I AM PISSED

I swear! This was by far one of the best things I have ever written. I had been working on it for hours. Then what happens. I click on something, an hour glass appears. I'm waiting... it's been a while...

So what do I see in the corner of that blue bar at the top?..

"Finale 2006c NOT RESPONDING"

THIS *@#^$%@&$% PIECE OF &$^&@^$*&@^$^&!

This is a very emotional experience fo me right now...

What should I do. :(

I still have firey fury burning in my veins. Has this ever happened to anyone else?

The solution to this problem is easily solved through the implementation of a method known as "percussive maintenance."

It'll solve the anger at least...

And yes, every once in a while this happens, on the bright side, you'll only ever suffer from it once because from now on you'll learn to save very often.

I'm sorry to hear about it though, I know how aggravating it is. Remember; percussive maintenance

:(

My keyboard took a blow (the one I'm typing on...)

DK BONGOS ARE THE SOLUTION! Or my violin, or perhaps my piano. The violin sounds the most effective. I usualy do save most of the time, I wasn't listening to the little prophetic nerve in my brain telling me that I should probably save the piece before it gets to good.

I've had much worse happen. About three months after starting on my first horn concerto, I took my entirely handwritten manuscript on a trip with me... and lost it. Those three months are still the only time in my life I've ever actually put a substantial amount of time into composing - so it was about 100 hours' worth of work that I lost all at once.

I ended up writing a complete movement out entirely from memory, and rewriting most of another movement from scratch. But it was depressing for a pretty long time.

There is a good solution to this problem. Its called "print screen" :( When a program stops responding, push "print screen" then copy and paste the screen output into paintbrush, or any photo editing software. You may not capture everything, but you will capture whatever is on the screen at the time of the crash.

Don't worry about it. Remember, you may lose your work, but you will never lose your creativity. I lost a whole composition when I changed harddrives once. It wasn't all that big a deal to me because I know I am always improving, and my creativity will never be stolen from me. Thats how you should look at things.

Get in the habit of saving after every bar!

Ctrl-S!!!!!!

Yes. I lost about 70 measures of a gorgeous sonata once when my computer froze, and I was so mad that I did not continue writing the piece.

I also one time had perfected a concerto for english horn and orchestra, only to find that the file had disappeared from my computer as soon as I had finished. I'm still quite paranoid from the experience.

Sounds like i'm the only one this problem hasn't happened too. I like to write every on paper and on my program. It makes for a nice copy just in case.

It happened to me recently.

Thank God Sibelius autosaves though.

I still lost alot, which really annoyed me, but i tried to work on anyway.

You'll get over it, and end up writing better stuff, so dont worry.

But saving often is important.

That is one of the worst feelings. I absolutely hate it when it happens, so I've definitely learned to save very often. It saves a lot of sore knuckles.

My keyboard took a blow (the one I'm typing on...)

DK BONGOS ARE THE SOLUTION! Or my violin, or perhaps my piano. The violin sounds the most effective. I usualy do save most of the time, I wasn't listening to the little prophetic nerve in my brain telling me that I should probably save the piece before it gets to good.

And it will never sound the same as it did the first time. That's the way it is for me anyway. I just start with some kind of theme and compose as I go. I just take the composition wherever my ear leads me while still using some common sense.

You've probably written better stuff since, and given how fast you compose...

Losing three months' worth of work on a piece, on paper, where there's only one copy because it's all handwritten, is far more unpleasant.

I use to have this happen to me...a LOT. My computer likes to crash - it is its personal hobby. However, I look at it this way.

When I'm composing something, even if its really good and my computer crashes then thats a sign I could've composed it better - even if its like, my absolute best. That's why when I lose something that sounds really good I and I have to re-do it, suddenly the new copy sounds like an even better interpetation of the first one. It's easy for me to do that because I usually compose with my head first mostly before jotting them down in the program.

Get in the habit of saving after every bar!

Ctrl-S!!!!!!

That's what I do too, this way there is never a problem like that :D

Sorry to hear about that, it must be incredibly frustrating! I had a similar experience. When I wrote the harpsichord concerto, I had written it originally on Finale Songwriter, then viewed it in notepad, did something to it and saved, not knowing I wouldn't be able to bring it back up in Songwriter (this is obviously when I first started using these programs lol :P ) So I am basically having to re-write the 10 pages I had so far into Songwriter so I can make an mp3 for it. I understand your frustration :)

Good luck with getting it back together!

- Jen

Just adding my 2 cents here, that's why I never do it in the computer before it is written down in paper staff. The computer should be just a tool to be used after the music is finished otherwise you suffer too much...

Here's what I hate more than anything...

I reformat my hard drive and reinstall windows every couple of months, just to get everything uncluttered and so I can start from scratch. Well, I back up everything and put it on a second hard drive so that I can have everything. I thought I had my sibelius scores folder backed up, but much to my dismay, upon reinstalling windows I found that it was gone.

You can imagine how my mother felt as I stormed around the house, throwing things and yelling about it.

FOLKS. Double check all of your backups!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!