“Reality” Shows and Creativity

I’m a composer. It is expected that I be creative and that I love creativity, no matter what form it may show up. Creativity is evident in a lot of things, and new media is no exception. Part of that new media so to speak are those TV programs we now call “reality” shows. As much as these kinds of shows push their way to greatly exaggerate or distort reality (just like professional wrestling), I would be first to admit that there are certain “reality” shows that I like watching. However, for a “reality” show to become interesting to me, it has to show people being very creative and expressing themselves through actual skill and talent. Therefore, in terms of these kinds of shows, you won’t expect me to watch “Survivor”, “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”, “The Hills”, “Teen Moms”, or anything like that.

As I said, I appreciate a series that really highlights creativity. Some of my favorites are ones that involve food. As a composer and musician, I like trying to gain insight into how they work their creativity into something that couldn’t be preserved in their actual physical forms. Shows like “Top Chef”, “Cupcake Wars”, and “Cake Boss” are some of those shows that spark interest in me. These chefs are really dedicated to their art despite full knowledge that their creations will eventually end up in someone’s gut (and septic tank) after a few hours. Since food involves the senses, whenever I watch these kinds of shows, I try my best to see (or hear) what their equivalents might be in sound. If I take that approach, then perhaps I could mirror what I learn from these culinary shows from a gustatory aspect to an auditory aspect. I aspire to make music that is excellent and more than satisfying, something you would always come back for more. It’s kind of like having a comforting home-cooked meal or some haute cuisine.

I also tend to take that kind of approach when watching something like “Project Runway.” I certainly am not a fashionable person, but I can readily appreciate how designers would craft wonderful creations out of fabric. It’s kind of like how a composer would build a piece out of plucked strings, struck objects , and blown tubes. The kind of ethic and creative insight behind such endeavors deserve to be commended.

The thing is that these sorts of “reality” shows have a very interesting visual element to it. The question now is would a thing like “Top Composer” work well on network TV? I’m guessing that it wouldn’t work well. I mean that as much as you’d love people scream their soul out on “American Idol” or “The Voice”, I doubt that watching a composer scribble notes or record so many takes of a few bars of music on a DAW to be an exciting prospect. Would it be exciting to watch someone like John Williams, Philip Glass, or Randy Newman as head judge giving out a challenge such as, “You need to write and record a 12-bar blues combined with 20th-century serialism using a maximum instrumentation of 16-14-12-10-8 plus rock band,” to composers like myself. I mean your ordinary viewer would have a hard time understanding that, so it wouldn’t really fly as far as something like Top Chef. But who am I to say that? After all, I’m not some network executive like Chuck Lorre who could predict what show concept can become a hit.

P.S. If Bravo TV comes up with something like “Top Composer”, I would watch it. I might even try to audition for it.

Dealing with the Six-String Bass Guitar

The electric bass guitar certainly has a very interesting history. If it were a person, you would know that one of its ancestors was the orchestral double bass and from the other side is the electric guitar. Most people would know a bass guitar to be a four-stringed instrument, but as bass players wanted to extend the range of their instruments, instruments with more than four strings have been developed, the five-stringed version with the low B being very popular. However, I have chosen to go one string further with a six-string bass.

I started playing a four-string bass when I was a teen and then I went up to five, and then more recently the six-string bass. While there are those who hate the six-string bass by being too much to handle, I personally love the instruments flexibility and range. I’m assuming people didn’t realize that the six-string bass was supposed to make people’s lives easier. If you’re surprised that I’m saying that, try playing a two-octave arpeggio over a four string. I’m quite sure that it’s a stretch. On a six-string bass, you can play the same arpeggio over just a span of six frets. If I use the four-string technique on the six-string, I could cover three octaves.

The way I chose my tuning is a matter of convenience. For a while I was playing my six-string bass in the standard fashion: all fourths from B to C. It was wonderful at first. But being a guitarist as well, the C at the 1st string can sometimes be off putting. I could manage with that C well, but I wanted my guitar technique to translate into my bass playing. This is why I decided to tune my bass like a baritone guitar (an octave lower of course) and so the tuning is (from 6th to 1st string) is B, E, A, D, F#, B. It’s a step higher than the Guitarron Mexicano. The great thing about this tuning is that I could use my guitar techniques, one of the most important is the CAGED system. I could also use certain techniques I’ve learned from fingerstyle guitar i.e. classical/flamenco-style tremolo, barre chords, etc. Rather than putting energy into learning techniques specific to the standard six-string bass tuning, I’d like to concentrate more on writing and making music and so the baritone guitar tuning helps a lot by saving up my neurons for something else. It’s just more efficient for me that way.

