# Perpetual Time



## jeremiahpena (Oct 9, 2019)

I'm back with another overly bombastic orchestral track with quasi-minimalist patterns and big crescendos. Now with even more dissonance! In fact the ending is probably the most chaotic and dissonant thing I've ever written. It's great fun.

And since I made this in Dorico (then mocked up in Cubase) here's a score to follow along: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4rof75iki3jegqs/01%20-%20Full%20score%20-%20Perpetual%20Time.pdf?dl=0


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## patrick76 (Oct 9, 2019)

Thanks for sharing the score. Made me think of parts of Elliot Goldenthal's Heat and Don Davis' The Matrix.


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## servandus (Oct 9, 2019)

Fantastic piece! I've just listened to it 5 times in a row, and I'm hearing it again as I write this. So many details to taste in it! Especially love the way you treat the pulsing ostinati throughout the piece; it's really mesmerizing. It's brilliant.

Thank you so much for sharing this (and for the score, of course).

Btw. insane mockup also. I just forgot about samples while listening, maybe because of the quality of the music itself. Care to share the libs you used?


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## jeremiahpena (Oct 9, 2019)

servandus said:


> Fantastic piece! I've just listened to it 5 times in a row, and I'm hearing it again as I write this. So many details to taste in it! Especially love the way you treat the pulsing obstinati throughout the piece; it's really mesmerizing. It's brilliant.
> 
> Thank you so much for sharing this (and for the score, of course).
> 
> Btw. insane mockup also. I just forgot about samples while listening, maybe because of the quality of the music itself. Care to share the libs you used?



Thank you! 

The woodwinds are almost all Berlin Woodwinds Legacy, with Metropolis Ark 2 for the contrabass clarinet, and Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds for the contrabassoon. 

While I mostly use CSB recently, with the Fp's in the brass at the beginning, I knew it needed to be Berlin Brass because it has those recorded beautifully. So the brass is mostly Berlin Brass, with some Metropolis Ark 1 for the really big stuff. Then CSB for the solo horn at 1:57, and then for the trumpet at 3:20, which really needed to cut through everything. 

All of the string shorts are Hollywood Strings. It was the only library that could handle the repeating pattern in a convincing way. Then Afflatus for most of the legato parts, and CSS for trills/tremolos/pizz/col legno. Oh, and the short trills from Symphonic Sphere for the chromatic string runs.

And Hans Zimmer perc for the timpani/bass drums, then Hollywood Percussion for the marimba and triangle.


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## ka00 (Oct 9, 2019)

patrick76 said:


> Don Davis' The Matrix.



Yeah, when listening I pictured Neo outrunning some agents on top of a train.

Very cool track, Jeremiah!


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## BlackDorito (Oct 9, 2019)

Excellent dissonant harmony and very rich detailed implementation. I'm going to be poring over that score.


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## Saxer (Oct 9, 2019)

Always exited to see new music here from Jeremiah and this track is no exception! Thanks for shoring (combi word for sharing and scoring)!

Did you use Noteperformer while writing?
btw: the condensed score feature of Dorico3 looks really great!


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## BlackDorito (Oct 9, 2019)

jeremiahpena said:


> I made this in Dorico (then mocked up in Cubase)


Forgive the nerdy question, but did you write the score entirely in Dorico with a bit of concurrent mockup (using the PLAY mode) and then export MIDI tracks into Cubase and continue from there with a bunch of Kontakts hanging off Cubase, or did you do all the VSTs in Dorico and export WAV to Cubase? [I personally find it hard to do detailed notation without getting some aural feedback during the note-entry phase .. so I tend to do all VSTs in the notation program (Sibelius / Dorico) and then export WAV files into Reaper / Cubase for final mix]


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## jeremiahpena (Oct 9, 2019)

Yeah, I used Noteperformer. Here's what that sounded like: https://clyp.it/oln3cy5o
It fails to do the fortepianos, or unusual articulations like an air tone in the flutes and trumpets, and the quiet parts don't really sound quiet, so there's some imagination needed.

I imported the MIDI into Cubase, but actually didn't use it much. I played almost everything in from the score in realtime, aside from the runs and the woodwind shepard-tone thing at the end, which would have been tedious.


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## yellowtone (Oct 10, 2019)

What an awesome track, a lot of the sounds remind me of Nicholas Dodd's 007 soundtracks. The intro is super compelling and the ideas and dissonance growing from there is fantastic. Can I ask a super basic question - do you write solely in Dorico and notate everything from your head or are you using a keyboard for that as well? I'm curious about your composition process and whether you're spending some time with a piano or other instrument(s) to flesh out ideas and then writing. Cheers.


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## synkrotron (Oct 10, 2019)

Just finished listening to Perpetual Time.

Such dynamics! Enough to leave one breathless, for a time!

Awesome orchestration :emoji_musical_score:


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## servandus (Oct 10, 2019)

@jeremiahpena Thanks a lot for all the details (Hollywood Strings does a terrific job with the shorts indeed). Again, those polymetrics and time displacements in the ostinati and the other elements of the texture are a real pleasure to listen to. Really organic and forward driving, and a rare balance between complexity and simplicity: chapeau!


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## chrisr (Oct 10, 2019)

Wow, that was superb writing and rendering! I'll be back to listen again at some point in the coming days. I would agree with everything written in the posts above, congrats!


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## DGravel (Oct 10, 2019)

Amazing work! Congrats.


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## BlackDorito (Oct 10, 2019)

jeremiahpena said:


> Yeah, I used Noteperformer. Here's what that sounded like: https://clyp.it/oln3cy5o


Interesting - the glowering brass clusters in the buildup in bars 17-19 have a whole extra level of menace in CSB/BB/Ark1 than in NotePerformer. [I don't mean to knock NotePerformer]

Another nerdly question: what stopped you from forgoing Cubase altogether and just doing everything in Dorico .. was something missing in Dorico?


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## jeremiahpena (Oct 11, 2019)

yellowtone said:


> What an awesome track, a lot of the sounds remind me of Nicholas Dodd's 007 soundtracks. The intro is super compelling and the ideas and dissonance growing from there is fantastic. Can I ask a super basic question - do you write solely in Dorico and notate everything from your head or are you using a keyboard for that as well? I'm curious about your composition process and whether you're spending some time with a piano or other instrument(s) to flesh out ideas and then writing. Cheers.



It depends on the track. Sometimes I write in Dorico, sometimes in Cubase (and I find the differing process results in noticeably different outputs). In Dorico, I'm mostly using non-realtime MIDI input, but sometimes I input with the computer keyboard and sometimes MIDI in realtime. Whatever works best at the time.



BlackDorito said:


> Another nerdly question: what stopped you from forgoing Cubase altogether and just doing everything in Dorico .. was something missing in Dorico?



Dorico's MIDI editing is clunky compared to Cubase's, and expression maps alone aren't sufficient enough to do the sorts of things needed for a mockup, like layering libraries (which need different MIDI data to sound right). And the best way I've found to create a realistic performance is to play everything in, which isn't really possible to do in Dorico after writing all of the music.


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