Shaping — Exercise No. 5

Shaping

Exercise no. 5

On Franz Schubert’s Ave Maria (Ellens dritter Gesang, D 839) (1825) — public domain.
Exercise material © 2026 Mario Maurano. All rights reserved.

What you will do: in Exercise no. 4 you cleaned up the Ave Maria and played it over the piano. The accompaniment is correct, but it sounds flat: every note exactly on the grid, like a machine. Here you give it shape — the right-hand triplets heard as groups, each group breathing, and the tempo settling at the end of the verse —. Then you record yourself again.

How long: about thirty minutes. What you need: the file Ejercicio-5_Ave_Maria.mmf (the finished score from Exercise no. 4), the COSMIC KEYBOARD open for sound, and Exercise no. 4 done.

If something goes wrong: the UNDO button on the top bar undoes the last step, and you can press it several times in a row. Try things without fear.

Five words you will meet

Triplet
three notes in the time of two. The piano’s right hand plays two triplets per beat, each one starting after a rest.
Intelligent Beams
the Score reads how the notes are grouped under one beam and plays them as a group, with strong and weak notes. The Level says how much it shows.
Agogics
the small pushes and holds that make music breathe. Nobody plays with a metronome; agogics is what the metronome lacks.
ASYM AGOG region
a golden band over a stretch of one channel. Inside it the notes move earlier or later along a curve. With Move, the stretch pushes forward toward the middle and comes back to the grid at the end: the group leans ahead and settles.
Pattern
a region with a name. Named, it can be taken to other bars in one go (Take) and hidden or deleted all together.

PART ONE — THE TRIPLETS

IN THE PICTURES: the orange circles show where to look or click.

1 · Open the file and listen to the piano alone

Open the SCORE (from the COSMIC KEYBOARD) and in MENU FILES → IMPORT MMF load Ejercicio-5_Ave_Maria.mmf. Open the CONSOLE too and press M on the clarinet channel, as in Exercise no. 4: now you will work on the piano.

Listen to the first verse. Watch the right hand (CH2 · RH): the chords all go the same, one after the other, with no direction.

2 · Intelligent Beams: the triplets as groups

  1. Right-click the 3·2 button on the top bar (next to R·K): the INTELLIGENT BEAMS window opens.
  2. In Range: M 1 → M 31 — the whole verse and the interlude.
  3. In CH: the channel you had active comes on. Turn it off and turn on only 2: the right hand.
  4. In Level: 3.
  5. Close the window with its ⊗.
Check: at the bottom of the window you read «✓ Level 3 · M1–M31 · CH 2 · 620 notes». Listen: the first note of each triplet leans and the other two follow. They are no longer loose chords, they are groups.
INTELLIGENT BEAMS — right-click on 3·2 — Range 1 → 31, only CH 2, Level 3, and the confirmation line

3 · An ASYM AGOG region in bar 1

Now that the triplets sound grouped, give them motion. Start with the first two beats of bar 1.

  1. Press ◻ SELECT (it turns ◼) and leave CURSOR · CH.
  2. In the right hand (CH2), drag from the start of bar 1 to the end of beat 2. Start the drag above the notes, at the height of the top staff line.
  3. Right-click inside the region, just above the top staff line, where there are no notes: the SELECTION menu opens.
  4. At the bottom of the menu, ⌘ ASYM AGOG.
If you drag from a note, you move it. In SELECT, starting the drag on a notehead moves it instead of selecting. If that happens, UNDO and start again higher up. And as in Exercise no. 4: right-clicking a note opens its editor, not the SELECTION menu.
The selection and the SELECTION menu — the first two beats of CH2 selected and ⌘ ASYM AGOG at the bottom of the menu

The ASYMETRIC AGOG editor opens and a golden band appears on the score.

  1. PHASE: Move.
  2. INT (intensity): Expressive.
  3. Check that the axis reads AXIS: TEMPO — the region moves time, not volume.
  4. Close the editor with its ⊗ and press Esc to leave SELECT.
The ASYMETRIC AGOG editor — Move, Expressive and AXIS: TEMPO; above, the band

4 · Fit the band and name it

The band has to start after the rest at the beginning of the bar — the rest does not move — and end at the end of beat 2.

  1. Bring the mouse to the band’s left edge (the thin line) until the cursor turns into ↔, and drag it to just after the rest. The edge snaps in small steps.
  2. If the right edge is not at the end of beat 2, drag it the same way.
  3. Right-click the band’s right edge, just above the top staff line: the REGION menu opens.
  4. In Name type con int. mov. (“with inner motion”) and press ✓.
Check: the REGION menu title reads From M1.0.17 to M1.2 — the stretch starts a little after beat 1 (after the rest) and ends with beat 2. Listen to bar 1: the first two triplets push forward and settle on the second one.
The edge and the name — the left edge after the rest; the REGION menu with Name «con int. mov.»

