Even some of our closest friends have no idea how musically talented my wife Jenny is.  When I first met her she was studying to be an opera singer.  She went to the Conservatory of Music in San Francisco and studied voice there for a couple of years.  Nowadays, if you ask her to sing she’d blush it away forget that you asked.  I’m trying to change that now that we have June.  I think it’s important that June know the kind of voice Jenny can produce at a moments notice.

 

Anyways, her voice is just one of her musical talents.  While we were cleaning out her sewing room I came across this sheet music.  It’s a composition that Jenny wrote for Piano and Clarinet.  I photocopied it and tucked it away for a future creative project.  Tonight I decided to finally start that project up.

 

I went through and deciphered the piano part and recreated it with midi notes in Ableton Live.  Man, it was not easy.  This is no simple piece of music.  You now how most songs, as original as they may be, have some sort of repetition to them.  Well, this one doesn’t really.  Each bar has something new and a little different to it.  So reading it and translating it to midi was a real challenge.

 

The song is called “Niobid”.  It relates to the children of Niobe in greek mythology but I don’t really know the story so well.  I will have to question Jenny about it.  It really is a beautiful piece though.  This is only the piano part.  I will be adding the clarinet next.  I did the best that I could to give the midi notes some life by adjusting their velocity and position.

 

I hope you enjoy.

4 Replies to “Day 172 / Niobid Pt. 1”

  1. Steve

    shy musicians are the best :)
    you should have used something like sibelius to computerize the score…there must be a free alternative to it and it can output midi!

  3. The B-Roll

    Thanks guys! Steve, I did look up a software to do the conversion for me but I opted to do it naturally in the end. In the end it gave me a greater respect for the complexities of the compositions. And yes the shy musicians ARE the best, especially in an industry with so much ego.

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