[Fmpro] catagories/vocabulary

[JJB]

I don't think this is a vocabulary issue. It's important to be able to 
translate feelings into music. Your imagination needs to interpret 
"stark". There is nothing ambiguous about stark. What image does stark 
bring up in your mind?  What does stark sound like to you? Does it sound 
like a dark room with a piano in it? Does it sound like an empty 
desolate street with no trees? Wait, that's "bleak"!  People will 
usually ask you to interpret the feeling they are looking for into 
music. They won't usually ask you for "strings and oboe here with a 
heavy synthesized bass line". You need to let go of the technical 
aspects of music in this context and move into an emotionally 
interpretive mode. If you have technical skills, your 
heart/spirit/subconsicous/etc will probably take care of the translation 
into (assuming you have developed your emotive self) orchestration.  A 
stark sound can be achieved with orchestra or other instrumentation. It 
is about feeling. For instance, some major 2nd dissonance in a string 
part could easily create a stark feeling.

You could even build the starkness into desolation, despair and 
dissolution, distilled with desperation and then dazzle them with 
dissonant disinterested dorian dominance...delivered on a DVD! ;-)

Your clients will be happier if they can call you on the phone and 
describe a feeling to you, and then you can deliver that feeling. It 
doesn't matter what the orchestration is if it captures that feeling. 
Well, now you know what stark sounds like to your current clients. If 
you don't know what they are talking about, you could ask them for an 
example of music that has the feeling they are looking for, although 
once you do that, you might find yourself stuck with creating an 
imitative piece instead of something original.

 Joel