mardi 31 mars 2009

DRAGON HOW TO DRAW

Step by step how to draw a dragon.
Follow Pascal Quidault giving birth to a dragon.
From a musical fantasy audio book in video.
This is a picture of a dragon fire breathing, out of several pictures of a dragon illustrating the audio book.
Queen Teresa Wagner burns her way into the Cathedral mounted on her huge dragon Ember.
This is the beginning of chapter four of the audio book.

Fantasy Audio Book Helena #one 1/8

http://www.musicaltales.com/helena
Musical Fantasy Audio Book
HELENA and the orchestra of the world of mist
Novel by Stephane Meer
This is the first episode of a 90 minutes story. Helena, a young piano virtuoso hears voices in her head: "The voice of the stone will destroy his power". She has visions of a black fortress, the burning cross, the prophecy...

Fantasy Audio Book Helena #one 1/8

Musical Fantasy Audio Book
HELENA and the orchestra of the world of mist
Novel by Stephane Meer
This is the first episode of a 90 minutes story. Helena, a young piano virtuoso hears voices in her head: "The voice of the stone will destroy his power". She has visions of a black fortress, the burning cross, the prophecy...

In this episode of the audio book, I try to give the hint right away of the fantasy drama to come. Therefore I introduce the visions in Helena's head. In the music, I start slow, without giving away too much, though introducing an secondary Helena's theme that will develop later.
Some people will find that chapter one is slow. It IS slow on purpose. Starting slow is my idea of building the sensation of speed when the time comes. The reader is dozing on a slow pace and will be started up in a flash.


HELENA and the orchestra of the world of mist
Novel by Stephane Meer

lundi 30 mars 2009

CONDUCT AN ORCHESTRA 1/4

Orchestra Conductor

Tutorial one, the gesture

My purpose here is not to make an exhaustive review of the thousands of aspects of how to conduct an orchestra.

The idea is that if you understand a few principles and use a few tips, you can tremendously improve the result of your experience with any orchestra. You can make things easier, sound better and save expensive studio time.

My expertise is conducting my own music, which is bound to be synchronised with a motion picture.
This is why I will talk more about the specificities of recording in sync with a film, which is a bit different from the classical techniques.

The first task of a conductor is to synchronise dozens of musicians together. This is what your right hand does. It is recommended that your gesture should hit an imaginary point, to improve precision. This is kind of simple, you think a machine could do it. But no, because there's a glitch. The bigger the orchestra, the farther away musicians are. Percussions could be 30 yards from you. It takes some time for the sound to reach you. It means your gesture is always a bit ahead of what you hear. This can be greatly improved by the use of headphones, but still you will feel the delay.

Your left hand, in classical music, is used to give infos like volume, start, stop, legato, vibrato etc. Some call it the "hand of the heart".
I'm not recommending using this technique when working with a synchronised movie. You really need such a tempo precision that both hands should be working together. If tempo permits to have a vertical movement, it gives you an extreme precision in the way the orchestra will react to you.
If you'd like to use this gesture, the volume will be given by the amplitude of your movement, and all other infos like start, crescendo, will have to be given by your eyes and head movement.

This is the end of tutorial one about the basics. You can comment and ask questions by using my stephanemeer youtube channel

Recording session with the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra

This is the orchestra recording in studio of my fantasy audio book in video.
This has been a wonderful experience for the people from brussels are so great! This is with the Brussel Philharmonic Orchestra. Only a few tracks were captured in video. I wish I could show you more. Please tell me what you think of it.
"From my dream to yours..."

samedi 28 mars 2009

AUDIO BOOK in video, Helena 5 NEW RELEASE

This is the chapter 5 of my musical fantasy audio book Helena and the orchestra of the world of mist.
This epic ending comes in a big crescendo.
The audio book basis is enhanced by the music and the video.
Please don't hesitate to comment
http://www.musicaltales.com/helena
http://www.musicaltales.com
http://www.musicaltales.fr
http://www.musicaltales.de
http://www.musicaltales.es
http://www.musicaltales.ru

Stephane Meer interviewed "author" "composer"

This is my interview.
I try to explain the concept of musical tales, or musical fantasy audio book.