Notation Programs

Lately I've been thinking a lot about this. When sitting at the computer, looking at the blank, computerized staff paper, ideas often flow from my hand, and not from my mind. I find myself composing with experimentation more than figuring out exactly what notes needed to be there. I think it has something to do with not knowing exactly what I'm shooting for, because it's just so easy to throw something together, y'know? Maybe I'm not explaining myself, but I think my compositions are being hurt and restricted a great deal by notation software. I believe these ideas came about from how I get most of my musical ideas. I tend to skip over to the piano and fool around, looking for an ostinato or an idea to work off of first, then build in Sibelius. But...if my best ostinatos and themes come from the piano, then why don't I write it all over the piano, making my whole work that much a success?

As of late I've taken up the task of writing an opera. Because of my thoughts on the notation issue, I've decided to write the opera fully with only manuscript, pencil, libretto, references and piano. I find that when I write at the piano, my ideas flow more smoothly, and it all gets processed in my head. I can easily decide exactly what I want and I do little experimentation when it comes to adding notes to the page. I've also decided that everything else I compose should be at the piano, or at least should mostly be at the piano, with manuscript.

What are your ideas on this, as I see most everyone composes on the computer? Have you ever written something entirely at the piano? Do you find it easier to construct ideas? Am I off my rocker for deciding not to use a program until the stages of music preparation?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about this. When sitting at the computer, looking at the blank, computerized staff paper, ideas often flow from my hand, and not from my mind. I find myself composing with experimentation more than figuring out exactly what notes needed to be there. I think it has something to do with not knowing exactly what I'm shooting for, because it's just so easy to throw something together, y'know? Maybe I'm not explaining myself, but I think my compositions are being hurt and restricted a great deal by notation software. I believe these ideas came about from how I get most of my musical ideas. I tend to skip over to the piano and fool around, looking for an ostinato or an idea to work off of first, then build in Sibelius. But...if my best ostinatos and themes come from the piano, then why don't I write it all over the piano, making my whole work that much a success?

As of late I've taken up the task of writing an opera. Because of my thoughts on the notation issue, I've decided to write the opera fully with only manuscript, pencil, libretto, references and piano. I find that when I write at the piano, my ideas flow more smoothly, and it all gets processed in my head. I can easily decide exactly what I want and I do little experimentation when it comes to adding notes to the page. I've also decided that everything else I compose should be at the piano, or at least should mostly be at the piano, with manuscript.

What are your ideas on this, as I see most everyone composes on the computer? Have you ever written something entirely at the piano? Do you find it easier to construct ideas? Am I off my rocker for deciding not to use a program until the stages of music preparation?

Actually! I agree with ou 100 percent here! When I try to write using a notation program, I find that I have no idea what i'm doing! Thankfully, I don't do that much. I don't use the piano like you use or even the guitar. I walk around everywhere with my manuscript paper and write down what ever tune I hear or feel. For example, my water fountain song! I didn't use the piano, just wrote it down the car trip home. Thankfully I wasn't driving! I think it's important to outline a song before writing it down note by note. Get the general idea of what you want before you start. The best ideas are formed that way. I use sib during my editing processes though. It makes it a lot easier!

Here's what I would do...

Sit at the piano, completely compose your piece, memorize the whole thing, perfect it.

THEN, notate exactly what you've been playing after you've completed it on the piano.

Chris

Interesting. I think I'm the opposite.

For years I wrote pieces on the piano only, for the piano only. Then when I was fifteen I got my first notation software (and immediately searched for and joined YC...hehe). The first piece I wrote on it (August 2002) I scored for piano and flute, just because it looked manageable and I'd never tried it before.

Anyway, that wasn't a bad piece really. I went on to write a few more pieces for the same combination of instruments and started feeling confident enough to try a few trios (piano, flute, and violin) - the last of which (written in June 2003) won me a small young composers' competition. At this point, I tried string quartets (not too successfully, but well enough to get me interested) and a few other combinations.

