Do You Make These Mistakes When Composing Instrumentals?

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Do You Make These Mistakes When Composing Instrumentals?

Post by TAXIstaff » Fri Jun 11, 2021 2:34 pm

Do You Make These Mistakes When Composing Instrumentals?

Do You Make These Mistakes When Composing Instrumental Cues? With Steve Barden + Win a FREE Book!

Click to the link below to watch Monday at 4 pm Pacific

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Dear Songwriters, Composers, and Artists,

Don’t miss Monday’s TAXI TV! I’ll be joined by successful TV composer, Steve Barden, and we’re going to tell you about mistakes that rookie (and even experienced) composers often make!

Not only is Steve an accomplished composer, he’s also the author of the indispensable book, Writing Production Music for TV – The Road to Success, as well as his brand-new book, Deconstructing Production Music for TV!

I’ll be sure to ask him to tell us all about it!

Win a FREE Copy of Deconstructing Production Music for TV!

We’re going to give away a FREE copy of the new book, but you can only win if you’re in the chat room during the live broadcast, so don’t miss this episode!

Live Q&A with Steve!

We should have enough time to do a pretty extensive Q&A session with Steve, so please email your questions to TAXITV@TAXI.com no later than Monday, June 14th at NOON (Pacific time). Questions received before the show will get answered first. If we have extra time we’ll take questions from the chat room.

Click the link below to watch Monday at 4 pm Pacific

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See you on the show,

Michael

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Re: Do You Make These Mistakes When Composing Instrumentals?

Post by superblonde » Sun Jun 13, 2021 3:45 pm

Here are questions in advance.

1. In Barden's book he discusses reverb a little bit. Should instrumental cues be mixed a bit more dry than typical (vs wet) on the reverb. Presumably that would allow the film/tv editor to more easily mix into their own atmosphere maybe without having to later request a no-mix track.


2. I wrote a piano & violin cue based off of a jazz form ABB (verse, chorus, chorus). Actually it is A|:B:| but I un-rolled it in my score to ABB. Is this form of repeating an exact section too boring for a cue, because the second B section is the same, and using few instruments (or especially if only solo piano) does not allow for much textural change in the repeated section. If repeating the same B section (without textural change) is ok, are there other growth aspects which should be added into the second B as variation, like tempo change, rhythm break, or what (obviously dynamics can grow but that only goes so far). Or is it simply better to write in an additional instrument for the second B section to provide growth, I'm guessing most likely that would be percussion.
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Re: Do You Make These Mistakes When Composing Instrumentals?

Post by superblonde » Mon Jun 14, 2021 9:46 am

3. For composing instrumental cues which are piano focused, do you have two separate tracks, one for RH and one for LH, so they can be mixed differently (especially EQ), or do you write the piano part of both treble & bass clef in a single track ? I import from score so the piano ends up being 1 track but it seems in DAW-land that separating the piano ranges into multiple tracks could be more easy to mix or add FX.
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Re: Do You Make These Mistakes When Composing Instrumentals?

Post by superblonde » Mon Jun 14, 2021 8:33 pm

This was a very informative episode especially regarding edit points. It sounds like an edit point is a cadence although that wasn't mentioned so still pondering that.
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Re: Do You Make These Mistakes When Composing Instrumentals?

Post by cassmcentee » Tue Jun 15, 2021 6:59 am

superblonde wrote:
Mon Jun 14, 2021 8:33 pm
This was a very informative episode especially regarding edit points. It sounds like an edit point is a cadence although that wasn't mentioned so still pondering that.
"Edit Points" can be compared to "Punctuation Points" used in skilled writing,
A Pause or Breath... (Ring Out)
An Exclamation! (Driving Hit followed by a Pause)
A Question Mark? (Last Chord before the "1" followed by a pause)
Just some ideas/food for thought
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Re: Do You Make These Mistakes When Composing Instrumentals?

Post by superblonde » Tue Jun 15, 2021 12:50 pm

So, using actual music terms, it's a cadence 🤪
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Re: Do You Make These Mistakes When Composing Instrumentals?

Post by cassmcentee » Tue Jun 15, 2021 8:17 pm

superblonde wrote:
Tue Jun 15, 2021 12:50 pm
So, using actual music terms, it's a cadence 🤪
A Cadence is used to describe a constant rhythmic pattern.
Edit Points are a break/pause to said cadence
In actual musical cue terms :geek:
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Re: Do You Make These Mistakes When Composing Instrumentals?

Post by superblonde » Wed Jun 16, 2021 11:39 am

Refer to Oxford-Grove Encyclopedia of Music and chapter 5 of Barden's book Writing Production Music for TV .

The bigger question for Barden & Taxi is, how to reconcile improperly used & misunderstood music terms in this industry which is a frequent occurrence even though the terms are being used to describe the specs for a deliverable product.
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