# Scores and orchestrations



## leslieq (Oct 7, 2009)

Hey all, I'm trying out some online publishing methods so I can share my scores and orchestrations to anyone interested in the instrumentation/orchestration techniques used. No special browser plug-ins required, just Flash which 99% of the time will already be on your machine. 

There are two scores for starters: http://www.lesliequarcoopome.co.uk/2009/10/07/manuscript-comedic-antics/ and http://www.lesliequarcoopome.co.uk/2009/10/07/manuscript-mischief-managed/

I've also posted the midi mock-ups with the scores so that you can hear the tracks.

Is this of any use/interest? Any comments appreciated.

Thanks, L


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## Dave Connor (Oct 7, 2009)

Very nice. Is that Sibelius with the sounds that come with it or?


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## leslieq (Oct 7, 2009)

Yikes... it is not but I'm afraid the answer is not much better. Brace yourself, Garritan Personal Orchestra v.3 (not the new version). The audio is bounced down directly from Sibelius.


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## Dave Connor (Oct 7, 2009)

Well that's okay. You can certainly check your work in hearing it back. An excellent sounding mockup is hard to do with the best sounds.


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## synergy543 (Oct 7, 2009)

If the point is to be able to read the score, I can't - even when I zoom in (and then I only see part of the score) and I do have a fairly large monitor - a 24 inch turned vertically specifically for score reading (1920 high x 1600 wide). If the point isn't to be able to read it, then I'm not sure what the purpose of posting could be - maybe to demonstrate your composition and orchestration abilities? In that case, I suppose it works but then it might be more effective to just post a high quality mockup.

If you want other composers to be able to read your score, then why not post either a high resolution pdf or the original Sibelius file?

The composition sounds quite interesting so I wish I could actually look at it.


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## leslieq (Oct 7, 2009)

Thanks synergy543 for taking the time to look. I'm just trying out Scribd as a way of putting this stuff out there but maintaining a little bit of control over where it ends up. Call it overly cautious but it is on advice from a trusted legal buddy. I agree that fidelity is lost in the way Scribd optimises the documents but what I upload is always a high-res print-ready pdf. Not entirely sure what Scribd does to it in the conversion process. I tried other plugins like Sibelius Scorch and whilst that makes it perfectly easy to read the score, I believe the end user gets a bad experience when trying to install the darn browser plugin (maybe it's just the Mac version). Sucks!

Did you notice there is a fullscreen link? Although this appears to be a faux fullscreen functionality as it will only occupy the current size of your browser window rather than the screen resolution. Do you still have problems reading it fullscreen in a maximised browser? I know it's not perfect but is it that unreadable? 

I agree my mock-ups could be better but I guess I use the idea of mock-ups differently. They are not the end result for me. Call me a traditionalist but I learned/am learning this craft by not only listening, but studying their written representation. Music is about communication/performance and what fresh ideas a performer can bring to it. Virtual programs will give you the same performance every time. But a manuscript is a vehicle that allows for translation and interpretation. For me, that's where the excitement lies in composition. So yes, I guess in doing this I also want to say that hey, I can think in terms of instrument lines, counterpoint, motives, texture etc. Patches are sadly way down on my list.  This is perhaps not the right forum for me, right?

Haha, I'll probably not work that much then, wouldn't you agree? This kind of approach doesn't seem to be very "en vogue" at the moment. I'll bide my time...

Thanks for looking.


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## synergy543 (Oct 7, 2009)

leslieq @ Wed Oct 07 said:


> Thanks synergy543 for taking the time to look. I'm just trying out Scribd as a way of putting this stuff out there but maintaining a little bit of control over where it ends up. Call it overly cautious but it is on advice from a trusted legal buddy. I agree that fidelity is lost in the way Scribd optimises the documents but what I upload is always a high-res print-ready pdf. Not entirely sure what Scribd does to it in the conversion process. I tried other plugins like Sibelius Scorch and whilst that makes it perfectly easy to read the score, I believe the end user gets a bad experience when trying to install the darn browser plugin (maybe it's just the Mac version). Sucks!


While I've gotten Scorch to work for me, more often than not, it crashes my browser so I tend to avoid it. Plus, I don't care much for viewing music on a scrolling screen (with no option to partially rewind). I much prefer a pdf or printed paper which I can study carefully - not just view as its flying by. Although, I can understand your legal concerns, I guess I don't understand the point of posting online so it can only "partly be read". Next time, I probably won't bother looking. However, I'm probably not the viewer you're posting for but I do wonder how much your intended viewer gets from viewing this? If I want to steal something, I'll probably take it from Strauss or Ravel rather than a peer - nothing personal. :wink: 



leslieq @ Wed Oct 07 said:


> Did you notice there is a fullscreen link? Although this appears to be a faux fullscreen functionality as it will only occupy the current size of your browser window rather than the screen resolution. Do you still have problems reading it fullscreen in a maximised browser? I know it's not perfect but is it that unreadable?


Well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words....

This is a screen capture at fullscreen resolution on my 1920 x 1600 monitor of your basson line:







kinda cryptic to me - I only see four of the five lines. I'm not very good at score-reading although I could "probably" figure out the notes? But why torture myself?



leslieq @ Wed Oct 07 said:


> I agree my mock-ups could be better but I guess I use the idea of mock-ups differently. They are not the end result for me. Call me a traditionalist but I learned/am learning this craft by not only listening, but studying their written representation. Music is about communication/performance and what fresh ideas a performer can bring to it.


