takes a while to do it this way; but I was paid by the hour; so it was highly-compensated work . . . :+1

This was over 20 years ago; and by that time the "people with nothing better to do" had devised even more goofy ways to attempt this type of work, which one might suppose was good for them, except it didn't work all the time and had flaws, whereas the "old way" always works perfectly . . .

Add to this my mother being a writer and English professor who taught me how to outline at an early age; and in some respects I am the king of making elaborate lists of pretty much everything when I find it interesting . . .

Early in my programming career--which now is called "software engineering"--I got a job writing COBOL programs, even though I knew nearly nothing about COBOL, other than having one course in it . . .

Drawing on my outlining skills, I could keep quite busy for weeks writing code to "PERFORM" various "PROCEDURES", all of which at least initially had important names but actually did nothing other than make me appear to be busy . . . :P

Code: Select all
PERFORM 1000-INITIAL-STARTUP-PROCEDURE

1000-INITIAL-STARTUP-PROCEDURE
   PERFORM 1001-PRELIMINARY-INITIAL-STARTUP-PROCEDURE
   PERFORM 1002-PRELIMINARY-INITIAL-STARTUP-PROCEDURE
   .
   .
   .
   PERFORM 1100-PRELIMINARY-INITIAL-STARTUP-PROCEDURE

In those days, programmers were judged by lines of code per day; and I was quite prolific in this respect . . .

Eventually, I would learn enough about what the program was supposed to do and then would be able to write something which actually accomplished real work . . .

After a while, the companies that hired me began assigning me the most difficult programs; and this was good . . .

A decade or so later, Windows appeared; and I switched to writing code in low-level "C" but used the same overall "outlining" strategy; mostly because I made a diligent effort never to know what I was doing, which in music is what I call the "by ear" strategy, where the programming language is "music notation" and the low-level bits are notes with pitch and duration . . .

You compose some notes and then listen to them--keeping the notes that sound "good" and revising or updating the notes that sound "bad" when they should sound "good" . . .

In some respects, it's remarkably stupid and takes a long time; but if you are persistent, it works marvelously . . .

When you think about this for a while, I think you will realize this is how songs are composed and played, where a song or a performance (instrument or singing) is a stream or paper tape of single notes and chords played or sung one at a time in a sequential or linear way, where there can be repeats and other types of repetition; but it's done in snippets of time the same way Studio One Professional and NOTION play a song . . .

With this in mind, I am working to make sense of what generally are called "trills"; and I am making progress . . .

Adding the two sets of Baroque "trills" to my Surfstein song "Du Bist Schön" was very helpful (see one of my earlier posts for specifics); and now I have a few favorites, which usually are the more elaborate ones . . .

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Since then, I found another set of trills:

Image

Fortunately, I had two years of French in university, as well as two years of German; so between this and Google Translate, I should be able to find useful English names . . .

One might suspect there is--or should be--an encyclopedia of all this stuff; but if there is, then I have not found it so far, hence the project to create one . . .

At present, I like turns, appoggiaturas, acciaccaturas, and various combinations of these with trills and mordents, as well as the upper prefix and lower prefix variations . . .

I tend to like what I suppose are "compound trills" . . .

My perspective on this is that it's like learning how to play lead guitar where trills are like phrases that are common to a lot of lead guitar solos in the sense of learning how to play them and developing a system for remembering them so that they are committed to what musicians and singers call "muscle memory", which perhaps in terms of "The Glass Bead Game: Magister Ludi" (Hermann Hesse) maps them to glass marbles or beads, where a compound trill or an elaborate trill is like a specific glass marble or bead . . .

It's represented visually in your mind as a specific glass marble or bead, which is a mnemonic device to identify the "muscle memory" aspect . . .

As shown in the three sets of trills, some of them are 10 to perhaps 20 notes and by definition according to the rules can be even more notes . . .

Explained another way, one of the goals is to teach myself how to play trills on electric guitar and perhaps keyboards; and this is consistent with the goal of making sense of the elaborate synthesizer phrase in "Radio" (Rammstein", which I now realize is what one correctly might call a "tight trill" where "tight" in this context refers to being chromatic rather than diatonic . . .

[NOTE: This is one of the songs I study while listening with studio-quality headphones like SONY MDR-7506 (a personal favorite); and I think the keyboard player is the musical director or at least the expert on music theory. I am convinced he is playing custom trills, but he also plays fascinating counterpoint and textures in other parts of the song--some of which I did not hear until I listened to the song over-and-over many times. It's a very elaborate song . . . ]

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Sooner or later this wanders into formal music theory, but perhaps in a way that is not so restrictive and mind-numbing in the sense (a) that one path starts with music theory and learning how to play an instrument or sing guided by music notation, where the last thing one learns is what I call "by ear" music mentation and (b) the other path begins with learning how to sing notes on a soprano treble clef--but with nearly no music theory--and discovering how to devise phrases "by ear" and then eventually leads to making sense of music theory, with this being my path . . .

In some respects, I am path-agnostic; and whichever path works best is good so long as progress is made, although I think the "by ear" strategy with a minimal amount of music theory along the way and learning how to sight-sing tends to make it easier to compose songs in "popular" genres, whatever that might be . . .

These are some relevant links:

Ornaments ~ Wikipedia

Dreydlekh ~ Wikipedia

Ribattuta ~Wikipedia

Non-Chord Tones ~ Wikipedia

Counterpoint ~ Wikipedia

Lots of FUN! :)

P. S. If I correctly understand the basic rule in Architecture, you compose a house or skyscraper from the roof going downward-- determining the required foundation requirements along the way--which in my mind is the reverse of the way a basic rhythm section is composed by starting with the bottom and working upward . . .

Sometimes you have the melody first; but usually you start with the bass and kick drum, since everything rides on the bass and kick drum . . .

Some types of object-oriented programming systems (OOPS) are designed like skyscrapers where you start with high-level classes and then differentiate and specify as you create and specify the lower classes; but this tends to make sense only to the folks who design the systems . . .

If you think and visualize the same way they do, then it all makes intuitive sense; but if not, then it makes no intuitive sense; and to make it even worse, application programming language and operating system providers like Apple and Microsoft supply their own sets of classes or "cookie cutters" and "templates" that are used to instantiate "objects", which on the Apple (macOS) side are called "frameworks" and are used to do certain types of work automagically . . .

Generally, this makes no intuitive sense to me, which is the reason I prefer low-level "C" programming where nothing--or at least very little--happens automagically . . .

Yet, there are times when I use the musical equivalents of frameworks--with usual examples being horn sections like Hollywood Pop Brass (EW Composer Cloud X) and synthesizer presets that do arpeggios, elaborate harmonies, and other pre-programmed musical phrases and textures . . .

Top-down, bottom-up, or sideways all are good and essentially are variations of the same thing in music; but most of the time I start with the drumkit; add bass; and then chords, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :)

Surf.Whammy's YouTube Channel

The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!

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