# Composing orchestral music with score sheet vs DAW



## borisb2 (Jul 30, 2020)

Hi all,

not a new topic I know - but I'm not sure if I'm slowly hitting a wall when composing orchestral music. So the resulting question I am facing at the moment is:

Is there a limit how complex/contrapuntal/polyphonic a piece can be composed when composing straight into DAW? I know that highly depends on how good you can play your inputting instrument (piano), but still, at least in my case I can clearly hear that my pieces - no matter how chromatic, fast or tutti these pieces are - were written on piano. They just never leave the chordal/vertical structure, which is ok for romantic pieces, but not so much for more modern interweaving complex structures.

What is your process to overcome that? Switching to score sheet, relying more on step input/score editor in DAW (rather than trying to play that 3-octave string voicing), or do you have any other tricks?

I know John Powell uses 3-4 piano staffs in Cubase - but is he really composing that way or only using these for sketching his orchestrations? Guy Michelmore frequently switches to score sheet when it comes to good string voicings. I assume composers like Alain Mayrand, Robin Hoffman or Andy Blaney wouldnt even touch a DAW while composing..

happy for any input ..


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## Dave Connor (Jul 30, 2020)

Complex textures - particularly contrapuntal in nature - should be worked out properly in whatever manner facilitates the process to its greatest advantage. In my case, I usually end up using pencil and paper or possibly a notation program or even both. Obviously you won’t get the resultant sound of traditional counterpoint (or any other most likely) if the writing isn’t informed by a genuine, practiced, technique.

I’ve seen fantastic counterpoint by Van Dyke Parks written entirely in Digital Performer. He doesn’t have any issue with doing it that way (in the notation part of the program most likely.) Personally there is something about working with midi that tends to influence writing decisions - all things considered. A three or four part contrapuntal texture (in my case) requires being oriented to notes on a page as opposed to a piano roll.


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## CT (Jul 30, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> Is there a limit how complex/contrapuntal/polyphonic a piece can be composed when composing straight into DAW? I know that highly depends on how good you can play your inputting instrument



You answered your own question. If you can conceive of the music clearly enough in your head, it shouldn't matter if you capture it by performance in a DAW or write it on paper first.

I'm sure every composer who uses a DAW and has notational skills struggles with this balance, and in my experience the only way to arrive at the right solution is just to try both approaches, and figure out which gets you the results that you prefer, though which process you prefer will play a part as well, since ideally composing should be an enjoyable act instead of a chore.


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## Al Maurice (Jul 31, 2020)

Hi -- many DAWs now have a notational view, so in that way you can get the best of both worlds. I often switch between both when handling anything of a polyphonic nature, as it's easier to spot/adjust how the voices weave and check for their independent nature; especially in cases when voices cross-over or overlap as I find it can be difficult to see in the piano roll sometimes.

As has been stated it all depends what workflow works best for your scenario, I suppose you should try this for yourself and see which way works best: purely notational approach, using features of a DAW alone or a hybrid approach.


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## Keith Theodosiou (Jul 31, 2020)

When i compose, it is soley in a DAW. Most of us tend to write using the keyboard but you will find a lot of the times, you can't physically play in the parts so you start programming the notes in. That is totaly fine as in a way, it is like writing the notes down on paper but you get to hear the notes instantly in the DAW.

There is one BIG mistake that a lot of us do and i do it too is, we tent to write as piano players not orchestraters.

Paul Thompson mentions that in one of his videos. What we have to do for orchestrating what we have written, is get out of the 'piano player' mode and convert what you have written to fit strings, woods and brass.

I personally don't feel that writing to paper gives you better composition. It is totally down to how you orchestrate and arrange that matters.


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## mikeh-375 (Jul 31, 2020)

......much better imv to be thinking orchestrally as you write and not as an afterthought.


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## borisb2 (Jul 31, 2020)

Keith Theodosiou said:


> Paul Thompson mentions that in one of his videos. What we have to do for orchestrating what we have written, is get out of the 'piano player' mode and convert what you have written to fit strings, woods and brass.


Interesting thoughts. But what else could I do besides thinking of that instrument (tessitura, style etc.) when writing?


Al Maurice said:


> many DAWs now have a notational view..


I need to have another look at cubase‘s score editor. So far I didnt find any resource (Youtube etc) that deals with actually inputting notes with that editor


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## Scamper (Jul 31, 2020)

I think it shouldn't make a difference for the limit of orchestration, whether you use DAW or score sheet.