Given the size of the neck, the six-string bass guitar can be unwieldy. Thus I am not surprised why John Myung wants his six-string bass guitar to have a neck width comparable to just a five-string. At this point, I really can’t have a choice on that matter. It’s rather difficult to find a six-string bass guitar in the Philippines unless you have one crafted for yourself, so I’m very fortunate to have found one at a budget price. All in all, the six-string bass guitar has been of great help for my music.

Steve Stine’s “CAGED Made Simple” Now Available

Every serious guitarist wants mastery over the instrument wherein one would just look at the fretboard and find every note required to make a solo sound great instantly. Of course such a feat requires practice, but the new GuitarZoom course called “CAGED Made Simple” by Steve Stine helps achieve just that and more.

“CAGED Made Simple” teaches you how to take advantage of the five basic chord shapes to visualize the fretboard better, leading you to do a number of things such as learning songs faster, playing chords differently, and even soloing better. The best part of the course is that it’s taught by Steve Stine, professor of modern guitar at North Dakota State University. Sure thing you can find a number of guitar virtuosos teach CAGED at YouTube, but Steve explains things complex musical concepts in such a way that even little children would have no trouble learning it.

And so, if you want to give your guitar playing an upgrade, just click on the logo below:

 

P.S. Here’s a  little bit of shameless self-promotion this time. If you think Steve’s awesome in this course, trying checking out…ahem…the sheet music (transcribed by none other than yours truly). It contains note-for-note transcriptions of Steve’s improvisations. Just saying….

Riding the Fader on a Musical Performance

Hello. My name is Mark Galang, and I’m here today to talk about riding the fader on a musical performance. This piece has been written in compliance with the peer-reviewed assignment requirement for the course “Introduction to Music Production” by the Berklee College of Music, hosted for free by Coursera.org.

Nothing is more satisfying than hearing a musical performance by humans. However, as much as we’d like human performance to be perfect, it is far from from being one. While the quirks of a live performance may sometimes be tolerated, studio recordings usually are more demanding. Therefore we use a couple of processes here and there to somewhat address imperfections, and one of these techniques is riding the fader. Riding the fader aims to Control dynamics over a recorded audio track in an effort to achieve some sort of balance I.e. to decrease volume of sections that are too loud and increase sections that are too soft. To demonstrate how to do this, I have opened up a project in Cakewalk Sonar 11, and I will be manipulating the bass track.

To start riding the fader, I have to enable automation write first by clicking on the W button on the bass track. You’ll notice that it would turn red as soon as I click on it. Once that’s been accomplished, I can now start recording automation once I press play or record. Let’s begin.

1. Opening a Project

For this assignment, I have used the same project I recorded for the previous piece (How to Prepare a Project and Record Audio in a DAW). I selected the bass track for this particular task.

2. Enabling Automation Write

To start actually recording volume fader movements (“riding the fader”), I clicked on the small button that looks like a “W”. It’s the automation write button. Once it turns red, I know that it has been enabled and I could then start recording fader movements after I hit the play or record button.

3. Riding the Fader

I started playing back the project and then manipulated the volume fader so that Cakewalk Sonar would begin recording my fader movement. Generally, I try my best to follow the shape of the waveform to somewhat preserve the actual dynamics I recorded during performance. I was aiming to somewhat reduce the amplitude of sections I felt I had played too loud.

4. Editing the Volume Envelope

Once I have recorded the volume fader movements, I can now see that Cakewalk Sonar has generated a volume envelope with nodes that I can move around. If I want to make adjustments to the envelope, I can just move the nodes either upwards to increase volume or downwards to decrease.

Upon completing the task of riding the fader, I realized that it is far from perfect. I was just using the mouse to perform this task and I think I would have achieved better results if I had a control surface connected to my DAW. I think that it would take me a while to edit the nodes in the automation that I wrote. I was not happy with the result. In the end, I decided to scrap my work and I would try another time to ride the fader (or perhaps use a compressor plugin).

I do think that riding the fader is a skill that takes as much precision as playing an instrument. It demands careful listening and practice to achieve good results without resorting to editing the envelope later. I’m not surprised that compressors were developed to automate this process.

I hope that this short piece has helped you in understanding how to control dynamics in musical recordings through riding the fader. If you have any comments, feedback or constructive criticism for me regarding this post, please let me know. I would be happy to read them as I would like to further improve myself. Thank you very much for your time and attention.

How to Prepare a Project and Record Audio in a DAW

Hello dear readers. It’s Mark A. Galang again in another installment of audio production tutorials. This tutorial was written in compliance to the peer review assignment requirement of the Berklee Course “Introduction to Music Production” being hosted by Coursera. I do hope that you all find this tutorial to be informative.

