Comments for Charles Griffin

Comment on El Paso de la Siguiriya by John Paradowski

John Paradowski — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:49:52 +0000

I was there for that concert – This was outstanding – The audience was mesmerized by this piece. Thank you Mr. Griffin!

Comment on Linda Leen and Stevie Wonder, or copyright, schmopyright by andris

andris — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:57:14 +0000

Beidzot kÄds zinoÅ¡s cilvÄ“ks publiski pateicis patiesÄ«bu par Å¡o “nekÄdu” dziedÄtÄju, kas nav ne dziedÄtÄja, ne komponiste un , saprotams, neko citu kÄ apzinÄtus vai neapzinÄtus plaÄ£iÄtus vispÄr nespÄ“j dzemdÄ“t. JÄbrÄ«nÄs tikai par tiem, kas Å¡o lÄ“Ä“n garlaicÄ«bu spÄ“j klausÄ«ties.

Comment on Linda Leen and Stevie Wonder, or copyright, schmopyright by Viola

Viola — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:48:25 +0000

I cannot judge whether it is plagiarism or not, but of course it sounds very much like Wonder. Anyway, I would like to thank Charles for his observation, I trust in his high professionalism. The thousands who frequent Leenâ€™s concerts does not mean we have a diva here, but rather what we have enormous educational and cultural problems in Latvia – at the same time the classical music concerts of high level often are much less frequented. Besides that, I think that participation of the professional orchestra in such projects certainly is not prestigious.

Comment on Linda Leen and Stevie Wonder, or copyright, schmopyright by Charles

Charles — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:51:14 +0000

Well, I stand corrected on where Linda Leen lives. I understood that you had American financial support for the recording of that disc and incorrectly assumed you’d moved there. Nothing else I said was incorrect.

I cited two instances from your biography as an example of your celebrity in Latvia, and did not suggest it was the sum total of your career. I linked to your website, so whomever wishes to learn more about your work can see for themselves. I have no doubt that you have worked hard. But, get real: I didn’t write this blog entry to PROMOTE you. I wrote it to EXPOSE you. It is plagiarism. It is revealing that you reply about the chord changes, because indeed, chord changes are not protected by copyright. But you stole the chord changes along with the melody, and that is in fact a violation of Stevie Wonder’s copyright.

I made a call to ASCAP about this.

Comment on Linda Leen and Stevie Wonder, or copyright, schmopyright by Linda Leen

Linda Leen — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:48:59 +0000

It is so easy to manipulate with facts- just pick those, what make the article just like author wanted it to be “..and nothing else matters”. Choosing the ones about FHM and ” Dancing with the stars” is pathetic, as it is one month out of 15 years working as a musician- 3 studio albums, DVD “Live at opera”, sold out concerts during 2 years in Dzintari open air concert hall (3000 listeners), opera (1000), Daile theatre (3000), Kongresu nams(3000), LiepÄja (2000 listeners) and Ventspils this week, 6 national music prizes for debut album ” Let’s go insane”, 2 nominees for ” Chameleon”, collaboration with Kevin Robinson from “Simply red”, 10 years singing jazz, academic music education etc… And this is not desperation to be a superstar, it is just facts that are much more important than some magazine for men or tv show. Besides, a musician cannot announce him/herself as a star or diva, people do it themselves! I could buy all the newspapers, magazines, tv shows to write that I AM A DIVA, but that NEVER could help to fill those concert halls with people who want to hear my singing! Maybe for the first time, but not for 15 years!
Your tone of writing is very insulting and it is full of negative vibrations, very personal not professional. I will keep on writing my music and working on getting better in whatever I do. That has always been my way of living and working. And if you here some similar moments comparing my and Wonder’s songs, that can be just a coincidence! Why would anyone do that?! If you mean chord changes, then every second song on this earth is plagiarism. This kind of accusation should be said only when you prove it, otherwise it just turns out to be disrepute caused by manipulation.
Excuse me, if there were any mistakes in this text, english is not my native language. And I hope, you will have better and more interesting and useful things to do in a future.
p.s. by the way, I don’t live in Hollywood. I just were there for 2 weeks to work on my album ZiemasskaÅ†as together with composer Lolita Ritmanis.

