# New Music



## Rob Elliott (Jun 17, 2005)

I have a break from a project now (editing delays) and I had a couple weeks to finish these pieces I started a few years back. In one form or the other I play the piano to these compositions (?minus one?) for my Church?s youth conferences. I have gotten good responses in the past from these young people even though it is probably something they don?t really listen to in their cars. :lol: They are essentially musical interpretations of scripture stories.

I felt it was time to actually complete them.

Please let me know what you think and of course, any suggestions would be appreciated.

(sorry, the files are a bit large for you dial up users)

http://www.robelliottmusic.com/mp3s/Classical/An%20Ancient%20People.mp3 (http://www.robelliottmusic.com/mp3s/Cla ... People.mp3)

http://www.robelliottmusic.com/mp3s/Classical/Heroes%20of%20Helaman.mp3 (http://www.robelliottmusic.com/mp3s/Cla ... elaman.mp3)




Many thanks.




Rob


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## Craig Sharmat (Jun 17, 2005)

Jump out of an airplane in just my birthday suit at about 15,000 feet.

Oh that's fail, not fall. Still not sure if that's wise advise.


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## Rob Elliott (Jun 17, 2005)

Craig,

I could have gone all day without that 'visual' :D


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## Craig Sharmat (Jun 17, 2005)

Wow Rob!

This is quite some body of work. Is this sampled vocals? the voice stuff is great as is the vocal arranging and piano playing. My critiques should be taken lightly as the they are miniscule in the overall scheme of what is truly beautiful work.

Watch string voicings to make sure they are not muddy. This means low notes and mid range build up. this happens rarely but occasionallly in sonuros sections it does occur. there is a flute run about 15% into the 2nd piece which may clash.

and no more visuals.


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## Aaron Sapp (Jun 17, 2005)

Wonderful music as always Rob. Your music always tends to move me, which is pretty rare - for me.  You and Morricone baby, yeah!


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jun 17, 2005)

I'd say impressive as hell, except that's the wrong thing to say about pieces inspired by scriptures... :twisted:


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## TARI (Jun 18, 2005)

Wonderful!!! Fantastic atmosphere. I love voices and piano. Sounds great. What samples do you use?
Congratulations Rob!!! :D


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## Evan Gamble (Jun 18, 2005)

superb! :D


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## Rob Elliott (Jun 18, 2005)

Many thanks guys,

Most of the choir work is VOTA (still has some mileage), there is also some older Roland stuff in there as well. And of course I have some Diva there as well. I direct a choir - but what a hassle getting them here to record, PLUS it is amazing how 'tuning' becomes an issue :oops: - thus using the older samples. My wife and a couple kids also help lay down some of them.

It was fun doing this as my current assignment for the last month has been to write vocal tunes with instruments like a recorder, out of tune upright, accordian, etc. - the director is REALLY organic. That has actually been fun too but it was good to get away from it for a couple weeks and finish these.

Rob


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## Frederick Russ (Jun 18, 2005)

This is pretty substantial Rob - great work and keep it up. Thanks for sharing it man!


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## Rob Elliott (Jun 18, 2005)

Craig Sharmat said:


> Watch string voicings to make sure they are not muddy. This means low notes and mid range build up. this happens rarely but occasionallly in sonuros sections it does occur. and no more visuals.



BTW,

Good idea on 'opening up the strg voicings' - that will be a nice change. Thanks Craig.

Rob


(Thanks Frederick for you nice words.)


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## Yogi Loeschner (Jun 19, 2005)

Wow, couldn't stop listening! Nice work! =)


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## Rob Elliott (Jun 20, 2005)

Thanks Yogi - sure wish this new Director I am trying to get a gig from shared your optimism. It is not that he is negative just that he hasn't gotten back to me on a demo cue yet. Patience grasshopper :? 

Thanks again.

Rob


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## jonathanparham (Jun 20, 2005)

Rob,
Cool and very 'full' as always. Did you write this away or in front of the pc? I was impressed with the emotion and I figured it was played and programmed.


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## Rob Elliott (Jun 20, 2005)

jonathanparham said:


> Rob,
> Cool and very 'full' as always. Did you write this away or in front of the pc? I was impressed with the emotion and I figured it was played and programmed.




Hi Jonathan,

For these two pieces, I sketched out the various themes on paper then played the piano into the PC. From there, I started the orchestrations. It's funny but sometimes I like my thematic development better by improvising 'parts' other times by painstakenly jotting down ideas with a VERY large eraser. :D 

I have pads and pads of score paper with 4, 8 - 16 bar themes (I'll give them a generic name like "heroic knight theme, child like innocence, bad attitude, etc.) that I'll write down when they come to me. In most cases, they are less then memorable after a few days away - if you know what I mean. :oops: Sometimes I'll come back to a theme developed a few weeks, months or years back and with the right project and just a couple of tweaks here or there they might work out great. The key is to jot them down - you *will not* remember them - even the good ones.

Hope that helps.

Rob


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## ComposerDude (Jun 20, 2005)

Rob, where and how do you index/file themes for retrieval?


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## Rob Elliott (Jun 20, 2005)

When using 'paper' the easiest way is to simply file by genre / style (i.e. action, hero, love,etc.) I have a file cabinet in my studio just for that. When I am really disciplined and not just stress out to the max on a project - I try to write a 'theme a day' - almost forcing myself to do it (as if I WAS hired to do something.) I figure that way I'll get all the bad ones out of my system :wink: 

Hope that helps.


(you really could do the same thing filing electronically I suppose within your DAW)


Rob


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## ComposerDude (Jun 20, 2005)

Thanks!


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## Scott Cairns (Jun 20, 2005)

This is really beatiful Rob, great work. 

Its nice to hear VOTA used in a different light too.


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## Rob Elliott (Jun 20, 2005)

Thanks for your comments Scott - VOTA still has some life in it. 

No problem Composer dude. :D 

Rob


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## Alex W (Jun 20, 2005)

man, this is so good!

Something to be very proud of.


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