5 · The second band: beats 3 and 4

The same for the other half of bar 1:

  1. ◻ SELECT and drag over CH2 from beat 3 to the end of the bar, above the notes.
  2. Right-click above the top line, inside the region → ⌘ ASYM AGOG.
  3. Move · Expressive, close the editor and Esc.
  4. Drag the left edge to after the rest of beat 3.
  5. Right-click its right edge → Name: the same name, con int. mov. (the field offers it in its list) → ✓.
Check: bar 1 has two bands, each starting after its rest. The second one reads From M1.2.17 to M1.4.
The two bands of bar 1 — one for each half of the bar

6 · Take it through the whole verse

No need to do it 31 times: both bands have a name, so they are a pattern.

  1. Right-click the edge of the first band → REGION menu.
  2. In the Take row: M 2 to M 31 and ✓.
  3. The Score reports «30 copies of con int. mov.». Close the notice with its ×.
  4. Repeat with the second band: Take M 2 to M 31 ✓.
Check: every bar from 1 to 31 has its two bands. In the REGION menu, the row Hide all “con int. mov.” counts 62.
Take — the REGION menu with Take M 2 to M 31, and the verse with the copied bands

7 · Listen and compare

Listen to the whole verse. Then compare it with the unshaped piano:

  1. Right-click the edge of any band → Hide all “con int. mov.”.
  2. The bands disappear and the piano sounds flat again. Listen to the same bars.
  3. Press ↩ (UNDO) and the 62 bands come back.
Hidden does not play. A hidden region does not move time, and it cannot be reached with a right-click either. To bring it back without undoing: put the yellow cursor inside its span and press Alt+H — the REGION menu opens with Show region and Show all. To remove the pattern for good, the same menu has Delete all “con int. mov.”.
Compare — Hide all «con int. mov.» (62), the verse without bands, and UNDO at the top

PART TWO — THE TEMPO

8 · The tempo, last

With the shape in place, the file’s ♩ = 52 feels heavy. You will set three markings: the tempo of the piece, and two that are not printed — they are there for the sound — at the end of the verse.

WhereBPMTermScopeShown
bar 160LentoThis barShow
bar 28, first right-hand note62—This placeHide
bar 29, halfway through beat 354—This placeHide

For each one:

  1. Put the yellow cursor on the spot. Click the staff at that point. For bar 28, click the first right-hand chord (after the rest). For bar 29, click above the right-hand notes, between the second and third chords of beat 3.
  2. TEMPO button: the TEMPO window opens.
  3. Type the BPM first. The Score suggests a term; if the marking has one (the Lento of bar 1), type it afterwards in Term.
  4. Scope: This bar for bar 1; This place for the other two — the marking goes at the cursor’s exact point.
  5. The Show / Hide switch: Show for bar 1, Hide for the other two.
  6. The bottom button: Toggle / Update Marking in bar 1 (there already was a Lento there, and it changes it) or Insert Marking for the new ones.
Check: above bar 1 it reads Lento ♩ = 60. The other two are not printed; with SHOW HIDDEN on in the TEMPO window they show faintly (♩ = 62 and ♩ = 54). Listen from bar 27 to 30: a little more life as the verse ends, and a breath that slows before starting again.
When you set a tempo marking other than the first one, the coach 🎓 may explain how a new tempo settles. Read it and close it with its ×.
The three tempo markings — the TEMPO window in bar 1 (60 · Lento · This bar) and in bar 28 (62 · This place · Hide); below, the end of the verse

Save it: MENU FILES → EXPORT MMF.

9 · Record yourself again

Record as in step 11 of Exercise no. 4: the clarinet on M, your 🎤 MIC channel set, and ⏺ REC in the Console.

Then listen to both recordings, the one from Exercise no. 4 and this one. Did the way you play change over a piano that breathes? Where do you let yourself be carried, and where do you have to wait for it?

Want to compare with a finished version?Open Ejercicio-5_Ave_Maria_solucion.mmf: the same 62 bands, Intelligent Beams on the right hand and the three tempo markings.

Congratulations: the accompaniment is no longer a machine

Try other shapes in bar 1 — Inhale, Arrive, another intensity — and hear how the character changes. UNDO always takes you back to con int. mov.