Comment on Sibelius or Finale? by Greg Smee

Greg Smee — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:10:53 +0000

I am a Finale user since 2002, getting the upgrade every year. That’s my problem. I bought 2010 only to find one of my most important plug-ins was gone….the MiBAC Jazz Rhythm Generator. 98% of what I do is jazz oriented and that plug-in literally saves me days of time. Even though the real musicians in a rhythm section, especially the drummer, improvise their part within the given framework…you just can’t write that, but the plug-in gives a good idea for playback. I make CD’s and send them to prospective buyers. Who wants to hear a jazz piece without at least some semblance of a rhythm section? I also have has the usual bugs, crashing on playback, poor customer service ( unless you are a true computer geek to understand their manual), and forget trying to use Garritan Big Band.
My computer has 4 gigs of memory, they recommend at least 1 gig, and still won’t play well.
So, this leads to my question. Does Sibelius 6.1 have A jazz rhythm generator and does it have an Auto Harmony, like Super Sax. etc.? Just in case you are wondering, I only use those harmonies as a basis. I still go through and change the harmonies as I see fit and for playability. Part of that problem with Finale is their limited recognition of advanced jazz chord symbols. I may specify a CMaj7 and harmonizes with C6

Comment on Sibelius or Finale? by Robin Hodson

Robin Hodson — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:08:42 +0000

Hi Folks,

Robin Hodson here (I was with Sibelius for 12 and a half years and am now with SoundTree). For either Sibelius or Finale users, I have some great free help files to get you up and running fast – just email me if you want a copy: robinh@soundtree.com.

I think our collective view on Notaion is that it’s not in the big league yet with S and F for full-on notation – but indeed, time will tell. Plus I have yet to meet anyone who actually uses it beyond a few broadway folks.

Comment on Sibelius or Finale? by Charles

Charles — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:23:53 +0000

Hi,
It’s a long story, but my copy of Sibelius only arrived yesterday, so I can’t speak to that. I’m not sure what you’re doing, but if I would offer general advice on getting your MIDI from Logic to Finale, I would say this: It sounds like a resolution/quantization issue. Logic’s resolution (I think, off the top of my head) is 640 pulses per quarter note. It’s a much finer resolution than you would ever want to see notated. Finale allows you to quantize notes in Hyperscribe but doesn’t give you that option when importing MIDI.

In Logic, when you’re making a MIDI performance, in order to give it a human feel, you typically use several tools for that, and rarely make sure that every single quarter, eighth, whatever is snapped in a rigid metric position. I would say to save a dummy copy of your piece, and with that one strictly quantize it to the smallest rhythmic level you’re using (16ths in most cases). That would take care of the rhythmic/metric start points.

Oh, and I haven’t had need for it, but there’s a possibility to quantize destructively. Choose MIDI > Region Parameters > Apply Quantization Settings Destructively

The other half of the problem is probably note length (duration). Again you’ve got a resolution issue. Logic knows precisely how long every note is, at too high a resolution for useful notation. So, depending on the passage, you could either force legato or correct note overlaps (under the Function/Notes pull down in the piano roll editor), for example, or go under the list editor and manually correct note lengths there. Maybe there’s a better way to do it, globally for example, but if there is, I don’t know it. But it seems to me you could save yourself a fair amount of editing this way, even though I also think you can’t avoid SOME editing.

I hope that helps. Let me know if it works out? Good luck!

Comment on Sibelius or Finale? by lesterbeat

lesterbeat — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:09:00 +0000

To the people who have used both, I’m curious which program would suit me better. I’ve been struggling with Finale but I think the problem is how I use it. I load in midi files created in Logic and then spend a lot of time and tedium shortening notes, erasing rests, etc. Is Sibelius better for this or is my method inherintly problematic?

Thanks.

Comment on Generative music – Part I – Tiction by Charles

Charles — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:38:28 +0000

Hi Jim,
Thanks for the comment. Actually, I’m ‘going there” right now. Or at least trying to. I’d be interested to learn from where you picked up your working knowledge of Lua. I’m going to try plugging in some of the sample scripts from the user’s guide into the software today to see what happens. I’m going to write a dedicated post to Noatikl ASAP, but I confess to being still on the fence in terms of initial impressions. I’m going to hold judgment until I’ve at least given a little bit of scripting a shot.

I have yet to hear an MP3 or video sample anywhere on the web that sounds like it’s producing anything truly compelling. So, to that end, I’d also be curious if you could point me to a non-ambient non-slow-paced non-mush piece that’s credited (at least skeletally) to Noatikl. And while I’ve been able to get an interesting, say, 15-30 second stretch of music from it, they seem like diamonds in the rough. I admit that that’s without any scripting applied.