# Strings shimmering effect



## erica-grace (Jul 30, 2018)

Not sure why the thread was closed? 

https://vi-control.net/community/th...erclasses-live-sym-brass-now-available.27885/

So, I will recap.

*PF*: Been watching the “secret weapons” video and was wondering about the shimmering effect with strings....? What’s the best articulation to use for it? Legato? Sustain? Marcato? Something else?

*MV*: Slurs. Just slur (legato) groups of notes, remembering that at the end of the slur they change the direction of the bow and that creates the break/pulse/underlying rhythm.

*PF*: Can you recommend a track where I can hear the effect on action?

*TJ*: Lord, some many examples. He uses (versions of) it a LOT







And so does Mike:



It looks like this (hope you don't mind Mike)

https://vi-control.net/community/attachments/shimmer-jpg.12856/

*Me*: Oooh - some good info here! Thanks!

But please help me out!  This "shimmering effect" - is that actually being employed in those youtube examples? Not sure I hear it - it just sounds to me like the players are bowing normally, no? Then again, I am far from the expert. :/


So, I was hoping to find out what this shimmering thing is  In the pic, it just looks like the players would be playing normally.... so where does the shimmer come in?

Thank you!


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## YaniDee (Jul 30, 2018)

He explains it in a video by holding up his hands and wiggling his fingers..
I have several of his classes, a lot of good concepts, but I'm often frustrated by a lack of details...


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## mverta (Jul 31, 2018)

!!!

Specifics and simple use-them-right-now, practical techniques are sort of the entire point of my classes. The actual "shimmering" thing is explained clearly in at least 3 of them. Give some examples of where you are hung up and be sure to join Redbanned.com so we can help!

Also, I assume you're not just watching the classes, you're doing the exercises/applying the tools, yes?


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## brek (Jul 31, 2018)

If I'm understanding it correctly....

In Princess Leia's Theme, it would happen at 2:58 in the video above. Attached a snippet of the score at that point.

The shimmering isn't happening in one part alone, but is the combined sound of the interlocking arpeggios across multiple parts (violas and cellos - and harp and piano - in this example). It also gets used as a background element, so can be hard to discern while listening. Often felt more than heard.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jul 31, 2018)

The shimmer effect is the flowing movement created by the strings or / and the winds outlining harmonies, cellos for instance playing 8th notes while Vloas playing 8th notes too but the other direction. There are also mixed things where you like 8th and 8th triplets combined. That technique is used also by Woodwinds, harp. Bones can accent on 4th notes to goose the shit together.

@erica-grace Its all explained in the masterclass, go there, watch, repeat, practise, repeat, practise again.


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## YaniDee (Jul 31, 2018)

mverta said:


> Specifics and simple use-them-right-now, practical techniques are sort of the entire point of my classes


Mike don't get me wrong..I think you're an extremely talented musician..you could probably compose in your sleep!
I am totally impressed when I see you taking a theme and milking the sh*t out of it, that's why I have bought your courses..I don't play the piano very well, and though I get the concept of "making small changes with finger movements", I need it spelled out sometimes (yes there's an on screen keyboard, but I don't want to stop the video every 2 seconds) . This is what I mean by detail..If you look at, say, Rick Beato (who's the furthest extreme) he spells out just about every note and chord, so that I feel more grounded and lock in..
I know that would cramp your "fluid" style, which I do enjoy...You're right though, I am just watching the videos ( I have 4), maybe I should start applying.


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## mverta (Aug 1, 2018)

We learn by doing, my brother. Not I nor Rick Beato nor anybody can make you better - we can merely point you the way. But though I don't know Rick's stuff, I do know that I try to point the way as simply practically, and usefully as possible, and if you follow, it will work! So get to it!


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## erica-grace (Aug 2, 2018)

Thank you! 

So, seems as though you guys are saying this shimmering effect is just necessarily a sound created by strings... but by orchestration? Ok, will look into this further....


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## erica-grace (Aug 3, 2018)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> @erica-grace Its all explained in the masterclass,



There's only one?


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## JJP (Aug 3, 2018)

I have to be honest. I have no idea what people here mean by "the shimmering effect". I've never heard this term used as an orchestration or technique term before.

I can only surmise that it's the high string/brass chords and melodies with little string and woodwind frills, arpeggios, and/or runs sometimes peeking through it.

