Metal Score Project

[Christ Died of AIDS]

Delete this if the idea has been stated elsewhere. The idea is to transcribe a selection of high quality death and black metal songs, preferably ones with complex chord variations (Close to a World Below? Obscura? Battle's Clarion?), onto musical scores and have them be played out, note for note, either by synthesizer or a few solo instrumentalists. The idea is to turn smart people onto metal when they would otherwise be disgusted by such a "noisy" and chaotic artform. I've met too many people that said, "oh well if only there wasn't growling or blastbeats". This would be a non-profit project, one that would require the dedication of a few musically literate individuals. I'm a little sketchy in the sheet music department, but how hard could it be to learn? I fully realize that in doing this, it'd be taking away what made the metal releases great which is why this project is in no way an attempt to create a new genre of music, just a good way to demonstrate and explore metal's ambitious and pensive musical properties.

[wEEman33]

The best way to do this is electronically, with the help of a notation program like Finale or Sibelius.

Most people I know in the composition industry use Finale.

It normally costs about $300+ but can be had for free if you are resourceful enough when it comes to Google searches.

Send me a PM if you are having trouble tracking down a free copy and I can point you in the right direction.

Once you have the program up and running, the only other device you'll need is a MIDI controller of some kind to input the notes quickly and efficiently (keyboards work best).

[Christ Died of AIDS]

This program looks amazing. I'll try to track it down on bittorrent, I suppose, but right now I'm using a computer that can only boot in safe mode which means no sound or midi. 300 dollars for a computer program, for a product that doesn't even physically exist. I suppose one day if they find a way to simulate sensory experiences for all 5 senses, software developers will have their career set for life.

Crack v2.0, comes with more realistic, burning plastic smoke taste!

But yeah, the MIDI controller should be no problem, but I never had any intention of actually playing the songs in real time on a keyboard. I feel as though repairing the wing of an F-16 fighter jet would be less difficult, for lack of a better metaphor.

[Christ Died of AIDS]

Another idea would be to have the lyrics spoken by some kind of monotone computer voice, like the one Stephen Hawking uses to speak.

[cmargir]

I haven't done any scorewriting myself yet, but I do know that there's an alternative to programs like Finale or Sibelius. LilyPond, definitely not as user friendly as those proprietary softwares, but it gets the work done and the result is like very high quality music engraving. If you're familiar with LaTeX, LilyPond is like its equivalent for score writing.

At the end of the day, I guess it doesn't really matter what you decide do write them with, but it's an option that you could look into.

[wEEman33]

The MIDI controller isn't really used for playing notes in real time so much as it used for inputting notes into the score.

In other words, you play a note on your keyboard, assign a rhythmic value to it (quarter note, eighth note, etc.), and boom, there it goes into the score.

Of course, you can always just drag and click individual notes into the score with a mouse, but it goes a lot faster if you have a MIDI keyboard, especially when chords are involved.

[burewestnik]

Guitar Pro automatically transcribes tabs to scores, also it plays the entire song on midi instrument imitations, but it sounds like shit from what I know.
Close to a World Below would be interesting, At the Gates - Primal Breath?

[beyond_godlike]

If you want to actually buy the program, Guitar Pro is only $50. However, Finale has superior sounding virtual instruments.

[Goluf]

MIDI controllers are not that much more helpful than knowing the hotkeys. I would save your money.

I don't think metal is complex/specialized enough to need notation yet, but I guess it would be an interesting project for archival purposes. Just make sure you don't suck at aural dictation, so we don't get a situation like what happened with "The Real Book", where half the songs contain blatant errors because the kids at Berklee who did the transcriptions didn't know what the fuck they were doing.

[Christ Died of AIDS]

MIDI controllers are not that much more helpful than knowing the hotkeys. I would save your money.

If you want to actually buy the program, Guitar Pro is only $50. However, Finale has superior sounding virtual instruments.

Guitar Pro might be a good start to this project. I'm definitely not looking for quality virtual sound, simple MIDI effects will work fine, as long as every note that the stringed instruments are playing are represented at equal volume, all with the same effect so it sounds as if it's all being played on one big keyboard. The broad range of tones all being played at once will all be heard, even by people who claim that even the best metal is just noise, people that have no experience to the genre but are still drawn to ambient and classical. I have no doubt that the final product will be something that resembles ambient.

[death metal black metal]

Open source notation software:

http://musescore.org/

[burewestnik]

Somewhat related, a string quartet performing "South of Heaven"

[esoteric]

Let's see an example in action. Here's the Gorguts song Obscura in MIDI (80kb):

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=922fb754e41012e541446e35a78dc463e02861f463717e565be6ba49b5870170

Drums were omitted. Not a perfect transcription but that shouldn't matter much.

[Christ Died of AIDS]

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=a45ed16034b06cb8111096d429abd360eeb027101927730f5be6ba49b5870170

Sacramentum's Cries From a Restless Soul

I did this one just for starters, hopefully i can work on more complicated pieces of music

Somewhat of a rough draft

[Helmholtz]

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=a45ed16034b06cb8111096d429abd360eeb027101927730f5be6ba49b5870170

Sacramentum's Cries From a Restless Soul

I did this one just for starters, hopefully i can work on more complicated pieces of music

Somewhat of a rough draft

The rhythms need work, and at times certain melodies are obscured, though you probably realized it yourself.  However, good initiative in actually doing it.  I'd give it another go over before working on anything else personally.  Your orchestration of this however, does certainly lend credence to the idea that this piece might actually go very well into non-metal instrumentation.