On Sep 16, 2013, at 10:05 PM, Craig Parmerlee wrote:
1) In 2013 I shouldn't still have to fiddle with layouts on my parts. How many Finale releases have we seen that bragged about great new algorithms that avoid collision of printed elements? Yet, I still have to manually edit every &^%%$#$#% part by hand just to achieve the most minimally readable parts. That would be a breakthrough -- one that might have expected in 2000, not 2014. I'm with you on this. 2) How long have we had spell checkers and grammar checkers in word processors? 15-20 years anyway. Why don't we have the same things in music notation by now? Why isn't there a function that says "In measure 14, 2 instruments have B naturals that are in conflict with the B-flats in 5 other parts." Why isn't there a function that evaluates my voice leading and suggests better options? I don't agree. I don't need he computer to do the thinking for me. What you're suggesting would open a big can of worms. I'm currently working on an arrangement of "Round Midnight, and there are several places where I have both Bbs and B naturals in the same bar, in different voices - reason being, I don't want to write a bunch of Cbs. How is the computer going to determine whether my work is correct or not? I also don't need the computer to suggest better voice leadings. That's why I went to music school. 3) Much of harmonization is more-or-less formulaic. Finale offers a little help with the BIAB Harmonization plug-in, but by now, the state of the art should be much farther down the road. I'd like to point the notation program to an audio snippet from an Elgar symphony and tell the notation program "Suggest a harmonization of my melody that is like that." OK, I don't expect that in the next year, but people developing notation programs should have goals like this -- a much bigger vision than just how big to make the margin on the page. Again, I have no need for this. This is another example of trying to get the computer to do the thinking for you. 4) There is a little support for drum grooves. That's good for 2003, but in 2013, the DAW world is now very advanced in looping. I ought to be able to draw upon a library of 1000 drum patterns and loop them in my score just as I would in a DAW. Likewise for the other instruments. What sense could it ever possibly make for me to have to write drum parts from scratch each time? This kind of thing scares me, because we already have so much "music" pushed on us that is created in this way. I have no interest in this. We are talking about notation software. That implies that someone, some HUMAN, is going to be playing what is written. How about letting the drummer play what he thinks is appropriate? I never write out drum parts in a jazz or pop arrangement. I figure the drummer can come up with something infinitely better than anything I could write. But that's just me. 5) The whole concept of chords has always been a complete mess in Finale. The playback is so bad that nobody will use it, and you can't use any common system of chord spelling without spending loads of time building your own library. What I want to do is type in a chord and have the notation do a sensible comping from that. I don't expect it to be as powerful as BIAB, but I note that Sibelius has a plug-in that does some of this. This doesn't seem like a really heavy lift. Again, I don't need this. I'm fairly proficient at creating my own comping tracks. But I don't do that in Finale, I do it in Digital Performer, and if DP had full-featured notation, I wouldn't need Finale. But the MOTU guys say that full-featured notation will never happen in DP, because the majority of their users don't want or need it (probably because most of them are musically illiterate), and they're afraid that adding full-featured notation would turn DP into "bloatware." 6) Likewise, the notation program should be able to read the notes in all the staves and determine the most likely chords in use. In many scores, there would be enough information for the program to guess 80% of them correctly, and then I could spend my time on the other 20%. And the same should apply to any harmonization wizards. It should not be necessary for me to type chord names. The notation program should be able to read what is already in the bass, piano, and guitar to determine how to harmonize the sax soli. Again, asking the computer to do the thinking for you. I have the skill necessary to determine for myself what chord is being played. And I don't need the computer to suggest sax soli voicings - again, learned that in music school. All of these things would, of course, be optional. A person who only wants to model quill and parchment would never be forced to use the advanced capabilities, just as nobody is forced to use a spell checker. I'd like to see a program that does audio recording, MIDI sequencing and notation equally well. But none of the current DAWs out there come close when it comes to notation, and it doesn't seem likely that any of them ever will. When I need really good mockups of my work, I do those in DP, and then I have to start all over again from scratch in Finale, in order to get my music ready for printing. I used to be a beta tester for DP, and I tried to influence them to add better notation features. They added a few things, like the ability to choose a clef for each separate part (only treble, alto, bass and grand staff, though), and dynamics (although they don't play back - you have to do that through other means), and lyrics. A few other things were added - double bars and repeats, for example. But it's all very cumbersome - Finale does an infinitely better job - after all, it's a notation program. _____________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale Lon Price lonpr...@txstnr.com http://www.txstnr.com/ **************************** Lon Price, Los Angeles <lonpr...@txstnr.com> <http://www.txstnr.com> _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