Or is it the kind of quick legato (sometimes almost finger tremolo) arpeggios that are so often written for strings and winds in so many film scores?


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## mverta (Aug 3, 2018)

There are several variations and ways we can achieve the effect. The most common is strings + harp arpeggios with open-voice trombone chords. An addition or alternate is to add or swap the string arpeggios for woods.

Generally, cellos and violas will arpeggiate chords in opposite directions and usually with "competing" rhythms. For example the cellos would arpeggiate an open C major chord upaand down as C-G-E-G-C-G-E-G... Etc in triplets while the violas might do opposite direction 8ths as G-E-G-E-G-E... Etc. on top of that. Instead of a static chord, this gives the impression of a static chord but it has motion in it.. It sort of "shimmers."

Adding a harp doing a similar arpeggiation, with trombones as static open chords for glue again, is most common but there are many variations of this concept in pieces.


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## JJP (Aug 3, 2018)

Haha! I get it. This is pretty basic orchestration stuff, and I thought that might be what everybody was talking about.

I've dealt with this countless times, but never heard anyone refer to it as a "shimmer effect". Who comes up with this terminology? Next thing you know a brass swell be the "brass volume expansion technique".


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## Olfirf (Aug 4, 2018)

JJP said:


> Haha! I get it. This is pretty basic orchestration stuff, and I thought that might be what everybody was talking about.
> 
> I've dealt with this countless times, but never heard anyone refer to it as a "shimmer effect". Who comes up with this terminology? Next thing you know a brass swell be the "brass volume expansion technique".


You haven't? What about that ballsy brass effect, though?


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## Consona (Aug 4, 2018)

Check out some Wagner. He uses this technique a lot and in a very extensive manner. He makes like 5 strings divisi sections playing different arpeggios at the same time. It's crazy. 

Like here:


The divisi sections are playing the same notes but each starts with a different note so it makes this dense but tonal soundscape. It's great. For each divisi use a legato or sustain patch mixed with some tremolo playing the same thing.



YaniDee said:


> Mike don't get me wrong..I think you're an extremely talented musician..you could probably compose in your sleep!
> I am totally impressed when I see you taking a theme and milking the sh*t out of it, that's why I have bought your courses..I don't play the piano very well, and though I get the concept of "making small changes with finger movements", I need it spelled out sometimes (yes there's an on screen keyboard, but I don't want to stop the video every 2 seconds) . This is what I mean by detail..If you look at, say, Rick Beato (who's the furthest extreme) he spells out just about every note and chord, so that I feel more grounded and lock in..
> I know that would cramp your "fluid" style, which I do enjoy...You're right though, I am just watching the videos ( I have 4), maybe I should start applying.



You should check Alex Ball's YT channel. Like his Predator video, where he shows which scales, chords and progressions Silvestri used in that score. It's really helpful to see it in a front of you. Mike's approach is "transcribe it". Which is way more effective but also way more difficult and time consuming.


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## bryla (Aug 4, 2018)

Consona said:


> Mike's approach is "transcribe it". Which is way more effective but also way more difficult and time consuming.


But you learn 1000x more by each note and it gets quicker the more you do it. You can get to the point where you don’t need to play it or write it down and simply have the information in your head simply by listening.


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## mverta (Aug 4, 2018)

Consona said:


> Like his Predator video, where he shows which scales, chords and progressions Silvestri used in that score. It's really helpful to see it in a front of you. Mike's approach is "transcribe it". Which is way more effective but also way more difficult and time consuming.



Hi Consona!

If I showed you carefully, step-by-step, how to do brain surgery, would you then think yourself a doctor? Would you say you then "knew how to do it"? How about math: Is it enough to simply show a child, slowly and specifically, how to do long division and then they "know it"?

Until we actually do it ourselves, we do not "know" any skill. We cannot watch a video, no matter how specific, on building a house and consider ourselves carpenters; we cannot say we then "know" how to build a house. Can we watch a video on learning to play piano, slowly and carefully, step-by-step, and then go play a concert?

Of course not. With skills, we learn by doing, and in no other way. We learn a skill when we do it, and at no other time. My advice is not "transcribe it," my advice is: Do it - because that's when we learn. Everything else is just watching television. We are not gaining any skills by watching others do them; we are simply getting a glimpse of what it will be like when we finally do it ourselves.