I've never studied harmony. Composing for me has always been totally intuitive. At first this was because I preferred it that way, thinking somewhat naively that if I ever discovered a logical approach to composing I wouldn't enjoy it anymore. Gradually, though, something happened; I started becoming more skilled at composing, still intuitively but through all the practise I was getting!

Nowadays I'm way more confident than I was, and I feel bold enough to try weird projects when I'm inspired to start them. I still haven't tried anything for a large ensemble, but it looks like a realistic goal now. I have a long way to go, but I'm getting there. In the meantime, I'm writing some pretty neat things.

However, this all may just be because I've always been better at composing by looking at the score rather than by looking at the instrument. This is something I didn't discover until just a few years ago, after some experience with notation software. For the first year and a half I had PrintMusic, I wrote nothing at the piano; to this day, every completed piece I've written at the piano has been only for the piano. And I've never composed so much as a bar on any other instrument. This never struck me as weird before, but it does now; obviously having software around was instrumental (heh) in helping me branch out a bit. (Interestingly, the one piece I started for only the piano at the computer [January 2003] still sounds to me like a really amazing idea but never got past 20 bars!)

Actually!

I really don't like composing at the computer. It's useful for putting down notes quickly, but I also tend to get distracted listening to my own music and adjusting a note here or a note there. Basically, when I'm at the computer, I spend too much time revising and not enough time writing.

That said, I don't compose at the piano either. It distracts me in a different way - I start improvising and going off on a tangent, and it either breaks my concentration or at least breaks away from my planned form. There's also the disadvantage that, when writing at the piano, I start to think in terms of what's possible with the piano, and that takes away from my ability to think about an ensemble that can do things a piano can't, and therefore restricts what I write. I wrote most of the first two movements of my horn concerto at the piano, but largely abandoned the piano, except for testing harmonies when the notes get really messy, within six months of beginning to compose.

All of my work since - the third and fourth movements of my horn concerto; my "Faerie Wind" quartet; and the current extent of my (unfinished) piano quartet - has been done using pencil and paper, without using notation software until I want to produce a MIDI file, and with minimal use of musical instruments.

Interesting. I've wondered about this too.

But I composed with manuscript paper and pencil for so long that my personal composition processes and discipline are ingrained in my mind, and nothing is going to change them. I almost never compose at an instrument...most of my ideas come from hearing them in my mind's ear, often fully formed. So when notation software came along, it only sped up a process that was already firmly in place.

Also, through playback, I learn faster what works and what doesn't work. I remember the days when I'd compose a piece, get an opportunity to set it before my musician friends for a reading, and occasionally (to my horror), what I thought was something great ended up not working at all...and I might not even know why. That doesn't happen anymore. I know how the piece will sound before I set it before musicians, and if it doesn't sound right when they play it, I know it's because they're making the mistakes. I make all my mistakes in my studio.

It's easy to abuse the piano, and its easy to abuse notation software when it comes to composing. You know you've gone too far when your hands or your mouse does the composing, and not your musical mind.

With that in mind, unless you are abusing notation software, it may be the single most important advance in composition for a long time. Notation software has the potential to greatly ease the pains of doing something that really isn't related to creating music - the tedium of writing it down. I'm not sure how Sibelius works, but I've achieved a certain fluency of Finale's Speedy Entry which allows me to input notes and rests using the numberpad which is several times faster than I could possibly write them. In addition, the music is usually perfectly aligned afterwords which allows me to better analyze what I've written so far. I think with the aid of notation software, it may be possible that one day a talented composer could come along and usurp Bach as the most prolific composer (this is not a definate fact, he's certainly one of the most though).

I've never studied harmony. Composing for me has always been totally intuitive. At first this was because I preferred it that way, thinking somewhat naively that if I ever discovered a logical approach to composing I wouldn't enjoy it anymore. Gradually, though, something happened; I started becoming more skilled at composing, still intuitively but through all the practise I was getting!

