Subject:  rainyday.mid and rainyday.syx files
Author:   Greg Youngdahl  (greg@ihlpm.att.com)

	OK, so my previous contribution (frantic) was pretty open and not
too well focused as to where people could contribute (not to mention rather
lame and monotonous).  So I have a completely different approach here...

	Another mailing list I'm on is taking submissions for a cassette
project that will contain MIDI generated music (often with vocal and other
instruments as well) to be shared among the contributors and whomever else
cares to purchase a copy (the list members have to pay for their copies as
well of course).  The costs just cover the price of tape duplication and
such, no one is making money (aside from the tape duplication house).  They
have imposed a deadline of Oct. 31 for submitting entries for this tape.
That gives us two things, a target (to get on the tape), and a deadline.

	I'm planning to submit *some* song to that tape.  What I'd like
to do is find some people to work with via email to create something that
can be played on a single JV-80 and be able to show off its capabilities.
In addition to our musical creativity, we will need to exercise some
creativity in choosing our patches and reserving voices and otherwise
allocating the resources of the JV.

	So, I'm offering up my rainyday.mid file (and the .syx).  It was
raining last Sunday.  I'm thinking of it as the prototype of the song,
and ultimately would like to develop it to have some more dynamic ebbing
and flowing (perhaps extending the progressions, or adding some interlude
parts).  For now, here is what it has:

	Track 1: ChorusGuitar	This is the patch I conjured up to demonstrate
				a chorus effect without the JV's chorus.
	Track 2: Maraca
	Track 3: Drums		Kick, Snare, and some toms
	Track 4: Lily Pad	Some fill in with my old favorite

	I want to be the ChorusGuitar player, and the Lily Pad player :-)
As you will see, I could really use a drummer.  Perhaps a "kit" drummer
and a percussionist would be neat.  The bass player spot is open.  And
since ChorusGuitar and Lily Pad are definitely rhythm positions, well need
some soloists, and incidental riff type of stuff, or ???.

	What I'd like is for people to pick a role, select an instrument
and lay down a track to what is here, and I'll take the lot of them and
see if I can make any sense out of it all (of course anyone else can try
their hand at making their own sense out of them as well ;-)  For this part
of the process lets just adhere to the current arrangement, so that
everyones contribution will work together (perhaps ;-).  Ultimately as the
contributions begin to guide the project we can work on expanding the
arrangement.

	I suppose I should explain my drum and maraca tracks, for the
benefit of whomever wants to take the drummer role, and anyone eles that
might be interested...

	The maraca track is the beginning of my first concept of what I
wanted to do for the percussion tracks, but I never settled on what I
wanted (I do have some experimental tracks that I left out of the .mid).
This was going to be my attempt at doing a percussion track with no kick/
snare/hi-hat/toms type of drums, but rather one of those ever ebbing and
flowing percussion tracks where there are maybe 20 different percussion
instruments (wood blocks, congas, sticks, cowbells, triangles, bongos,
wind chimes.....) all playing little sparse parts that interweave.
Then I found myself basically incompetent to create one that really flowed.
Out of desperation came the "Drums" track, which takes the song in a rather
different direction, but I could see some possibilities in combining the
a "Kit" drum and the percussion, as long as both were sparse enough that
we could afford the polyphony for them.

	Some notes so far about use of resources:

The ChorusGuitar patch takes 2 tones per note.  There are occasional times
where I'm playing 5 notes, but most of the time it is 4 or less (I think
released notes can be ignored as long as the new notes are playing with this
patch).  That is 10 tones of polyphony.  In the introduction (with the
octaves in the bass) that might be justified, but later in the song, when
more was going on, I could certainly drop the lowest note, and maybe even
both bass notes in a pinch).

The Lily Pad patch also takes 2 tones per note, and for the most part what
I'm playing is 3 note chords (6 tones).  I'd bet that when the song fills
out more I could work out a combination of 2-note chords that might
actually be more interesting (better movement).


	So, thats what I'm proposing for now.  Pick an instrument and add a
part to the song.  Just keep the ChorusGuitar and Lily Pad parts intact (for
now) and take it from there.  Feel free to change tempos, or whatever to
fit the style of part you want to add.  If you need to dump the drums and
add a different beat (even if you aren't intending to be the "drummer" you
might want replace the drums with something to better demonstrate the "feel"
you need for the part you want to propose) then do it.

	Hopefully this will provide more structure for our collaborations.
At least *I* think that this is a better basis to start from than was my
previous "Frantic" submission ;-)   and it will give us a chance to show
off (and to explore the limits ourselves) what can be done with a lone '80.
Anyone want to give it a try?