If you're used to a score sheet though, I can imagine it's easier to see relations and voicing of instruments, which could be an advantage. Also, since every instrument has it's own clef, which stays the same, it's easier to see how lines fit the instrument. If you're using paper, it can also be faster to sketch.
In the end, if you're getting used to the piano roll in the DAW, this should work in a similar effective way than reading a score.

While I think a piano sketch is also great to start with, the realization of the orchestration is probably limited the most by our imagination and knowledge of orchestration techniques. So, it should be very helpful for all of us to listen to more orchestrated music in detail and transcribe lots of it as well.


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## Keith Theodosiou (Jul 31, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> Interesting thoughts. But what else could I do besides thinking of that instrument (tessitura, style etc.) when writing?


Well, when we write as piano players, we can only generally play a chord on our right hand between one octave, left hand usually doing the bass part.
But, when we put that chord to an orchestra, the idea is not to get say just the violins to play that chord within that octave but you could have 2 violins playing 2 notes of that chord and two winds playing another 2 notes of that chord and it could all be split between 3 or 4 octaves to give more depth and less clutter.

I really am guilty of not arranging like this but i am trying harder to get out of the piano chord syndrome.


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## JohnG (Jul 31, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> happy for any input ..



I am sure that some composers can write brilliantly using anything, but for me, if I'm writing with a piano sound, I write music that sounds good on: a piano.

If you want to write lines that players want to play, try singing, or using a sound (organ? choir? string pad? synth pad?) that sustains. Otherwise it's possible you're falling into the same trap as I would.

Although maybe I don't actually understand your question in the first place!


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## Rasoul Morteza (Jul 31, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> I know that highly depends on how good you can play your inputting instrument (piano), but still, at least in my case I can clearly hear that my pieces - no matter how chromatic, fast or tutti these pieces are - were written on piano. They just never leave the chordal/vertical structure, which is ok for romantic pieces, but not so much for more modern interweaving complex structures.


Hi Boris,

Your question is hard to answer but hard to clarify as well. It's just the nature of it. I always write horizontally in a way that the vertical resolutions/cadences become a secondary consequence of the independent lines moving forward. I have a personal bias towards that style as fugal writing is more pleasing to me compared to other forms of string writing. You really need one or two notes to capture the mood on point anyway (very applicable when composing to picture), everything else is optional coloring. Singing the different lines has amazing effects too, hence why some find those who write to paper directly to be more innovative in some areas compared to their MIDI counterparts. It has nothing to do with the DAW or the paper though, but with the fact that when writing to paper you are forced to sing/imagine your parts. This doesn't happen when you write to a string/piano patch directly, falling into old habits. I don't think the DAW or paper workflows have much to do with anything.

And of course refreshing your vocabulary with new music can help.

Not sure if any of this is helpful, it is only how I look at it.

Cheers


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## Gene Pool (Jul 31, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> Is there a limit how complex/contrapuntal/polyphonic a piece can be composed when composing straight into DAW? I know that highly depends on how good you can play your inputting instrument (piano), but still, at least in my case I can clearly hear that my pieces - no matter how chromatic, fast or tutti these pieces are - were written on piano. They just never leave the chordal/vertical structure, which is ok for romantic pieces, but not so much for more modern interweaving complex structures.




It may be more a matter of how you’re conceiving the music than how you're playing it in. The way you play it in is just a reflection of what’s already going on in your head. Can you conceive music in the different orchestral textures? If so, try to be conscious of composing in the more linearly-inclined ones. If you do that, you’ll be inputting music with one finger at a time, rather than both hands playing out a bunch of blocky vertical stuff. This even pertains to textures that seem more vertical in effect.

A good illustration of that last point is the Bach chorales. If you look at the standard book of 371 of them, they’re notated for playability on piano, onto a grand stave (by the publisher, not by Bach), and the chorale texture makes them appear somewhat more chordal in nature than they actually are (and the routine chord labeling that some people do doesn’t help, either). But you can’t really understand the chorales unless you see them how Bach wrote them, which is each voice on its own stave. And that’s how he taught his composition students to write them—one stave per line—so that they would conceive them linearly and not think of them as a succession of chords. Even the best fugue pianist cannot play a Bach chorale the way it should sound, sung as lines by the four voice groups.

So, examine how you’re conceiving the music in the first place, and make the necessary adjustments so that you’ll compose according to the particular orchestral textures you need at any given point. Think linearly; not vertically. All since all the best orchestral music was conceived in music notation, you probably ought to start resorting to it more, at least when you find yourself with the problem you mentioned.



borisb2 said:


> I know John Powell uses 3-4 piano staffs in Cubase - but is he really composing that way or only using these for sketching his orchestrations?




