@Lanfranco : thank you 1000 times, youāve made my perfect evening playlist (in reverse order)
<= Iām here 
itās really good, bravo ! Music is the best
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Music is my lifeā¦ unfortunately I didnāt understand it when I was 15 yoā¦
For this ādiscoveryā I have to thank this Forum, the Zynthian with PianoteQ inside andā¦ if @Jofemodo wants, maybe the SWAM series together with the rest. Thanks also Jofemodo, @Riban etc etc.
Now you have to endure!!!.. 
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Thanks for your kind words @Lanfranco . I have been quite busy in the last few days. I will gladly check it at the keyboard, as soon as I find a bit of spare time 
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SarĆ (Pino Daniele)
Zynthian: Piano, AC Guitar, Double bass
SWAM: Flugelhorn
EZDrummer: Jazz Drums
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Man! I love that. The horn playing is so emotional and invocative of (smokey) clubs with dim lights, late at night. A really well played, recorded and mixed piece. Well done! 
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Thanks Ribanā¦ as I have already written, I have played trumpet, flugelhorn, soprano and tenor sax for several years and therefore āI knowā how they should behave. You canāt make very long notes, because whoever plays has to take a breath every now and thenā¦ And I make a comparison with what my sounds were, trying to emulate the behavior of the real instrumentā¦ then SWAM has really beautiful sounds. ā¦and this helpsā¦
MANY THANKS!!! 
Did you play the horn parts with a MIDI wind controller? They sound very authentic.
No, with the master keyboard. Much of the credit goes to the controller I built with the help of @mbvs
I put the mp3 file back because I didnāt realize that in the fourth to last bar I played the C#Ā° while, having lowered the whole song by a tone, I had to play a BĀ°ā¦ 
P.S.
It is very important to select the Half Valve mode in SWAM which gives that feeling of āportamentoā in the notesā¦ This is used with piston instruments.
PP.SS
ā¦ and it is absolutely forbidden to quantizeā¦ the small delays or advances make everything real and you understand that it is a man playing and not a computer.
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I recorded this beautiful song by Fossati a month ago which was also sung by Mia Martini. Unfortunately in MP3 the orchestra loses the feeling of spaceā¦ Listening to it in .wav everything is much more āopenā.
La costruzione di un amore (Ivano Fossati)
Zynthian: Piano, bass
Native instruments: Brass, Strings, Woodwinds, Timpani
Stradivari Violin: Violino solo
Pigments: Pad
EZDrummer : Drums
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Hi @Lanfranco !
Try my harmonic reconstruction, of the āCāĆØ tempoā intro sectionās onset, remembering that
the A flat - G flat melodic movement
should follow a 2+2 (quarter notes) rhythmic pattern, rather than a 3+1 scheme as in your hypothesis.
Otherwise, the elegant chromatically descending bass loses its function, and the related harmony turns out wrongly.
(after the introductory f - a flat half measure):
B flat min (1 bar) -
G flat maj (3 beats + maj 7th on the fourth beat) -
D flat maj (half bar) -
A flat maj 7 min in first inversion [C in the bass] (half bar) -
C flat maj add 9 6 Sus 5>4 (half bar) -
B flat min 7 min (half bar).
The puzzling C flat maj add 9 6 Sus 5>4 is the typically convoluted way to express in tonal harmony an interesting open chord, with an extended triad. It is much more straightforward to say that it is formed by two superimposed fourths (a flat + d flat+ g flat) floating over a C flat in the bass.
Hope this helps!
Best
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I like these harmonic ācomplicationsāā¦ Thanks
As soon as I get home Iāll start trying them on the piano.
Iām following Valerio Silvestroās courses on You Tubeā¦ but I lack the basics to understand EVERYTHING perfectly! Although I must say that since I have been studying Valerioās information, my musical theory has improved considerablyā¦
P.S.
Beautiful series!!! Complimentsā¦
However, I get stuck on this chord which (I) make sound bad.
Would you be so kind as to give me the chord note progression so I also learn something new?
Many many thanks!
I make this chordā¦ Did I misunderstand?
C# D# E G#
-----------------
B
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Hi
I have written the chord in c flat, because it makes sense to highlight the chromatic descent of the bass, from d flat to b flat.
Nevertheless, one can equally conceive it in b natural. This way, the components of the harmony, from low to high, are:
b (bass) + g# + c# + f# (resolving in f nat.)
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Hi, yes, I understood that the C flat was for that reasonā¦ I think you are someone who has studiedā¦ I would call it B even though I know perfectly well that it is not very correct. Iāll try this agreement later, but you can already feel that someone trained has put his hands (and ears) on itā¦ Thank you
If you feel like it, listen to the last song I put hereā¦ I recorded it a month ago and I worked a lot on the orchestration trying to harmonizeā¦
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Thanks @Lanfranco !
