[Music] triangles has a toot - Newest Piece: The Gensokyo The Gods Loved

[triangles]

Ok so MJP and I were in the car last night and this song pops up on his iPod doodad "oh man I love this song and can totally play this on clarinet I bet!"  And so my mission for today was set!  Plus I really just needed an excuse to start playing again  :toot:

I used the piano scores available here as the base, though I warn anyone else wanting to try this at home they transcribe accidentals VS key signatures pretty randomly (at least in this piece oh boy)

THINGS TO NOTE:
- There are 3 notes in particular that totally suck on clarinet: concert F#, G, G# in the middle of the treble clef.  Guess what this song starts out with and spotlights in the first part :V
- Those clicky noises in the first part?  Yeah that's cause the key sig had SIX SHARPS = go hog wild with pinky keys.  I don't think there's really a way around it.  It's pretty obvious IMO when I switch to a key that's easier.
- I skipped the guitar/whatever part, it didn't sound right in a solo piece (or I'm not good enough to make it sound good so that's probably it)  If I can improve I can pop it back it in.  On that note, I'm also not good enough to have done this in just one take, and I had to edit in one spot where the cat walked by the mic whoops.
- Probably out of tune.  I am terrible about these things.

So, uh yeah there you have it.  I'm not sure what to tackle next yet, a lot of the Touhou songs don't make super-amazing solo pieces or I'm just not skilled enough to make it happen.  Any comments?  Suggestions?  Gifts of Girl Scout cookies?

[Tengukami]

 :* :* :* :* :*

This is one of my favorite Touhou themes. It always reminds me of summer. You did an excellent job with it, too. I can hear your ease with the song really settle in at about 1:33.

Very, very nicely done.

[Suikama]

Can MJP play an instrument? This totally needs to be a duet.

[triangles]

Thanks you guys

I can hear your ease with the song really settle in at about 1:33.

Ahaha yeah that's when it switched in EZMODE: THE KEY SIGNATURE.  Only F# to worry about and no wonky alternate fingerings SIGN ME UP.  And by that point I had the rhythm really down since I had spent all afternoon playing it.  The first part uggggggh not so much.

Can MJP play an instrument? This totally needs to be a duet.

No, but he's agreed to try his hand at clarinet since I have my old student one still at my parents house (instead of, you know, an instrument I can't help him at all or he'd have to keep buying/reselling when "teach yourself" books don't work for the 3rd time YEAH LOOKING AT YOU GUITAR) but uh, since he can't read music or anything yet it'd be quite some time.  Like months/years-quite some time, though the final iteration is pretty clarinet-rookie friendly if you bring it down an octave.  I'd be better off learning enough audio editing skillzzzz to mix my own duets, which I might do in the future.  There's not too many people on Youtube making their own Touhou recorded musics but they are for the most part srsbiz musicians.  I'm just someone who played in high school and abandoned her horn for 5 years to go do something notmusic in college  :ohdear:

[Tengukami]

If you want a head start on mixing your own material, you can't go wrong with Audacity. You can add as many tracks as you like, and incorporate all kinds of mixing techniques. It's pretty intuitive, and it's free. I use it myself on my own material.

[triangles]

...I didn't even think of that    I even already have Audacity since that's what I used for the Touho-ho-ho songfest stuff to mix in the clarinet parts.

Though my concern is that trying to match tempo with myself might be kinda tricky to mix, I think I'll start with trying to just play along with an MP3 and if I can mix that successfully then I'll evolve into being my own musical ensemble.

Any suggestions to what I should tackle next?  I'm thinking Remilia's theme maybe as it's not in a terrible key and has a very distinct melody line without needing too much "extra" to make it work, but totally open to ideas.

[Tengukami]

Might sound like a weird stopgap solution, but to keep tempo in all tracks, I had a chintzy mp3 player playing a metronome track in one ear, while I had my computer speakers on for playing the different instruments, one track at a time. Actually cued up quite well.

[triangles]

Alright so I'm working on my next piece (with harmony ohoho!) and it looks like at the rate I'm going I'll be able to record the bulk of it in the next few days.

...well, the bulk meaning everything except the introductory accompaniment part I lovingly refer to as "the sixteenth note bullshit" as it's just argh stupid fingerings I have to bruteforce memorize and play fast enough, I'm already dropped the tempo down about 15 bpm WHOOPS OH WELL but it still sounds fast enough so whatever. 