You don’t really sketch orchestrations; you orchestrate sketches. Powell’s 3–4 grand staves is very much like John Williams’ 8-stave format. It’s a limitation of two staves per orchestral group (notwithstanding the occasional adjustment) that forces you compose efficiently for orchestra and meet a deadline. Composing in open score is something you’d only do if time weren’t a factor.

And speaking of limitation, remember that most well-written tutti orchestrations can be reduced to three or four staves anyway, with just a little bit of condensing. Orchestral instruments, especially when they are combined and scored in octave doublings, are so overflowing with overtones that it doesn’t take more than three simultaneous elements to achieve a solid sense of fullness. And, element-wise, most listeners can’t consciously discern beyond three elements anyway. Most musicians can, but not normies. And if your final destination is for live players, you can run into ensemble problems if your textures are overwritten, so that’s a practical consideration.

In summary: Know your orchestral textures, and consciously compose accordingly.


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## borisb2 (Jul 31, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> It may be more a matter of how you’re conceiving the music than how you're playing it in. The way you play it in is just a reflection of what’s already going on in your head. Can you conceive music in the different orchestral textures? If so, try to be conscious of composing in the more linearly-inclined ones. If you do that, you’ll be inputting music with one finger at a time, rather than both hands playing out a bunch of blocky vertical stuff. This even pertains to textures that seem more vertical in effect.


Great thoughts. Thanks for that.



JohnG said:


> If you want to write lines that players want to play, try singing, or using a sound (organ? choir? string pad? synth pad?) that sustains. Otherwise it's possible you're falling into the same trap as I would.


The (lack of-) sustain aspect of the piano is a pretty important one when composing. I did try to come up with some kind of piano+strings pad but that just didnt do it - sounding too sweet/cliche.

Thanks everyone for all the very interesting responses.

My take away from this is to listen more to the inner ear when composing, not what I am actually noodleing on the piano or trying to play in the DAW. I am already playing usually the lines in one by one after composing a fragment (even chordal), but what habit I CAN change is to not actively trying to capture too much "with the piano" but just treat it as a tool to input lines coming from my head (hopefully) - same goes for starting to use more the step- or score-input, treating it just as another tool to input what hopefully was waiting in my head.. That will take a bit of practise. So far I have something in my head, but then use my piano-playing to shape it - seem like being a wrong approach.

Another takeaway might be to have one more look at the template, trying to organize it even better, so that for sketching or rather orchestrating I have basically 1 instrument/track per staff, resulting in a page/part-view that almost looks like score sheet - at least from the vertical structure point of view .. so far, even after a lot of optimization I'm still scrolling through 590 tracks in my current template

In case anybody is interested, here was my latest approach. Maybe not the best example for this thread, as its pretty disney-lastic, but still:


I do like the orchestration and harmonic language, but its pretty obvious that this was composed at the piano .. I'm working on it.. it's an uphill battle


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## Gene Pool (Jul 31, 2020)

I listened to your piece just now and, while not wanting to minimize whatever issue is bothering you, in my opinion you are concerned too much about this. You may have a different impression of how your music comes across since you know how you composed it. It's easy to lose objectivity on your own work. Contrary to the description you gave in your original post, it didn't sound keyboard-y to me at all. Nice textures throughout.


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## vgamer1982 (Jul 31, 2020)

You can do all of this equally well in either. You can play with counterpoint very easily in a DAW piano roll simply by copying a phrase and auditioning it at the fifth, or whatever interval, some beats later, it's actually incredibly easy to see problems in "traditional counterpoint". Parallel movement is easily spotted (if one cares about that etc.). The DAW is a great tool if you learn how to use its strengths for very traditional composition tasks. It also has big pitfalls.

These are simply differing tools to achieve the same job - and they can produce equally good results - to say otherwise is just ridiculous as a generalisation. If you're used to scores, then sure, you may be able to deal with a score notation better. If you're used to a DAW the opposite can be true.

They both carry issues - copy paste in a daw is temptingly easy, and with handwritten scores, there is the possibility of writing things that look ok on paper and actually don't sound so great in practice. Swings and roundabouts...


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## Gene Pool (Jul 31, 2020)

vgamer1982 said:


> These are simply differing tools to achieve the same job - and they can produce equally good results - to say otherwise is just ridiculous as a generalisation.




There's a certain level of complexity and detail of nuance that can only be accomplished in notation.


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## olvra (Aug 1, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> There's a certain level of complexity and detail of nuance that can only be accomplished in notation.



yeah? like what?