Quite busy here as of late .
I will gladly have a listening at your arrangement, as soon as I find some spare time.
Best!
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Well then ,
I remember the first listening of this song, quite a few years ago, from an older and dear friend who sadly passed away in the meantime. La costruzione di un amore was released before my time, and I can recall that my then new-wave/prog ears deemed its style rather outdated.
I donāt think that this piece is particularly representative of the original and trendsetting songwriter that Fossati was set to become, in his mid-80s to mid-90s golden decade, but it outlines some ensuing and distinctive Ivanoās linguistic features.
You clearly put a lot of generous effort, in devising a way to assimilate and re-enact the song in your own way. As of this - and speaking in the spirit of a friendly and constructive criticism - I would remark that the orchestral writing lacks an overall sense of cohesion with the sung line, which would stem from a more thorough concertation of the musical material.
One of the things that I believe the practice of counterpoint imparts - to the proceedings of whatever musical language one sets to pursue - is the quality of structural coherence. This means that a texture of intertwined musical lines supports effectively the path of a leading melody as long as they share musical cells, that migrate continually from the main part to the sustaining accompaniment, and vice versa.
More specifically, I have noticed that the arrangement of the strings tends to implement static chords, almost in the fashion of a synthesiser pad, while their voices should move with a much more vocal or quartet-like attitude, with autonomous lines building a harmonic whole in logical progression.
The writing for brass parts seems to abide a bit more to this musical philosophy, but it sometimes sounds disconnected from the prevailingly chordal backcloth of the strings.
I do hope that my impressions and suggestions might somehow turn out to be useful, and make any sense to you anyway
Cheers!
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Absolutely agreeā¦ after all I played the strings with a keyboard. You expressed what is my biggest doubtā¦ Nice to have beautiful orchestra soundsā¦ but without more than thirty musicians playing, or you record the parts one by one, otherwise you can hear that they are behind it āonlyā two hands. I agree that the horn part is played better, the horns stimulate me more, I love the trumpet and the horns. Even those are still recorded āgood firstā without overdubs. I thank you because your constructive criticism is always a starting point for meditation and improvement (within the limits of my possibilities).
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I recorded the seventh song of the CD dedicated to Ivano Fossati. This time I tried to record it to my taste in terms of sounds and not to follow the originalā¦ So I put the soprano sax that I love and several synths. Even the melodic line of the voice is not the same because I am not capable of singing like Fossati (Unfortunately!!!)ā¦
Panama (Ivano Fossati)
Zynthian : Piano, Rhodes (PianoteQ)
Omnisphere: Bass, Ac Guitar
Arturia MiniMoog: Pad
Pigments: Pad
Arturia CS-80: pad
Arturia DX7: E.piano
SWAM: Soprano sax
Kontakt: Sanfona Accordion
EZDrummer: Drums
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Hi @Lanfranco !
I encourage you to try and apply a different method, which is paramount to achieving a reliable arrangement technique with a compositional basis: writing the different parts superimposed on a score.
Composing or arranging by ear, thus recording the music as played, has a serious limitation that is hard to overcome: it binds your music to the gestural memory of your hands, and it prevents you from controlling and refining consciously the thematic, harmonic and rhythmic relationships between voices.
Furthermore, this approach tends to just draw from the perceptual repository of the aural brain, making it difficult to spot mistakes or attain innovative solutions.
Accomplished music is actually written mostly by eye, as a sort of architectural framework, with the functional support of some playing.
Believing the opposite (music is written mostly by ear, with some collateral aid from scoring on the page) is a common misconception, within many non-classically rooted musical purviews, which unfortunately entails a limited development of the concertation skills.
By the way, sequencing layered Midi channels in a grid or piano-roll environment - providing one eschews the trap of the plain repetition of patterns - often proves to be a valuable starting point, towards real scoring on multiple staves, given some similarities in the simultaneous management of melodies, metric pace and harmony.
Good luck with this, and all the best! 
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I thank you Paolo for this āeffortā you are making towards meā¦ I appreciate it very much and it is an āengineā that is pushing like the reactor of an airplaneā¦ I am studying exactly like this in these days in which I am recording" Una notte in Italia".
Unfortunately I have been studying for a few months and only now do I understand many things and I hope it takes time to put them into practice (I hopeā¦ otherwise it means that I am not good at musicā¦ and this would be very serious for me). Thank You!!!
P.S.
Just think, I have a friend from Bologna who has made a couple of records (Pop music) who keeps telling me that I should put ācleanā chords without āarzigogoliāā¦ dominant, third and fifth STOP. (and the sevenths, ninth etc etc?) ā¦ Obviously I donāt agree with this philosophyā¦ Today those who make records do it like this and this makes me very sad.
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You are most welcome Lanfranco!
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