Curiously, that's pretty much my philosophy towards composing music as well! I could never get my self to seriously study music through books and classes, and have rationalized that fact down to enjoying the spontaneous creation of music more than the logical - in knowing the theory behind this and that, it would make it lose it's "magic" (as knowing how an illusionist's magic trick works certainly makes his act less appealing). But in doing so, I've discovered that I can't really progress because it seems that for every one step I make forward, I end up taking one back somewhere along the way (if that makes any sense :lol:). Hopefully, this little dilemma will resolve itself one way or another (though my composition progress is getting somewhat better - I've moved up from "randomness" into "abstract strucutres" :)).

Anyways, onto notation programs. Sadly, since I do rely mainly on an intuitive process, a lot of the time I will take the "easy" way out when composing with a sequencer (ie, copying and pasting - especially for drum tracks, lots of transposition - for cheap chord progressions, etc). On the piano, I improv lots of random, though often interesting passages - unfortunately I don't have the patience or memory capacity (being as absentminded as I am :D) to keep note of the good ones for long. Hopefully, I'll eventually write some music outside of the computer, and maybe even that which I can perform myself (I do occasionally use a MIDI keyboard, but usually play too off-tempo for quantisize, and I never liked step-record). But as many have said, balance is key. Learn to make the most of both methods and hybridize it into a process which works to your liking. (On a side not, did the spellcheck get knock off?)

wow. this is very interesting. Seeing how i'm only 12, I have yet to buy a notation software, but am planning on getting one for my birthday in a month. I've only composed three pieces and they all were for the piano. I composed them measure by measure at the piano and tried my best to memorize the measure that i just figured out. I think, as soon as i get the software, I'll figure out a measure or so of what i want to write (at the piano) then enter it into the program and continue on in that way. That way i won't have to play the measure that i like over and over to memorize it before i forget it.

I'm terribly sorry if this isn't making any sense, but i hope it does.

I also have one random question: this didn't use to happen, but within the past 2 weeks i've begun hearing music in my head. I wonder if my head is making it up or if it's some piece i heard a long time ago that is coming back to me...does this happen to you guys?

Agian, i hope i'm making sense.

Actually!

I think it is good that you are hearing music in your head... it happens to everyone that listens to/composes music. The question of whether it is your subconcious bringing back music that you heard in your past or whether it is completely new ideas floating around, I nor anyone else on this forum can answer. I can tell you that it is very good, one way or another, that you are having these ideas and that most likely, some are your own ideas, some are coming from pieces you heard in the past.

I personally find that when I hear an idea in my mind, it may be original, but it was most likely inspired by something I heard.

that's interesting! thanks!

You've got a good point but keep in mind that all notation software these days comes with the ability to record what you play.

For example, I do most of my composing using a keyboard synth, not a piano. I am the first to agree that the piano sounds/feels special etc etc BUT, I prefer the keyboard because it allows me (through a simple MIDI cable connection) to simply play my song and have my notation software (Finale 2006) record it and notate it for me exactly the way I want it to be.

Afterwards all I have to do is edit the notes that the program takes down for me and make it into a good-quality piece of sheet music. That of course is assuming that I want to have sheet music, sometimes I just want the Mp3 so I make that and don't bother editing the sheet music.

The advantage, as far as I'm concerned, is that you save time and effort.

I have spoken. :P

In your situation, Nickthoven, i would recommend singing or humming, and recording that. It may sound ridiculous, but as a new technique, it explores other parts of your creativity.

I presonally caught myself on the same thing: when composing strictly on paper/computer, the ideas are different, they are more thought out, and the piece easily gets a specific , in some way clumsy feel. On the other hand, i would never get some ideas on piano, which i spotted during a writing session, because always i am mostly locked on creating lines and harmonies i am at least slightly accustomed to. A kind of "finger-memory".

When singing, another parts unlock (some hide themselves) so the effect is another kind of melody, i hope that it can be more melodic, and fluid.

Yeonil