I show very specifically the skills I teach, and I explain them carefully and clearly, and then I say: "Now go do it," because until we do, we've learned nothing. Zero. Doing isn't just more difficult and time consuming, it's literally the only thing that constitutes learning a skill.


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## Saxer (Aug 4, 2018)

It's always both. You can't learn a language if nobody shows you how. If you don't know structures you simply repeat like a parrot without understanding. If you start learning something new it's helpful to know things like 'in latin the genitive is created by different word endings' and a few examples. From there you know what you are looking for and it helps doing it right.
Books alone teach you nothing. But just copying without understanding doesn't help either. It's always both.


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## Consona (Aug 4, 2018)

mverta said:


> Hi Consona!
> 
> If I showed you carefully, step-by-step, how to do brain surgery, would you then think yourself a doctor? Would you say you then "knew how to do it"? How about math: Is it enough to simply show a child, slowly and specifically, how to do long division and then they "know it"?
> 
> ...


Hi, Mike! 

I agree. My point was, I was answering a specific question about notes and chords on a screen. So I simply said you either find a video where everything is just in a front of you, or you try to transcribe it (Which is something you'd recommend).

I'm aware doing something well and getting better at it takes more than watching videos about it.


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## mverta (Aug 4, 2018)

Saxer said:


> Books alone teach you nothing. But just copying without understanding doesn't help either. It's always both.



It's interesting because copying without understanding is precisely how human beings learn to walk and talk in the first two years of life. The doing creates the understanding.

It's amazing how often this is the case. With my own son, when he wants to learn a new skill I give him almost no information about it. I give him the tools and say take a guess; give it a try. No matter how badly he fails, he now has an experiential context to put my corrective teachings in. And it's remarkable how much intuitively we will get to when we're forced to.

I think it's interesting you brought up the language example because the best way to learn a language is to simply be immersed in it and having to speak it and do it. It's a very adult thing to take large concepts and try to break them into small chunks, when this is almost exactly the opposite of the way our brains are designed to work - which is why walking, one of the most complicated things human beings can do, happens first and without any instruction whatsoever. We are designed to find patterns and organization in hyper complex input structures.

We can read a book on how to sweep a floor. But if we start by trying to sweep a floor for a couple hours and then read the book, the book will be infinitely more useful, because we now have an experiential context to put the information in.

In the end, I guess we all do what works. I learned orchestration and arranging and much of my composition through transcription because I had no formal training; nobody was teaching me anything, or giving me any terms, or explaining anything. My brain was just doing what brains do: figuring it out by searching for patterns (there are plenty). I had been paying my bills for years before somebody gave me terms, labels for things I knew how to do, which was useful. But I also knew, from the moment he said it, that my college professor was completely full of shit when he said to avoid parallel fifths. Come to think of it, I think my college music professors were mostly full of shit about everything. But I only knew that because I'd already been doing it.

Anyway, that's Mike's advice: Do it. I'll show you how, I'll explain it simply - so simply I can do it on 3/5ths of Jack Daniel's - and then you go and give it your best shot. And then either me or the rest of us at Redbanned will critique and support and analyze and help and make you better. And for pennies!


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## JJP (Aug 4, 2018)

mverta said:


> It's interesting because copying without understanding is precisely how human beings learn to walk and talk in the first two years of life. The doing creates the understanding.



Point well taken, but the analogy is false. Our brains are are very different in the first two years of life. Plus we learn the basics of movement and language on our own but it takes a combination of guided, extensive education in addition to practice to write an effective argumentative essay or play a sport with complex rules. Most people don't learn those skills through simple mimicry.

As for the parallel 5ths thing, that's a limitation imposed to write a particular style (in that case, Bach). All styles have limitations, just like all languages do. To dismiss that limitation is like saying someone who teaches you salsa music is worthless because they tell you, "Don't write or play out of clave."


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## mverta (Aug 4, 2018)

Well now I know what my problem is - I still have a two-year-old's brain.

This explains much. Forget what I said. My arguments are incomplete and poorly substantiated. And dismissive, and limiting. And debatable. And I'm not too proud of all this sarcasm, either. Apologies.


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## erica-grace (Aug 4, 2018)

mverta said:


> ell now I know what my problem is - I still have a two-year-old's brain.
> 
> This explains much. Forget what I said. My arguments are incomplete and poorly substantiated. And dismissive, and limiting. And debatable. And I'm not too proud of all this sarcasm, either. Apologies.



