So finally tried making a classical piano song. . .

[bennyboy]

I'm glad you feel that way cos it's the Rach 3 that I had in mind for my comparison, since it's the only one I know from Rachmaninov IOW what I was saying was that some of your twiddly bits ™ lol, as well as the general speed of it, reminded me of the Rach 3 That film I mentioned as having got me interested in it, was basically all about the Rach 3... and portrayed it in the same light as you did... as the pinnacle of piano writing; that not every piano player could even play it... given how fast and complicated it was, let alone compose it... so the film was about a piano genius pressured by his father to do well in a competition playing that piece, and then his subsequent adult life in the aftermath of that. It was a very good film, and made me want to hear the whole Rach 3 as I'd never heard that sort of piano playing before. Richard Clayderman is something I grew up with, so is very nostaligic to me but tbh I don't even know if he does actually compose anything, cos he just plays piano versions of popular songs as far as I know, like Andrew Lloyd Webber or whatever... I like it, but nothing he's done as far as I've heard has even approached the speed and intricacy of the Rach 3. And someone remarked that to me before... that they didn't like Clayderman specifically because his piano playing didn't use so many notes... saying basically that it lacked spirit on account of that... I don't necessarily agree on the spirit part... but anyway, between the two I've got both angles covered... frantic and less so

If you are talking about the movie Shine, it's one of my favorite movies! I'm fairly sure you are.

Just near the end of my song, there are a lot of big, fast chords (just for a few seconds) and then some twiddly bits. Some of my references (like to Debussy) were in there deliberately. But I didn't consciously think how much that part sounded like Rach until you mentioned it. Good ear!

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Yes, sorry - I didn't mean to lecture you on the basics of MIDI editing. I was bored and in the mood for reminiscing about the times when I could be bothered to do sh*t.

lol not at all. As a hobby game programmer as well, MIDI is right up my alley. I'm happy talking about it.

Interesting. I always found solo fret-less string instruments to be some of the most difficult ones to emulate - perhaps second to only slide/blues acoustic guitars, sitar and maybe jazz saxes - due to their wide range of articulation and modulation techniques available. Glissandos, legato and vibrato are especially tough and sound notoriously fake and cheesy on pretty much all MIDI instruments I've ever heard. Then again - perhaps there are some so convincing, I heard them without even knowing they were their "fake"?

It may be that since I don't play the violin, I just don't know how a violin properly sounds. Here's something I did a few years ago-- not really a full piece, but more like trying to see if I could get MIDI strings to sound like real strings. There's a fairly virtuosic violin solo at 1:07 that I perhaps flatter myself to think sounds fairly real. Anyone play violin and have an opinion on that?

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I have to say, that does sound pretty crap... very random... not like benny's piece at all, which was structured and had melodies.

The irony here is that I actually quite like that piece that everyone is trashing! :

But yeah, I really understand that modern music is so abstract that it's hard for many to enjoy. TBH, I feel that way about modern jazz. To me, it sounds like a systematized arrangement of high-velocity bee farts and train whistles.