peanutbutter

I think it's also helpful to keep in mind that when you sit down and write something, it doesn't have to be any sort of final product. Treat your initial draft(s) as "composites" of ideas - in other words, you don't have to think of them as "organized," they can just be a collection of motives, themes, harmonies, etc. Then, you can work with the ideas ideas from "composites" as you work on later drafts. These slow steps might make the process less daunting.

Hi everyone, I think many of us have learned the hard way that writing a piece of music without any sort of plan often gives, well, unsatisfactory results. :) Lately I have been exploring different methods of planning or "sketching" a composition before I put it onto staves. For example, I have sometimes tried using a pad of unlined paper and creating a rough timeline of how I want motives to exist and interact between different instruments. E.x. - a section of a work for bassoon and piano with motives a, b, and c might look something like this (sorry if there are spacing issues; I have used the | symbol to break the sketch into groups): Bsn. a a' b b' | [frags. of a] | c a --->| rest or cpt.---> || Piano counterpoint ------> | b b' c a | cpt.----> | [augmented c] || Note that I said "motives," not "themes" -- I think this method doesn't work as well for planning the exposition and development of longer melody lines. (Also please note that I made this example up on the spot with no musical content in my head :D) Anyway, what I would love to see here is a discussion of how you sketch your compositions. Please be as specific as possible! If you plan entirely in your head, what sort of things do you think of, and when? If you actually sketch things out on paper, what materials and formats do you use? Do you have any sketching "tricks" or "shortcuts" that ease writers' block or speed up the process? I'm sure examples (for sake of better understanding) would be appreciated. Hopefully a discussion like this could be helpful to all of us since this is such an important process in composition. I hope you will contribute!

Hi everyone - I'm considering upgrading to Finale 2007 on Mac OS 10.3. I've heard several people complain about the quality of Finale on Mac and say that Sibelius is better in this way. Yet based on my experience with PrintMusic on Mac, I haven't really seen why this might be true. Can anyone explain why? Thanks!