I am wondering if people would be interested in a work-in-progress version (everything minus the sixteenth note bullshit) or just hold out until I master the tricky bit and do it all at once?  I know it probably doesn't matter or few people have an opinion either way, especially since I hadn't touched this thread in like a month, but I guess it's also a reminder to myself that I didn't abandon all of this just yet  :V

[Nobu]

I love you Triangles *_* Ditch that MJP guy so we can make sweet sweet music together~

I actually like hearing the clicks of the keys when people play music. Maybe it's from being in band for years upon years, so it's nostalgic. This is one of my favorite themes too. It always gave me an 'olden times' vibe. Good job! :3

[triangles]

Yeah this is definitely one of my all-time fav Touhou themes, it was a great choice for my first piece.  What do/did you play Nobu?

and oh yeah
More shameless self-promotion!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVxtwfze52M
I made a Youtube video I'm so proud of myself for figuring out how to do it because oh man I'm so bad with technology but it worked and look you can see pictures change as the key changes so hooray  :V

I'm still working out some of the kinks for my 2nd adventure, it fits the clarinet range a bit better IMO than Lullaby did (ie no super high controlled squeek "notes")  Turns out I only wrote out half of the sixteenth note bullshit I need for the intro part WHOOPS so I got my work cut out for me for tonight.  But since this is my first time trying to harmony with myself I probably will post the WIP version with just the basic accompaniment/harmony parts.

[Nobu]

I played trumpet for about 7 years in junior high/high school, and picked up the flute and french horn my senior year. I regret not keeping up with it, because i'm horribly out of practice on the trumpet and all but forgot how to play flute. :< I'm trying to pick up guitar right now, but i'm not that far along.

Maybe if I started working out my rustiness over the summer I could start playing the trumpet again. We could do a duet! Or make an MotK band even :O

[Zakenna]

mmm Triangles you made my break out my clarinet for the first time in 3 years after hearing you play this. Maybe we should start transcribing songs into Bb for Clarinet  :]  maybe even start a Touhou Clarinet Choir or something. Travel from Con to con playing on the streets....or maybe not. Either way good job

any perticular program you use to convert the midi/sdx file into transposed sheet music?  or did you do it by hand like a music theorist...I'm doing it by hand

[Tengukami]

I listened to the YouTube vid a few times the other day. For some reason, it sounds mournful on lone clarinet. Add some reverb and sparse piano and it would be positively heartbreaking.

[Nobu]

Or we can figure out how to add a trumpet to it and make it sound ~*fantastic*~ :3

[triangles]

Nobu - yeah guitar's tricky, MJP tried to teach himself guitar like 2 or 3 times over the course of our relationship and it fission-mailed each time (why he's learning clarinet now - aka something I can help him with!)  But trumpet, oh man there's a bunch of good Touhou songs that would just kick-ass on trumpet.

Zakenna - yay clarinet players!  I'm not skilled enough to transcribe by ear or anything fancy, what I do is pop up the site I linked to in the OP for piano midi files and mess around with them (transpose, change from bass clef to treble, fix some wonky bits, etc) in Noteworthy Composer, you can download a trial version for free.

Ammy - oh so THAT'S where my views are coming from... though talk about heartbreaking MJP tells me the "related video" links were all to some Twilight nonsense 


Anyway, I recorded (hopefully) everything last night, and given my grading/HW schedule I'm thinking Friday or Saturday I should have enough time to mix/rerecord any part I really goofed on.  Here's a hint - this one too is heard during some game's Stage 5~!

[dustyjo]

I wish I had never stopped learning to play piano ;_;

[triangles]

Ohoho I'm finally done mixing~!

Introducing PCB's Stage 5 boss theme: Hiroari Shoots a Strange Bird ~ Till When?
But oh oh, I didn't just give you the melody line.  I recorded 4 separate parts and mixed them together!  I totally skipped the sixteenth note bullshit in the beginning but I don't think it hurts the piece so whatever it was a very obnoxious set of fingerings and good riddance  :V

I'm not 100% sold on the balance between everything, but that's probably due to having heard everything for hours and hours over the past few days, either playing or mixing and everything is blurring together.  Let me know if I should adjust the volume of any of the parts before I pop it up on the Youtubes.

Note to self: pick a song with less harmony parts to deal with next time oh god if I had a nickle for every time I had to adjust by < .1s to get stuff to line up times 4 arghhhhhhhh

[Nobu]

Aww, you need to add in the sixteenth note bullshit sometime :V Looks like your tone is improving, good stuff. There are some weird parts in the melody where you alternate between staccato and slurring, but overall the melody and the harmony sounds great.

[triangles]

Oh man, you know I was so concerned with the tempo and making sure I didn't bungle notes it's like articulation what's that  :V

I'm sizing up the competitors for the next piece I tackle, definitely going with something less crazy so I can make the whole musical phrasing thing be less of a trainwreck whoops!

