This frenetic scherzo from Beethoven’s 9th symphony was featured in the film “A Clockwork Orange” and has an interrupting timpani part.

Download to your XBox

A review from vVv gaming forum:

“easily the best and most fun guitar chart on RBN, and is also one of my favorite guitar charts in any rhythm game that’s ever come out. The one thing I like about this chart more than anything else is that the guy who charted this song actually gets it. Whoever charted this didn’t think “Oh, these strumming sections have notes that are close together and are changing frets, so I’m going to make the first note of each new color streak a hammer-on.” This is exactly what Harmonix and almost every other charting company does, and this is exactly what pisses me off. These notes are meant to be strummed, so it was charted as strum notes. Seems like a simple concept, but most people can’t seem to figure this out (hell, even Neversoft managed to do this with Guitar Hero).

Anyway, one big thing I noticed the first time I played this was that there were decent breaks in the song that I didn’t expect. I thought that the guitar would continue playing basically throughout the entire song, which is how almost every custom chart ever made for this song has been. At first I was a little pissed off, but after I finished playing it, I remember how cramped and painful my hands were by playing the customs more than once. These short breaks in the guitar really help a lot and I can play this song multiple times in a row without stopping. The song is little over a minute long, but it’s a crapload of fun all the way through. You’d be a fool not to pick this up.”

Download to your XBox

]]> http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2010/06/17/flight-of-the-bumblebee/feed/ 0 http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2010/06/17/brahms-hungarian-dance-no-5-rock-band-network-version/ http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2010/06/17/brahms-hungarian-dance-no-5-rock-band-network-version/#comments Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:48:14 +0000 Paul Henry Smith http://www.fauxharmonic.com/?p=524

Download to your XBox

Johannes Brahms based this popular piece on what he thought was a Hungarian folk song.  It was actually a tune by Keler Bela titled “Bartfai emlek.” This was one of the most popular symphonic dance pieces of the late 19th century!

GUITAR = banjo doubles the first violin section
BASS = doubles the bass and cello sections

About Brian Fennelly

Brian Fennelly (born 1937) studied at Yale with Mel Powell, Donald Martino, Allen Forte, Gunther Schuller and George Perle (M.Mus 1965, Ph.D. 1968). From 1968 to 1997 he was Professor of Music in the Faculty of Arts and Science at New York University, where he is now Professor Emeritus. In addition to a Guggenheim fellowship, his awards include three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, two commissions from the Koussevitsky Foundation as well as commissions from the Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest, and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. In 1997 he received a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been awarded composer residencies at the Rockefeller Foundation Center in Bellagio (Italy), Camargo Foundation in Cassis (France), Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), and Copland House (NY).

His music has been awarded prizes in many competitions, which include the Goffredo Petrassi Competition for Orchestral Music (1993), International Trumpet Guild Competition (First Prize, 1990), the Louisville Orchestra New Music Competition (First Prize, 1986), Shreveport Symphony Competition (1981), and the Premio Citta di Trieste (1981). Twenty-five of his works appear on CD, with orchestral and chamber music released on the New World, CRI, Troy, Pro Viva, First Edition, Capstone, and New Ariel labels. Releases of orchestral music include Fantasy Variations, In Wildness is the Preservation of the World, On Civil Disobedience, Chrysalis, Thoreau Fantasy No. 2, and A Sprig of Andromeda, the last five all Thoreau-inspired works.

Brian Fennelly’s music has been performed by several orchestras including the Rochester Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and The Louisville Orchestra, as well as by chamber ensembles such as the American and Empire Brass Quintets, and the Concord and Audubon String Quartets. His choral music has been sung by the Gregg Smith Singers and the New York Virtuoso Singers, among others. International performances include two at the Warsaw Autumn (Poland) and four at the ISCM World Music Days (Iceland, Israel, Belgium, and Canada), with recordings by The Louisville Orchestra, Polish Chamber Orchestra, Prague Radio Orchestra, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Polish Radio National Symphony, as well as acclaimed chamber ensembles and soloists.

Fennelly’s music is published by Margun Music (Schirmer), MMB Music (St. Louis), Pro Nova (Munich), Ricordi (Milan), Earnestly Music (Sharon, MA) and American Composers Edition (New York), among others. In addition to composing and teaching, he has been active as a pianist and also as an officer and board member in a number of music organizations; he also co-directs the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, which he founded in 1976.

Fennelly resides in Kingston, New York with his wife Jacqueline, who played French horn with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic for many years. Liam Fennelly, a son from a previous marriage, is a viola da gamba player living and working in Europe.

About the contest judges

Ruth Mendelson, composer

A New York Times Critics’ Pick, composer/instrumentalist/producer/arranger/editor Ruth Mendelson has been writing award-winning scores for film, HBO, A&E, Discovery Channel, Disney, Animal Planet, The Learning Channel, PBS, CBS, and NBC (among others), as well as creating innovative multi-media “surround-scapes” for over 20 years.  She was the first woman in the history of Berklee College of Music (Boston, MA) to teach in the Film Scoring Department, which she enjoys part-time to this day.  An active studio musician, Ruth has been featured playing a number of instruments in a wide variety of genres with artists in LA, New York Boston, Europe and India.  She is also a guest lecturer, music director and author. She has performed at the United Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland, as bassist for the One Human Family Gospel Choir, and is currently collaborating with renowned primatologist  Dr. Jane Goodall on a variety of youth empowerment and environmental projects.  Ruth is founder and president of Eagle Vision Initiatives, a non-profit organization dedicated to serving society through communications and the arts.  Eagle Vision’s premier initiative, the WELL WISHES Project, is now successfully establishing unprecedented  lines of communication and resources between the world’s youth.  Her deepest commitment is to be of service and assist in bringing love, compassion and positive change to society via a wide range of creative projects and programs.

Leo Eguchi, cellist

Cellist Leo Eguchi enjoys a very active and multi-faceted performance schedule – he can be heard as a the cellist of Xanthos, a contemporary music ensemble in residence at Boston University, as a founding member of the (fully collaborative) Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, assistant principal of the conductor-less Camerata New England, principal of the New Bedford Symphony, a member of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra and the Portland Symphony, as well as in frequent appearances with the Boston Pops Esplanade, Rhode Island Philharmonic and Boston Lyric Opera Orchestras.

A strong advocate of new music, Mr. Eguchi has premiered dozens of pieces by and worked closely with many notable composers, including William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, George Crumb, Lukas Foss, Joan Tower, Ken Ueno, Yehudi Wyner, Gabriela Lena Frank and Michael Daugherty.  Steve Smith of the The New York Times recently raved about a Xanthos concert featuring Mr. Eguchi, “…in the hands of musicians so copiously skilled and confident, this undeniably challenging music had genuine appeal.”  Aside from Xanthos, Mr. Eguchi performs with contemporary music groups such as Brave New Works, Firebird Ensemble, White Rabbit and ALEA III.  Mr. Eguchi also loves to play recitals and chamber music – he was a founding member of the Lunaire String Quartet and has performed with Chameleon Arts Ensemble and the Walden Chamber Players.  Other recent chamber music and solo highlights include performances with members of the New Hampshire Music Festival, BMOP’s “Club Café” series and participation in the Educational Bridge program – an exchange tour of Russia and collaboration with Moscow Conservatory musicians.  In addition to his classical career, Mr. Eguchi can be heard on stages ranging from intimate klezmer ensembles to stadium rock shows.

A native of Michigan, Mr. Eguchi began his cello studies at the age of twelve with Eva Ell and Louis Potter Jr. (author of The Art of Cello Playing).  He holds Bachelor’s degrees with honors in both Physics and in Cello Performance from the University of Michigan, where he studied cello with Anthony Elliott. Graduate studies then followed at Boston University on the Dean’s Scholarship, where he was a student of George Neikrug and recipient of the String Department Award for Excellence, upon completion of his Master’s degree.

Markand Thakar, conductor

Markand Thakar is music director of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra. Former assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, he has conducted orchestras across the United States and Canada. Other Baltimore Chamber Orchestra recordings for Naxos conducted by Markand Thakar include a disc of concertos by Ignaz Pleyel, and a disc of viola concertos by Carl Stamitz and Franz Anton Hoffmeister. Thakar, a protégé of Sergiu Celibidache, is the author of Counterpoint: Fundamentals of Music-Making (Yale University Press) and Looking for the Harp Quartet: An Investigation into Musical Quality, and is co-director (with Gustav Meier) of the graduate conducting program at the Peabody Conservatory.

We’ve just finished recording the first two movements of Chris Sainsbury’s wonderful “Symphony of the Birds” and it’s quite a treat.  [Chris Sainsbury's website]

Listen: First movement –

Chris Sainsbury on his intriguing and delightful piece:

This piece was commissioned by Chris Bearman, Musical Director of the Central Coast Symphony Orchestra and Conservatorium in Gosford City, Australia. The brief was to ‘keep it local’ which was great as it is in keeping with my thinking. I’d been increasingly concerned about the global focus in all aspects of life. To achieve this ‘local idea’ I used local bird sounds of the region (at latitude 33 on the east coast of Aust) as source material for the piece.

Having grown up in the same region I’ve lived with these birds and they’ve got their claws into me (not always metaphorically)!

This work was conceived and realised using my concepts of:

1. Ground Sounds
2. Sky Sounds
3. Near-melodies

The terms are original (as far as I know) and deliberately uncomplicated. They are Australian as far as I’m concerned. I am now thinking and hearing under these ‘elements’ of music, which of course cross-over with the various elements of music that we know. The difference is really in the hearing – in the genesis of ideas and the working of material, and in the thinking.

Ground sounds are characterised by sustain, repetitive device, ‘melod-ercussion’, and the non-development of idea (in a Western sense). These are present through sustain, subtle convergences, absence of dramatic interpolations, veiled ostinati, use of tone- scenes (the dominance of particular colour combinations), and subtle melod-ercussive device (melodic thumps, scratchings, breaks and bumps).

Sky sounds are simply the phenomenon of sky reverb and sky amplification, which vary in the natural environment with landscape, weather and time of day. At various points I set out to orchestrate reverb and amplification into the work (as in the first half of movement two).

Near-melodies are the melodic fragments of birds. They sound short songs and calls, often fantastic tunes which they abandon as soon as they’ve begun. Of course they are entire (probably for birds), but we need something longer to call ‘a piece’. In this light I strung them together end on end at times (for major themes), ‘classicising’ them. There are however, many near-melodies that are left in tact in the work, abandoned as soon as sounded.

I use some fifty bird sounds as motives in the work, with all melodies and chords stemming from those. With this amount of ‘tunes’ rolling one can see the need to be careful about Western developmental thinking. It could become too big and messy! Indeed I don’t dramatically ‘develop’ any bird sound melodically, but leave them always intact. There is no augmentation of interval, nor inversion of tune, nor fragmentation or such device. I have used simpler treatments such as transposing up a step and have at times expanded the rhythm of the near-melodies. Basically I suspended part of me the composer and I didn’t mess too much with the birds!

Some near-melodies in the work are clearly identifiable bird sounds, down to the species. Some are ‘my good rendition’ of a bird sound I heard and whilst it works for listeners as bird sound, it would be difficult to identify the species (especially some of the parrots). The species include parrots (Lorikeets, King Parrots and others), Wattle-birds, Butcher-birds (my favourite), the Koel, Plovers, Gulls, Various Finches, and more. Some I didn’t even see, but notated.

All the notations are classicised into a twelve note system. Birds have a syrinx, rather than a larynx, and make complicated sounds. It was my primary intention to write music, not completely emulate bird sounds. In this light the various movements are basically Western in format. It is a vehicle which assists the listener to ‘hear my local environment’, essentially enabling a visit!

I hope you enjoy the work. Don’t listen too closely for the various birds, just take wing yourself!”

Now you can play the Fauxharmonic Orchestra’s versions of classical favorites in Rock Band 2.

All classical “songs” currently available for Rockband

Currently available on the Rock Band Network:

• Night on Bald Mountain (PREVIEW – MP3)
• Flight of the Bumblebee (PREVIEW – MP3)
• Brahms – Hungarian Dance No. 5
• Beethoven – Symphony No. 9 – Scherzo

In development:

• Beethoven – Symphony No. 5
• Wagner – Ride of the Valkyries
• Verdi – Anvil Chorus
• Handel’s Largo
• Arias from Carmen
• Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture

How it works

We start with the orchestral/choral music rendered faithfully and lovingly with our digital orchestra.   Then we create playable parts for the Rock Band controllers (instruments) that currently include guitar, bass and drum set.  Naturally, we use the controllers to play various orchestral parts, like first violin, oboe, cellos, timpani, etc.

If there is a voice part, you simply sing into the microphone, just like any other Rock Band song … except you might be singing a challenging aria by Verdi or Bizet.

How do you get it?

NOTE: This is currently only available for the XBox version of Rock Band 2.  (Harmonix/MTV promise to make these songs available to Wii and PS3 users soon.)

• Sign in to XBox Live
• Start Rock Band 2
• Go to Music Store
• Choose “Rock Band Network”
• Browse by category “Other” which is where they put “classical.”
• You can download a demo version that you can play on your XBox.  If you like it, you can purchase it with Microsoft points.  Most of our songs will be 60 points.

Composers: Get your music on Rock Band Network

Of course, since we have been producing recordings for composers since 2003, we can create Rock-Band-ready versions of composers’ scores for download in the Rock Band Network store.  If you’re a composer and you’re interested in getting your music into Rock Band, send mail to rockband@fauxharmonic.com.

The Fauxharmonic will take care of the authoring process (a laborious and tedious task) to produce an arrangement appropriate for Rock Band game play, and will shepherd the music through the Rock Band testing and review process.

When people buy your music you will get a 15% royalty.  The Fauxharmonic Orchestra will also get 15%.  The rest is kept by Microsoft and Harmonix/MTV.

Cost

We may author and upload your music to the Rock Band Network free of charge if we think it will do well in the game (i.e., will be fun to play, and is not too difficult or too long).  To find out if your music qualifies, just send us a copy of the score (PDF, Sibelius or Finale), or an mp3.  We don’t promise to choose your work to produce for Rock Band.

If you would like to pay The Fauxharmonic Orchestra to produce your music and get it into the Rock Band Network, contact us for a price quote.

We’ll be performing these in an upcoming concert.  Enjoy:

Princess Leia’s Theme

Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme)

Let us know if you’d like to be notified about the concert.

You send us your score in most any format, and we produce a musically nuanced, technically accurate recording. You can decide what sort of acoustic space you’d like your recording to be made in. You can also tell us how much reverberation, where the instruments should appear to be located on the virtual stage, and so forth. Or you can trust our judgment. You can be as involved as you want to be.

Revisions

One round of revision is included with your recording. This gives you the opportunity to revise any aspect of the recording, including changing anything originally written in your score. We don’t count fixing errors or omissions on our part … those we will always fix free of charge.

Lifetime Rewrites

We keep your score on file forever. If you decide later that you want to completely re-write that horn part, we can quickly and easily make the changes and “print” you a new recording for far less than starting from scratch.

Parts and Score Printing

If you need a set of parts from your score, we’ll print them for you, along with your score, if needed. Printing can be done on a wide variety of papers and sizes. We can also deliver PDF files that you can print yourself whenever you need them.

No pre-existing score?

Let’s say, for example, your original composition existed only in a MIDI version. We can turn that file into a professional, musically accurate score (in C or transposing), produced to your specifications, or conforming to standard practice for concert performance, film scoring, musical theater, etc. We can deliver you a printed, bound copy, PDF files, or notation program files (Sibelius or Finale).

Request an Estimate

We performed Jeremy’s “Animated Watercolor” at Brandeis University in October.

Animated Watercolor

About the music

Animated Watercolor is inspired by a particular painting of Kandinsky which I find quite fantastic. While it appears to have a few different names depending on the source, the one that appears most frequently, and the one I personally like the best, is Bustling Aquarelle which translates to Animated Watercolor. It is the goal of my piece to bring to life the elements of Kandinsky’s painting musically via rhythmic energy, distinct musical lines, and colorful orchestration.

Of all visual artists I am familiar with Wassily Kandinsky has mad the most significant impression upon me. While Kandinsky has a number of stylistic periods, it is his abstract works, especially the “Compositions”, that greatly catch my attention. I have always been quite fond of brilliant, bold colors and sharp, rigid lines, both of which occur frequently in his works. For whatever reason, when I am stuck writing a piece, Kandinsky aids me in generating motives, melodies, and harmonies for my ear; often I obtain more ideas than I can deal with.

From JeremySpindler.com

“Jeremy Spindler, born 1979, currently resides in Boston, MA where he is the Irving Fine Music Fellow and a Ph.D. candidate in music composition at Brandeis University. A former trumpet player, Jeremy has studied composition with Martin Boykan, Eric Chasalow, David Rakowski and Ladislav Kubik. His focus is primarily on chamber music; however he has an ever growing interest in electronic media and music for large ensembles.”