LMMS • Forums

I like to thank music bear for his patientce, and learning me to play in scale.

I am now trying to cover James last - Biscaya.

First thing I did, play the song, and use that beat tool.
Found out it was around 54 bpm.

Then decided to start at F. When trying to put in notes, and watching a vid I noted two things.
He started at F, and was using only the white keys.

So I clicked away on the scales, in the piano roll, and found it had to be major.

Continued with F major, only to find out I was right.

Omg only three months ago I did not have a clue.

Now I am composing in F major. Thank you music bear and of course the other members who helped me.

Its not an easy song to cover. the notes used, have different lengths.
But I am making progress. I am slowly getting better in finding the notes, by trying and listeningto the song.

Even put in 16 notes, from sheet music I found.( took me three hours though)
I am still very weak at reading sheet music, because at page two I got totaly lost on how to play the notes.
( mostly about the length of every note )

Bandoncon part:
http://musicnoteslib.com/tabs/James__Hi ... 27937.html
Will have to do some reading again on sheet music, to figure that out.
About the arcs and the notes which are played reletive fast after eachother.
The part if its an abcdefg, I can figure out, from the sheet.

This video summarizes basic musical theory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70706wFRy2Y

Thank you, watching the vid now.

Edit:

Wow, good vid though, but damn this aint easy.

Funny how one of my favorite disco songs is in the vid.
Fly robin fly - silver convention. (the glide part)

Watching the vid I have found my problem

From a musical notation point of view, I seem to like difficult music.

I did see the light somewhat on the glide part though.

Made a piece of biscaya, and did not like th way it sounded.
Then made the end of a note overlap the start of the next one. Bingo, it started to sound more like a bandleon / harmonica instantly.
And in that piece of sheet music, are the arcs.

Will have to watch that vid more then onces though. The part were that lady plays that bass ? also about glides confused me.

Found something. Played the song at a lower speed form that site http://liederlernen.de.

I could clearly hear, lets call it some pauzes between notes. Went back to the sheet music, and found out I was overlooking the dot behind the notes !

The dot which means hold the note last half the time of the origenal note longer.

Thanks Eino for that vid.

That dot is new to me, the first 4.50 did not show something new.
I also found a confirmation on something I had already done by ear.
I made the last note last longer, but now from the sheet music, and the vid, I understand it fills up the 4 count.
Funny how pieces fall into place.

Edit.
I just nearly went insane from joy,
I went into LMMS and made the tones with a dot longer.
Now my version has this , hop ? in it.
Why this makes me so happy ?
I could hear my version was different, it was missing this hop, but I was lost on why, which happens most of the time.
I do not have a perfect musical hearing, but still my ears are better then my skills.
So I am hearing a difference, but wtf is going on ?

Love you guys You might make a mucisian out me yet.

Gps wrote: Thanks Eino for that vid
Love you guys You might make a mucisian out me yet.

Your Welcome., and welcome to the life long study of musical theory..
A lot of times I watch some videos, rather than dragging out the old textbooks.
That video was the most accurate, and went over a lot in a short time.

I like this video much better then all of the other music theories vids I watched. Most make me wanna sleep after a few seconds.

This guy stays to the point, and is giving nice examples.

When your ready here is
Music Theory Segment 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6vkj_gx9qA

Music Theory Segment 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP_EwxeCuSU

Music Theory Segment 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqNSMn6lF6E

Thank you, but one headache at a time is enough

Just kidding, but with picking biscaya to cover, I am giving myself a hard time.

Making progress though, found some theory piece in my own languages. ( a pdf)
I think I finall start to understand all the symbols used in this piece of music,

http://musicnoteslib.com/tabs/James__Hi ... 27937.html

To others new to music and LMMS do not try to cover this piece.
I am to stuburn to quit, but I am already regreting, I picked this song.

A lot of different notes lengths, and lot of pauzes, make this at least for me, a damn hard "song" to cover.
I think this piece of sheet music uses about all the symbols there are.
The bandoncon part had symbols which, I did not know yet, but I found out they are pauzes.
In the fifth bar after the notes, is the symbol I am talking about, an 1/8 pauze.

So this piece has glide, dots ( notes which need to be hold 1.5 of time of the origenal length, and pauzes of 1/8.

Still I love this piece of music though.
But at the moment I am getting lost, as were the hell am I in this piece of music, when attempting to read the sheet music.
Another thing is , when I listen to the song I am also getting confused on what parts are played by the bandoncon and what part are played by the harmonicas, and to complicate things even more, some parts they play they same.

It seems the camera man had the same problem, or the band of james last sucks at playback. LOL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCCV2vTrUKc

I also downloaded a midi file, which did answer a few questions, but I refuse to cope paste those tracks.
First of al lI consider that cheating, but most important, although I am strugling more then I like, I am making progress on understanding sheet music, and how to put those notes in lmms.

One of the things the midi file helped me though, I was starting some notes of beat.
And some parts that sound more thick, have two notes played at onces.
They are however not one octave apart.

Few questions though, I remember I learned at school, that the key at the start of the bars points to do, googling helped me about the relation between do re mi fa and a,b,c,d, but looking at the sheet music, am I right its written in F ?
I also found out it must be major, but I like a confermation on that too.
And is it possible to determe if its major just from looking at the sheet of music ?

The way I found out it had to be major, was when putting in the notes in lmms, and using the scale tool, major was the only ? one, which fitted.

One last questions. top left of the sheet a note, and the text 112.000893
Is this the bpm ?
I am in LMMS at 54bpm and that seems to fit perfect.
112 devide by 2 = 56, so if I am getting this right, I am close enough ?
The beat tool pointed me to 54, but I can see how I was tapping only half the beats.

Gps wrote:


One of the things the midi file helped me though, I was starting some notes of beat.
And some parts that sound more thick, have two notes played at onces.
They are however not one octave apart.

I right its written in F ?

And is it possible to determe if its major just from looking at the sheet of music ?

The way I found out it had to be major, was when putting in the notes in lmms, and using the scale tool, major was the only ? one, which fitted.

One last questions. top left of the sheet a note, and the text 112.000893
Is this the bpm ?.

Looks like F major to me.
I played part of the melody on the piano and the bpm is 112. I averaged from 108 to 110 bpm and is sounds OK.
This is a difficult piece for a beginner, this piece would take me about a month if I spent all my free time on it.
The sheet music is from electronically transposed midi. That's why the bpm is looking way that it dose. There's more accurate sheet music out there.

Thank you again.
The free time is not an issue (unemployed sadly)

With a job it would be far to time consuming, because I am also learning to read sheet music.

Here you guys can hear my struggle, and were I get stuck for now. The getting stuck has mostly to do with me learning how to read sheet music.
And the first part still needs work too.
https://soundcloud.com/user586365033/biscaya