Boo.


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## jononotbono (Aug 4, 2018)

Saxer said:


> You can't learn a language if nobody shows you how.



I’m not sure I believe this. If you were suddenly put in a country and you couldn’t speak a single word of the native tongue, it would only be a matter of time before you started understanding the language and over time become fluent. It wouldn’t take long before I knew how to order a beer from a bar! Haha!


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Aug 4, 2018)

Okay, I feel to say something and maybe I am wrong but I feel that most people don´t spent really time with that stuff what Mike in his classes teaches, they probably watch the video, but they really do and go practise and apply the techniques he talks about? Do they spent e-v-e-r-y day lets say 2-3 hours to practise that stuff? And lets say over a period of like a couple of years? Not sure, but my assumpion: not one single guy here. So there comes the point: Mike can´t make you better (nobody other teacher can btw) but he can lead you and tell you what´s important. It is up to every single one of you if you decide to chose that path (if it is more imporant to you than anything else) to make that happen...or not. But what I experience ..(just my opinion) with most of the complainers that they even didn´t spent 2 hours a week on that. And I was speaking of 2-3 hours a day, and not just one week but for a couple of years. Correct me if I am wrong but thats the feeling what I get when I reading that thread and lot of other threads. And it is totally fine if you don´t do that because you have to sacrifice your time and I can understand that but don´t expect then to be great in that field of music.


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## jononotbono (Aug 4, 2018)

mverta said:


> Hi Consona!
> 
> If I showed you carefully, step-by-step, how to do brain surgery, would you then think yourself a doctor? Would you say you then "knew how to do it"? How about math: Is it enough to simply show a child, slowly and specifically, how to do long division and then they "know it"?
> 
> ...



I agree with this completely. I have watched many of your masterclasses and constantly try out what you teach and I still can’t do hardly any of it. But it’s not for (the) want of trying. I’ll get somewhere (hopefully) eventually.


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## Saxer (Aug 4, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> If you were suddenly put in a country and you couldn’t speak a single word of the native tongue, it would only be a matter of time before you started understanding the language and over time become fluent. It wouldn’t take long before I knew how to order a beer from a bar! Haha!


It works that you can understand and talk. But You will never speak with correct grammar. I know a lot of people learning my language in adult age and some took lessons and some don't. The 'ear only' people are easily recognizable by the mistakes they make even after decades. Sure they get their beer from the bar anyway!


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## MatFluor (Aug 4, 2018)

Saxer said:


> It works that you can understand and talk. But You will never speak with correct grammar. I know a lot of people learning my language in adult age and some took lessons and some don't. The 'ear only' people are easily recognizable by the mistakes they make even after decades. Sure they get their beer from the bar anyway!


Sorry to be that guy, trained linguistics here 

Yes, our brain functions differently at a young age. The older you get, the harder it is to learn by osmosis so to speak.
As example, you hear the accent that e.g. Hans Zimmer or Arnold Schwarzenegger has - and both spend a large amount of time in English speaking countries, with Mr. Zimmer going to school in England even.

I speak Italian by assimilation and comparison (I speak German and Romansch natively), but that's easy, since Romansch is very similar. My Russian sounds bad even though I had one year training in it. I sound like a Russian that was out of the country for a long time, errors and accents creeping in, but I'm good at imitating.

You can learn by osmosis to order a beer - but when we're talking complex orchestration all techniques and devices, that hardly compares to ordering a beer, but more to write a newspaper article in that language.

The truth lies I'm between, transcription, listening and analysis are one part of the equation (learning by doing), the other part is learning with guidance, theory and application. And one fuels the other, and both have the important part of application.

As final example, I learned to understand a language from Nepal, Tsintang, which is extremely complex in it's nature. The research if the university if Zurich is exactly about that - how can children even learn that complex beast? (It really is more complex thanost other known languages). And as part of the research is the question how adults can learn it - and being there and hearing it was the least successful approach for adults (yes, you can ask for a rice wine) but you weren't able to communicate so the others know what you mean - but with the long process of focused and guided learning (asking those people what words mean, how they use it etcetcetc) you can learn it to speak with them, and maybe even make some boring speeches 

Just my 2 cents here


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## muk (Aug 6, 2018)

So much wrong information about parallel fifths in this thread...


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