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How Articulations Can Improve Realism

Leandro Gardini

Senior Member
Yes! Nice article! I do feel like "single articulation" programming is a common composition pitfall these days, especially as people are learning through virtual instruments.

But there is one thing about this article I slightly disagree with, I feel there is not enough distinction between (a) the realism and musicality of the performances of virtual instruments versus (b) the musicality of the composition. From a composers point of view, I do think these things can be evaluated separately. From an audience point of view, makes sense if these two things are harder to separate and both need to be good to enjoy the music.

The beginning of the article says "Your libraries have to respond to the music that you conceive in your mind and not the other way round." - so then the idea of composing with more articulations in mind should be only a composition thing, and the way that gets realized in virtual instruments is another challenge entirely.

Anyway just my opinion, and great article!
 
Yes! Nice article! I do feel like "single articulation" programming is a common composition pitfall these days, especially as people are learning through virtual instruments.

But there is one thing about this article I slightly disagree with, I feel there is not enough distinction between (a) the realism and musicality of the performances of virtual instruments versus (b) the musicality of the composition. From a composers point of view, I do think these things can be evaluated separately. From an audience point of view, makes sense if these two things are harder to separate and both need to be good to enjoy the music.

The beginning of the article says "Your libraries have to respond to the music that you conceive in your mind and not the other way round." - so then the idea of composing with more articulations in mind should be only a composition thing, and the way that gets realized in virtual instruments is another challenge entirely.

Anyway just my opinion, and great article!
I am not sure I understand what you mean but I am sure i am confused now. :)

Anyway, I see programming midi as an interpretation of a composition and not the composition itself. As you well said the influence of computers on the composition process has not been good in many ways and I am just trying to call the attention of those who have not realized it yet.
Virtual instruments may be a great source of inspiration but should not be the ruler of your composition. The human imagination is way bigger than what the greatest sample libraries are.
 
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I am not sure I understand what you mean but I am sure i am confused now. :)

Anyway, I see programming midi as an interpretation of a composition and not the composition itself. As you well said the influence of computers on the composition process has not been good in many ways and I am just trying to call the attention of those who have not realized it yet.
Virtual instruments may be a great source of inspiration but should not be the ruler of your composition. The human imagination is way bigger than what greatest sample libraries are.

Actually seems like we agree about this. Maybe I can try to be more specific about my earlier statement - the article title refers to using more articulations to get more realism, which sounds a lot like talking about midi programming. But the article itself seems to talk about using more articulations to improve one's own composing abilities. I feel that was blurring two skills which I personally see as separate, the midi programming and the composing.

Actually my point doesn't matter that much. I just thought it may be a nice annotation to the article for people to consider. Cheers and congrats for all the hard work going into making the articles and courses :thumbsup:
 
Nice write, and so very true.

With samples, a lot of the interpretation and expression of the composition is done in the post editing.

Some can use a wind controller and/or the keyboard while performing, but still editing is the musical midwife. Makes music more office’y :cool:

It is both comforting because you know you can get good results, but also less rewarding, because you dont get the “kick” out of playing the virtual instruments.
 
Very interesting article, thanks!

I often notice that I avoid to use specific articulations or even instruments just because I know I can't make it sounding good with my sample libs. I avoid trumpet legatos because I know how real trumpets would sound and I know that I can't achieve this sound with my libs. Even when I know that I will later have it all recorded by an orchestra, I am somehow influenced by the quality of articulations of my libs.

This is really a bad situation for a composer, but I think it is understandable: I want to somehow enjoy my music, I want it to already sound good with samples. So I depend on their quality and I avoid articulations that I don't have in god quality.

Sometimes I think pen&paper would be a better solution, but this is really tough, as I have to imagine the orchestral sound all by myself, indeed not easy for me, I have to admit :)
 
Actually seems like we agree about this. Maybe I can try to be more specific about my earlier statement - the article title refers to using more articulations to get more realism, which sounds a lot like talking about midi programming. But the article itself seems to talk about using more articulations to improve one's own composing abilities. I feel that was blurring two skills which I personally see as separate, the midi programming and the composing.

Actually my point doesn't matter that much. I just thought it may be a nice annotation to the article for people to consider. Cheers and congrats for all the hard work going into making the articles and courses :thumbsup:
Ok I see now.
But this is not about using more articulations to get more realism. The articulations should be conceived in your mind first and then used in the virtual instruments later.
It may be a lot of articulations, just some or even a single one. It doesn't matter as long as you can hear them in your mind before samples.
Once you shift your process of composing from samples to your own mind you are going to feel the need of change of articulations. It's much more a matter of musicality than amount of articulations used.
 
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