Dunno about the other forum members but when I'm looking at a score, I really don't care too much about the quality of the sound - I get the "jist" of the composition ideas with just about any rough mockup - Garritan works for me. I actually use Garritan for Sibelius simply because it loads quickly. Wouldn't be my first choice for production - although, I think the skill of the performer is more important than the library they use. But maybe that's just me.



leslieq @ Wed Oct 07 said:


> Virtual programs will give you the same performance every time. But a manuscript is a vehicle that allows for translation and interpretation. For me, that's where the excitement lies in composition. So yes, I guess in doing this I also want to say that hey, I can think in terms of instrument lines, counterpoint, motives, texture etc. Patches are sadly way down on my list.


I disagree (and others will disagree with me). I see samples as quite malleable and I hear tremendous differences between performances which all use the same samples. I think samples can yield dramatically different performances and CAN yield different translations and interpretations. Not denying the human players and instruments but I also see the serious studio mockup artist as a human using his instruments too.



leslieq @ Wed Oct 07 said:


> This is perhaps not the right forum for me, right?
> 
> Haha, I'll probably not work that much then, wouldn't you agree? This kind of approach doesn't seem to be very "en vogue" at the moment. I'll bide my time...
> 
> Thanks for looking.


Mods, boot this guy! :mrgreen: 

Naw, I don't think the forum has a single collective mind although some may think so. Its a just a group of people - many with different ideas, some with big mouths, and many whom these days seem intolerant of other points of view. But hey, don't let that bother you - the whole world is stressed right now. We're here to talk about music, not bloated egos.

Cheers,

Greg


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## billval3 (Oct 7, 2009)

If you click zoom (whether on full screen or not), you can make the notes as legible as you want. You'd never be able to follow along while the music's playing, though.

If you click full screen, it stops the player.

I think you make great use of GPO! It communicates your great musical ideas very well.


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## Stevie (Oct 20, 2009)

@synthetic
click on fullscreen then on "view mode: slide" and zoom in. 
Works nicely here.


Leslie, thanks for posting this!


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## Mahlon (Oct 20, 2009)

This sounds like a good idea. But I'm unable to see any score at all. The only thing I see is a blank white box beneath the word "score" and the audio player. Using IE8.

Mahlon


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## leslieq (Oct 20, 2009)

Mahlon @ Tue Oct 20 said:


> This sounds like a good idea. But I'm unable to see any score at all. The only thing I see is a blank white box beneath the word "score" and the audio player. Using IE8.
> 
> Mahlon



Oh, no. That's not good at all. Can you normally view Flash content on other websites? 

L


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## Mahlon (Oct 21, 2009)

leslieq @ Tue Oct 20 said:


> Oh, no. That's not good at all. Can you normally view Flash content on other websites?
> 
> L



Let me check it at home tonight. At present, I'm at work behind rather hefty firewall. Though I haven't had any problem with flash so far here at work.

Mahlon

EDIT: Here's what I'm seeing from work -- IE8, Windows 7.


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## leslieq (Oct 21, 2009)

Oh Mahlon, I'm sorry you're experiencing these problems viewing Scribd content. To be honest, I have no idea how to rectify the problem. I'm going to send an email to the technical support at scribd.com who provide the viewer. It's probable that they've not yet tested the embedded viewer on the latest Windows release.

Thanks for your patience.


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## Stevie (Oct 22, 2009)

That can't be the issue. I'm on Windows 7 x86 and checked with IE8. It works.
You have some content/webfilter installed? Is the Flashplugin installed correctly, etc...?


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## stevenson-again (Oct 23, 2009)

> Haha, I'll probably not work that much then, wouldn't you agree? This kind of approach doesn't seem to be very "en vogue" at the moment. I'll bide my time...
> 
> Thanks for looking.



wow - it's fantastic. very detailed orchestration. the mock-up gives a strong indication of what it would sound like with a real band - and a decent band would really bring it to life - it would sound fantastic. you know your stuff....

btw - very minded of till eulenspiegel. nice clarinet writing.


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## synthetic (Oct 23, 2009)

It works for me, but somewhat difficult to follow along. I wish there was an option to make the window bigger so I don't have to look through a tiny porthole to see the score. Nice writing, though.


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## leslieq (Oct 24, 2009)

stevenson-again @ Fri Oct 23 said:


> btw - very minded of till eulenspiegel. nice clarinet writing.



Wow, good ear. I know Til very well - totally fiendish to play in orchestra. The way Strauss uses what is essentially 3 motifs to create such as masterpiece is testimony to his genius. Out of curiosity, I went to compare the clarinet line from my cue and the Strauss 'cheeky' Til figure. I've attached them below:

When picking out the intervals, you are right, the same patterns are prevalent in Til too. I've colour-coded them to show you.

The weird bit is that I don't think I knowingly referenced Til in my cue. Here's one rationale. I'm a bit of a traditionalist so more times than not (not always) I'll adhere to music theory rules in terms of harmony, counterpoint, intervals blah blah blah. So here, by using diminished 7th interval leaps in the melody line, the only real resolution that would make sense is to move to the next semitone note. The real melody is actually the one in the attachment "the 'real' melody" but as you can see it's pretty plain with its intervals of a 6th. In keeping with the brief I set myself to depict a cat and mouse chase, I wanted to overshoot this plain intervals and recoil back to the resolution which is how I ended up at the "overshot melody" - falling further than the 6th to the diminished 7th and resolving up a step. Like my characters speeding round a corner in the chase trying to control the change in direction. This type of skidding and elasticity is what I was trying to capture by the fact that the rhythm of the melody also seems to jarr with the very metered accompaniment strings.

Sorry, I've waffled.  Haha.



And synthetic, there is a "fullscreen" button in the Scribd viewer. It's pretty small and unfortunately, I have no control over its design or size. It does push the viewer into full-browser screen. For some reason, it seems to stop any audio that is playing - again, I don't know how to fix that. :( 

L


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