This tutorial features the way how I prepare a project in my DAW for recording. It also gives some insight into how I compose and record music. I use Cakewalk Sonar X1 as my DAW software. Let’s get started.

1. Sequencing the Drums

Before I actually create a project in Sonar, I usually write drum parts, orchestral parts, etc. using Sibelius 6. In this case, I just wrote the drum part for this project.

2. Exporting to MIDI

After writing the drum part in Sibelius, I would then save my work and then export it as a MIDI file to the folder of my choosing.

3. Creating a New Project

After opening Sonar X1, I make use of an atypical method of creating a project. I close the project creation wizard and then just drag the MIDI file I created into Sonar. Sonar will automatically open the MIDI file as a project.

4. Creating an Instrument Track

Once the MIDI file has opened, I would then create an instrument track that would play back the MIDI data in the project. In this case, I’m using a VST instrument called EZDrummer. An instrument track is a combination of a MIDI and Audio track. The data displayed is MIDI but the playback comes from an audio source, usually a software instrument.

5. Transferring MIDI data to Instrument Track

Instead of assigning EZDrummer as the output for my MIDI track, I just simply drag the MIDI data into the instrument track and then delete the resulting empty MIDI track. The instrument track can read MIDI data anyway so I have no further use for the empty MIDI track.

6. Creating an Audio Track

I would then create an audio track next by right clicking on the empty space where the channels are supposed to be in Track View and then selecting the “Insert Audio Track” command.

7. Labeling Audio Track and Setting Up for Recording

After creating the audio track, I would then label the audio track. In this instance, I’m recording a bass guitar track so I simply label it “Bass”. Afterwards, I select the appropriate input source for my audio track. In this case, my bass is connected to the left instrument input of my audio interface and so I select the left one in my DAW. If I select it this way, I will be able to record my bass part in mono.

8. Saving as a Project File

Because Sonar opened my project as a MIDI file, it cannot save audio data yet. I would then save the project as a “Normal” CWP (Cakewalk Project) file with the “Copy All Audio With Project” option ticked so that I can assign the project and audio data folders for easier file management.

9. Arming the Audio Track for Recording

Before I begin recording, I then click on the red button in my audio track so that it would be “armed” for recording. Once the audio track is armed, I check my instrument’s recording levels on my audio interface and on the DAW. I am now ready to record my bass parts.

10. Setting up Metronome/Click and Countoff

Before I start recording, I check my metronome/click and then see if I have the correct settings. I prefer using an audio click rather than MIDI and I set up the record count in to just “1”. Since the time signature in my project is 7/8 with a tempo of 100 bpm (in quarter notes), I expect to hear seven fast clicks before the DAW starts recording my audio.

11. Recording an Audio Track

Once the levels are set and the audio track is armed, I start recording by pressing “R” on my computer keyboard. I count along to the count-in clicks (one, two, three, four, five, six, sev) and then start playing my bass parts. Once I’m done recording, I press the space bar to stop.

12. Cloning an Audio Track for a Second Take

Because I need to have a couple of recorded options, I record a number of takes. To do this, I just clone the audio channel where my bass is recorded. To do this, I just right-click on my audio track and select the option “Clone Track”. Sonar will then duplicate the audio track in its entirety.

13. Setting up Cloned Audio Track for a Second Take

The cloned audio track contains all of the data from the previous audio track, including recorded audio. Therefore, I would delete the recorded audio from the cloned track in order to empty it so I can begin recording a second take. To lessen distractions, I would then mute the original audio track before I record my second take.

14. Recording a Second Take

Once my cloned audio track is ready, I would then record a second take following the steps mentioned a while ago.

After completing all of these steps, I think the entire effort went well. I was able to set up a project and record an audio track. Upon reviewing the project, I think that I should have saved the project immediately as a normal DAW project before setting up the audio track so that I wouldn’t run into a problem later should the application crash. Some of the steps I took to create the DAW project are atypical. However, this fits my usual workflow which involves composing and notating music first before recording audio.

For those who are interested, here’s the track I recorded for this particular tutorial:

I hope that you all have enjoyed reading and learning about recording audio in a DAW through this post. Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you. If you have any feedback, comments, or constructive criticism, please feel free to let me know as I would love to learn new things as well.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Cesar Wycoco

This man right here is one of the most fascinating people I’ve met:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. Cesar Wycoco, a real renaissance man or “Ilustrado”. He speaks around six different languages, educated for diplomatic service (he earned his M.A. in Political Science from the University of Hawaii and has a graduate degree in French from the University of Nice), and has a good deal of experience working in the U.S. Navy. What probably is much more significant is the fact that he is a self-taught piano virtuoso and composer that has spent time playing gigs in cruise ships and in various places. I am very fortunate to have been given an opportunity to work with this man whose talent and wisdom I have been trying a lot to learn from.