EDIT - Youtube video is up!  MJP is disappointed I did not put in a STARWIPE! but I am doing a theme from one of his favorite Touhous next so it should balance out.  I was thiiiiis close to doing another Stage 5 theme but you'd all wonder if that's the only level I play or something if I kept that up  :3

[HakureiSM]

Triangles ilu

Also why do you all keep making threads that remind me I haven't played violino for 8 years?

T_____________T

Seriously, it's something I've been thinking a lot lately and it hurts.

[Menorah Jams, Pham]

Go on, admit it when you listen: this TOTALLY sounds like it's being played by a bunch of clarineters in the Old Country.  An old babushka is yelling at Mordecai to go and get more milk, he's busy at shul, and little Hymie is already working two jobs, going to Hebrew school, and they're still talking to the shadchen to find a nice doctor boy for Youmu.

Isn't it sad, Youmu?  ;_;

[triangles]

Do you still have it in your possession?
If so, there's no time like the present 

I understand how it goes - I went about 5 years without playing because of college, and since I was a former band kid in high school hearing about all my music major friends doing this and that, it always stung a little bit.  I didn't have the personality type to be a music teacher but once you lose that daily structure I found it really hard to get back in.  And then when I did decide to start up again I was all  :ohdear: because I was super rusty and I forgot how to read the skyhigh ledger lines and ugh BUT I just... printed up some music and ran with it.

(if nothing else, violin has super easy access to all the piano Touhou music floating around without having to transpose everything :parsee:)

[HakureiSM]

Uh yeah I found my flute and ancient flute sheets. THe violin sheets are forever lost though D:

But I've started studying a bit and realised it's still possible to re-learn how to read :V
And I'm going to acomplish that via flute. Then I'll take my violin out of it's case again.
The poor thing is in such bad shape =( Rusty strings and all.

But yeah, thanks =D
You were kinda the final motivation

[triangles]

I'm so happy for you  :* :*
I expect to see your own thread in here before long  :3

As for my progress on the 3rd piece:
Bad News: MIDI site in OP only had a completely crappy version of the song up
Good News: Found a Youtuber who posts lots of piano sheet music
Bad News: It's in PDF form so I have to transpose it all and play with octaves by hand 
Good News: Next song is all sheet music'd up and ready to learn!

[Nobu]

So we have a clarinet, flute, and trumpet.. we might have something here. :3

Curious, what kind of mic do you use for recording triangles?

[triangles]

A cheap USB mic that is held together by duct tape I kid you not.  And ignore the reviews, it totally works in Vista I don't know what those nutjobs are smoking.  But it works great, cheap, and adjustable.. well, mine isn't anymore.  You'll have to play around with the input settings cause it's super potent though.

Yeah, I just went and put it in my cart so I can stop using the broken one.

[misosoupwitheggplant]

Argh, you make me so jealous... I'm also a clarinet player, have been playing for six years straight, but I'm nowhere as good as you. Somewhere on youtube are my failed attempts of Touhou songs on the clarinet. Perhaps I should transcribe my piano sheet music, rather than playing by ear. That might help. Having a better microphone would be nice, too.

[triangles]

Oh yeah, I am terrible at playing by ear too.  The best I can do is take a MIDI or piano score and fix any mistakes the original transcriber made.

I was all ready to record tonight but it's like 90 degrees in my apartment and I was so sharp on the high notes my tuner was registering them as a half step higher than they should be  :ohdear:

It's supposed to rain and cool down later this week so hopefully I'll be able to sound like I should because I really want to get this one out before finals.

[misosoupwitheggplant]

Anywhere in particular you find your sheet music? I have some places, but I can't find any good Decoration Battle sheets to start off with and transpose for clarinet. I was thinking of trying to make somewhat decent clarinet Touhou songs again. Plus, I need to practice more, since I was moved up into the highest level band.

I'll have to get a microphone that's good, though. Alternatively, I could wait until my summer private lessons start, and just sneak in and use the school's new building recording studios. Hm...

I can't wait to hear your next recording, though! :3 I love your playing!

[triangles]

Finally got around to mixing this (would you believe it was harder than Youmu's theme?  Somehow it was!)
Shanghai Teahouse ~ Chinese Tea ala clarinet

I'm not super thrilled with this one for a number of reasons, but it's the best I'm going to get without rerecording.
-I couldn't think of anything to go behind the solo part so I left it blank whoops!
-Tempo's a little funky, I play with the MIDI backing me since the metronome would be picked up by my mic... I suspect I was having some speedup/slowdown issues to had been consistently off at certain parts...
-Intonation ohhhhh intonation.  My apartment doesn't have AC.  It it starting to get quite hot.  Clarinet high notes don't like that game so much. 

Next piece?  Either a solo or harmony matches the melody exactly.  Going to save myself a mixing headache until I get better at this  :derp: