Monday, March 28, 2005

Music theory, sight reading, midi orchestration

I went to the library today and checked out a couple books. One is about sight reading and how it seems to be a matter of reading vertically and in patterns, as opposed to horizontally and note for note. I learned a little bit about what I need to do to improve my sight reading. Most of it is just cramming the scales and rhythms into my head. The rest is practicing vertical reading, line by line. I think I can do it. The second book is just about sight reading in general, including a few common practices to help one improve.

The other book was about music theory in tonal music, which is mostly review, but will greatly help in my composition efforts. I need to know what colors are available before I can start painting.

In the library, I tried to check out a book that helps me become familiar with the ranges of the instruments in an orchestra. Knowing this will help me as I try to compose for all the instruments that I don't know how to play. With this new Synful Orchestra DXi plugin for Sonar, I can make stuff sound pretty realistic. I just need to understand each instrument's role better. Anyway, the book was in process, meaning they'd gotten it but hadn't yet catalogued it. It seems it's ready to be check out now, though, so I will drop by the library in the morning.

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