Mark Galang (left) and Cesar Wycoco (right)

I started working with him in the last quarter of 2011 as a music transcriber for his album entitled “Cesar plays Wycoco”. I was introduced to him through Mariza Esteban, the owner of MSE Musical Services (the establishment where my son is currently studying violin). After that project, I continue to provide engraving and transcription work for his newer compositions.

People like Mr. Wycoco defy convention. You would expect that most pianists of his caliber to have a conservatory-level education. The fact is that he doesn’t. I can’t help but find that common thing between him and me, and that is a passion for music. He probably broke people’s expectations when he became a musician rather than a diplomat; I broke expectations when I got involved into music rather than healthcare. Sometimes I can’t help but think that if you have been called into music, you really can’t help but go do it no matter what.

If you look into Kuya Cesar’s history as a musician, I could see some parallels between him and Frederic Chopin. Both men are essentially self-taught pianists and composers. Both have had experience playing in France and elsewhere. Kuya Cesar even has a Chopinesque style in both his playing and composing. You can’t really help but be amazed every time you hear him play. He just can’t help but let music ooze out of his soul.

If you’d like to know more about Kuya Cesar and his musical activities, read more about him at http://www.himig.com.ph/people/438-cesar-wycoco?composer=true. Better yet, drop by the Makati Shangri-La Hotel every Monday to Friday just right about lunch time to hear him play. For the meantime, here’s a video of Kuya Cesar playing “I Dreamed a Dream” from the Les Miserables musical:

Piano Testing with Romantic and Impressionist Music

During the last quarter of 2012, I finally was able to get the old piano I grew up with reconditioned and tuned. So, here are some videos of me testing it out. These videos were shot using my iPad.

The first clip here features my attempts at Frederic Chopin’s Etude Numbers 1 and 12 from Opus 10:

 

 

The second clip is features Claude Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1:

 

The last clip is a crack at Claude Debussy’s Reflets Dans L’Eau from Images Book 1 with an improvisation added as an intro. Of all the pieces I play on the piano, this is probably my favorite:

 

 

My sister and I grew up on this piano, and so it holds a lot of memories. It’s a good thing that I didn’t have this piano traded in for another. To my ears, it sounds fantastic whenever I’m playing it. However, it does have that effect where it doesn’t sound as well as I would like it to be when recorded. Every time I record this piano, it doesn’t sound like how I’m hearing it when playing. Perhaps I’m fooling myself to thinking how fantastic it sounds every time I play, much in the same way that any person would love his or her own voice when one is singing in the shower. At the very least I don’t despise the sound when it’s recorded (I can’t say the same thing for my vocals, the timbre of which I’m not fond of).

I could say that my technician really did a good job restoring a once-neglected piano. This actually reminds me that I need to call him up again for this piano’s supposedly biannual tuning and maintenance requirements. On that note, with regard to tuning, I would really appreciate it if anyone could point me to where I can purchase a piano tuning wrench and a set of mutes locally. It’s best if I can tune the piano myself rather than hiring a technician to do it. Given the way I batter the piano almost every day, I do need my own piano tuning kit.

Perhaps when I feel like it I might post more recent clips of me playing the piano. I hope you all enjoy this one.

How to Record an Electric Guitar or Bass without an Amplifier

Good day. My name is Mark Galang, and I am a freelance musician and composer from Paranaque City, Philippines. This is my first peer-reviewed assignment for Introduction to Music Production, a Coursera.Org course provided by the Berklee College of Music. Part of my work involves recording electric guitar and bass parts. Certain circumstances prevent me from recording with an amplifier (lack of a good room and neighbors), and so I usually record without one. This tutorial will teach you how to record an electric guitar or bass without an amplifier.

For this tutorial, we need the following equipment:

A computer with a DAW of your choice installed (I’m using a PC with a copy of Cakewalk Sonar)

USB or Firewire Audio Interface (TASCAM US-122 USB Audio Interface)

Electric Guitar or Bass

Instrument cable with 1/4″ plug (at least one)

Studio monitors and/or headphones

Guitar/Bass effects pedals and extra instrument cable/s (optional)

1. Before you begin recording, make sure that your audio interface is connected to your computer via USB or Firewire and that your speakers and/or headphones are connected to the line out/headphone out of your audio interface.

