Someone will come around and introduce themselves as a composer, and we’ll say, “That’s fine, that’s great, let’s see some scores!” We composers like to share our scores and have a look and see.

A lot more often than you would think, though, the composer in question will offer CDs instead.

This is met with some collective eye-rolling in conservatories. Does this person not know how to produce a score? Does this person even know how to read music? With software nowadays most people can create some kind of music and put it on a CD, but the printed score is still paramount in classical music. In fact, when seeing a new score for the first time, I know of several composers who refuse to even listen to the accompanying CD, as if this is demeaning in some way. The printed score, for these composers, is apparently all that matters.

And yet.

I mentioned in a prior post what John Harbison calls “us notes-and-rhythms composers.” Of course ¬†a philosophical argument can be made that music need not be limited to notes and rhythms. Almost every week the New York Times reviews some manner of concert that involves live electronics in some way: usually a laptop providing playback of samples or processing live sounds.¬†As well, these kinds of performances are not necessarily supposed to sound the same from performance to performance. It just so happens that, as with jazz or popular styles, the ability to read music can be rather incidental to someone’s inherent musicianship.

I’m not sure who is more at a loss here. On the one hand there is the aspiring young composer who might glean more by learning about theory, notation, etc.; on the other hand there is the conservatory that creates a firewall of musical literacy, one that keeps out a genuinely talented composer.

Is there a happy medium between the two?

The post The CD as music appeared first on Richard D. Russell.

Daniel Spreadbury of Sibelius

That this is so — or has been so — is pretty much admitted in a remarkably honest blog posting by Daniel Spreadbury, ¬†who happens to be the Senior Project Manager at Sibelius. As I come to Sibelius from Finale, my own particular complaint has always been about slurs. About slurs Mr. Spreadbury writes:

…it turns out that sometimes you simply need the full control afforded by all of the cubic B√©zier‚Äôs control points, so the first thing we set out to do in Sibelius 6 is provide access to all of those control points. Slurs now show six handles, all of which can be manipulated with either the mouse or the keyboard, and numerically using the Properties window. Furthermore, we made it possible to adjust the positions of each of these control points separately for slurs that cross a system or page break.

Finale users will recognize what this means — Sibelius now handles slurs much as Finale does.

Mr. Spreadbury addresses other factors in the development of Sibelius 6 as well in his blog post on “The Story Behind Sibelius 6.” For me, Sibelius 6 now represents the ideal balance between simplicity and powerful composition notation. It’s hard to imagine that Finale is capable of doing something that Sibelius can not — and Sibelius handles matters much more intuitively. I highly recommend this software.

It’s interesting, too, that Sibelius is willing to address its software challenges in a public venue such as this. Be sure to read the entire blog entry here.

The post Sibelius explains its slurs appeared first on Richard D. Russell.

How to hyphenate apple

I had to do this just today with the word “scholar” for an Emily Dickinson poem. Is it “scho-lar” or “schol-ar?” A quick look at the widget reveals that the second option is correct.

It’s a tiny detail, but those who make money in score copying can distinguish themselves by paying attention to these little extras. It lends your score an extra sheen of professionalism.

PC users, is there a similar option? Let us know in the comments section.

The post Scoring tip for Mac users appeared first on Richard D. Russell.

Learn about Sibelius by clicking here and about Finale by clicking here.

What’s your opinion on these notation programs?

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