A Christmas gift

[dj]

Hello, all:

A little Christmas gift for 2024.

I've posted this piece before but this is a new twist on it.

This is the Act Two opener for my 2003 musical The Holly Tree.

The Holly Tree is the show I was working on when I discovered what was then Midinotate Composer. Mark Walsen contacted me about becoming a beta tester; that would have been in the year 2000, I think.

So this show has grown along with Composer.

The Holly Tree is built around about a dozen short stories by Charles Dickens. I set out to create a show that ignored the restrictions of small cast/small band/small budget that most of us face. The result is a bit of a grand show with a cast of about 25 and a 22 piece orchestra -- and which has had only two stagings so far, both with piano only accompaniment.

However, new advances in AI, specifically a program called Ace Studio, have allowed me to create demos of the music with a much, much fuller sound.

This is a version I've put up on Youtube: https://youtu.be/g-ER4n3nrBc

It shows the 'extended' Vocal part eight parts. You'll recognize the scrolling notation in the video as being generated by Composer, captured using Debut Video Capture.

The Notation Composer file is attached, but needs two independent General Midi playback devices to sound properly. As my devices aren't yours, you'll need to go into Staff/Setup and set everything from the Celeste track down to your second GM device, ignoring any 'shared channel' flags. If you just want to explore the orchestration, please look at it in Page View -- it's much prettier.

A Merry Christmas to all, and very Happy New Year.

David

[Sherry C]

Hi David,

Merry Christmas late, and Happy New Year early, so it averages out

Thanks for sharing this with us! A big, rich, full sound to be sure - well done The vocals sound pretty darn good for not being actual folks. I love Dickens, so thematically this is a lot of fun.

Just out of curiosity, which devices do you use for this? My devices may not be yours, but maybe some of them are (or are for other folks)

ttfn,
Sherry

[dj]

Hi, Sherry:

The .not file attached above is set for Notation Software synth for the top half of the score and an external port for the bottom.

I usually do midi out from Composer into a pair of mid-range Casio CTK-651 keyboards as GM sources. Both of those go into a Zoom MRS-1044 16-track digital recorder which, in turn, goes back into my computer.

I do have a few other synths and samplers available -- 23 at last count, ranging from a midi-fied 1972 ARP Odyssey I to (most recently acquired) a Kurzweil RG-200 digital piano. It's at the point where my wife says 'If another comes in, one has to go out.' Her collection of wind instruments doesn't figure into the equation, of course.

For orchestral sounds, I import midi into Samplitude Music Studio (by Magix) which has an excellent pool of sample-based instruments. The orchestra in Your First Christmas Tree is Samplitude.

I am increasingly impressed by the Ace Studio AI voice program. They keep updating it and improving the library of voices. The original voice set was mostly Chinese/Japanese, the phonemes of which don't particularly work with Western music. Recently, they've added a bunch of Western-style voices that work well. It's a monthly subscription but after two years, you get it free for life, so there's that.

And, I have music going back to 1978 to put into it.

Happy Holidays (or what's left of them).

David