2. Set the level of your audio interface’s instrument input channel to zero. If you have a device that you can switch between mic and instrument mode (LoZ and HiZ), please switch it first to instrument or HiZ mode.

3. Plug in your electric guitar or bass into the audio interface’s instrument input (also known as guitar input) using your instrument’s cable. If you have effects pedals, make sure you have connected them as well in between the instrument and the audio interface.

4. Open up your DAW and create a new project.

5. Select one of your DAW’s audio tracks and assign the input device where your electric guitar or bass is connected.

6. Raise and adjust the level of the input channel at the audio interface where your instrument is connected. Before recording, play some music with the instrument first to check the levels. Make sure that the level is not too high to avoid distortion. Most audio interfaces have an LED or display that allows you to check levels. If the level is above 0 dB, it goes into the “red” zone (or causes a red LED to flash) meaning that the level is too high and it will cause distortion (not the good electric guitar amp kind!) or clipping to occur.

7. If your device has a direct monitoring feature, switch it on so that you can monitor your instrument during recording in real time. Otherwise, you can turn on your DAWs live monitoring feature. Live monitoring on a DAW, however, takes up more computer resources to run and suffers from some degree of latency.

9. Once you’ve set up the appropriate levels, arm the audio track in your DAW and then you can start recording.

Here below is a link to an example of guitar and bass work that used the procedures described in this lesson:

Prior to signing up for this class, I had learned how to record in this manner through trial and error. As a result, I’ve had my share of badly recorded audio. I accept those mistakes though as the part of the learning process. All in all, I think the entire process or recording without an amplifier went well. Nowadays, I make use of a Digitech RP255 multi-effects pedal to emulate a variety of amp sounds and guitar effects. With the combination of the direct monitoring feature in my audio interface, I can hear my guitar processed with the effects that I want in real time. When using the direct monitoring feature when recording, I prefer to switch the audio interface to mono mode so I can hear the guitar’s output on both speakers (since it’s only connected to one input). Previously, I was using VST amp simulators and effects plus live playback monitoring in my DAW. As described in the lesson, the problem with this is latency plus the fact that VSTs use up computer resources.

Thank you for taking the time to read and evaluate this lesson. I do hope that I have presented the lesson accurately. If you have any feedback or if there’s anything else I could have done to explain things better, I would love to hear from you.

The UCCP-MCCD 93rd Anniversary Worship Service and Concert

I should say that last Sunday’s musical activity was one of the most fulfilling I’ve experienced in my entire life. I’ve never felt so blessed and useful. I have to thank all the people at UCCP-MCCD for giving me their trust as I handled quite a number of musical duties for both the worship service and the “acoustic” concert.

I like playing such venues where the small number of people bring about a certain level of intimacy. It is unlike places like nighttime watering holes where people are drunk and have no ability to care at all for the music you are playing (that is unless you are playing some popular cover songs or you are a popular artist yourself). In such venues like UCCP-MCCD, the people are generally level-headed and attentive. I’m quite sure that people who are listening to the music in such places have your full attention with the influence of nothing else but the Holy Spirit.

It’s really an amazing experience when the Holy Spirit leads you to work. Such a higher power could never be attributed to any human being. For me, it seems like the years of toiling away at the piano and music books is indeed part of God’s grand design. I can never take credit for anything that has happened during that entire day. It’s all God’s handiwork. I would never be that strong or useful on my own.

I suppose that I should continue along this path where The Lord is leading me to. No, it is imperative that I do so. Yesterday’s event was truly a humbling experience that would be one of the most memorable for me. I feel more than blessed and I pray that whomever is reading this would feel the same way. As for the concert highlights, I’ll have to wait for Ariel to post those online (that is if he would).

Acoustic Blues Guitar by Steven Dahlberg to be Launched January 30

Steven Dahlberg is one amazing blues guy. I’ve had the pleasure of working with him on the latest GuitarZoom course entitled “Acoustic Blues Guitar”. If you want to go beyond the very ubiquitous Mississippi Delta Blues style, you got to check out this course.

“Acoustic Blues Guitar” is a fingerpicking style course that intends to teach aspiring guitarists performing acoustic blues in a solo fashion. This is the sort of blues that you would hear prior to World War II. Steven teaches a variety of styles as used by blues legends like Mississippi John Hurt, Mance Lipscomb and others.

This is a four DVD and sheet music package covered by GuitarZoom’s “Learn in 90 days or get your money back” guarantee. As usual sheet music transcriptions have been worked on by yours truly.

All I can say is expand your guitar playing horizons and get into the blues with Steven Dahlberg’s “Acoustic Blues Guitar”