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

Yeah I'm not sure about that. I somehow doubt that Johnny Williams would struggle to meet his usual standards using Cubase if he were as used to that method as writing by hand. 

Your brain is what matters. If you can manage complexity and nuance in there, it shouldn't make a difference how you get that out into the world.


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## Gene Pool (Aug 1, 2020)

olvra said:


> yeah? like what?



Well, I'm spoilt for choice here, because the examples wouldn't be confined to one period or genre, or even aspect of composition, but just in terms of orchestration and texture alone, a random sampling would be most or all of Wagner, R. Strauss, Mahler, Ravel, Respighi, Stravinsky, etc.

Or we could talk contrapuntally if you prefer: fugues, various types of canon, etc.

Or we could talk long form if you prefer. And so on...

If you're unfamiliar with the music I'm talking about, IMSLP is just a few clicks away.


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

Quite familiar with it. My opinion remains.


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## BlackDorito (Aug 1, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> In case anybody is interested, here was my latest approach.


Sounds delightful with good orchestration. Doesn't sound any more pianistic (in a negative sense) than a Strauss waltz.


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## BlackDorito (Aug 1, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> Well, I'm spoilt for choice here, because the examples wouldn't be confined to one period or genre, or even aspect of composition, but just in terms of orchestration and texture alone, a random sampling would be most or all of Wagner, R. Strauss, Mahler, Ravel, Respighi, Stravinsky, etc.


I have to come down on the side of @Gene Pool on this one, at least when talking about my own proclivities. Although I am occasionally stunned by the intricacy of some pieces that were ostensibly done entirely in DAW, I have to wonder whether the composer didn't have some visual aid of some type - using the staff view, score sheet, etc. - perhaps intermittently or offline. I can't imagine just tracking/overdubbing any early Stravinsky score into a DAW.


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## Gene Pool (Aug 1, 2020)

Mike T said:


> Quite familiar with it. My opinion remains.




I may be a little old-fashioned in that I prefer concrete evidence over wishful thinking, so I'd be happy to hear a few pieces of music that were composed in a DAW that approach, even by half, the short list of examples I gave, plus which where the end musical result as rendered contains, again by just half, the performance nuance of real musicians playing notated music. Heck, I'd even settle for just a three-part invertible canon. One page of the Alpine Symphony? Etc.


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

I don't care enough for that, but you're welcome to look yourself if you do. I may just be old fashioned myself in my lack of interest where "here's how I know it's done and there's no room for anything else" thinking is concerned.


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## Gene Pool (Aug 1, 2020)

Mike T said:


> I don't care enough for that, but you're welcome to look yourself if you do.



I don't need to, since I'm not the one in doubt.



Mike T said:


> I may just be old fashioned myself in my lack of interest where "here's how I know it's done and there's no room for anything else" thinking is concerned.



That part you quoted, where may I find the original, please?


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

I'm not in doubt either, as it happens. And that caricature of your attitude is based, admittedly, as much on the gratingly and insufferable authoritative nature of your past posts as it is anything present in the current thread.


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## mikeh-375 (Aug 1, 2020)

....it`s the same old trained v untrained debate folks. Both paradigms have their place in composing of course, but trained trumps in orchestral work if one is aiming for maximum expression in that medium.


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## Gene Pool (Aug 1, 2020)

Mike T said:


> I'm not in doubt either, as it happens.



I'm happy that you have no doubt along with no evidence. They are a happy couple on the internet.



Mike T said:


> And that caricature of your attitude is based, admittedly, as much on the gratingly and insufferable authoritative nature of your past posts as it is anything present in the current thread.



Quoting something you just made up may be fun, since it's easy to defeat the phony quote, but it's dishonest, too, and I don't think my having inadvertently tweaked your insecurities justifies the fallacious tactic. Perhaps it would be better for you to leave your petty personal grievances aside and respect the OP, if you can bring yourself to it. The "Start New Thread" function should be suitable enough for anyone with unfinished business or an axe to grind.


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

mikeh-375 said:


> ....it`s the same old trained v untrained debate folks. Both paradigms have their place in composing of course, but trained trumps in orchestral work if one is aiming for maximum expression in that medium.



I wouldn't equate this subject with whether or not having a solid technical understanding of music is worthwhile (a subject which my own rigidity about may surely annoy some). 

I'd say that being possessed of good technique is vastly more determinative of what you can do than if you put an idea down on paper or capture it as MIDI. It's all just manipulating small building blocks either way.



Gene Pool said:


> I'm happy that you have no doubt along with no evidence. They are a happy couple on the internet.



I'm certain you've never engaged in such depraved behavior!



Gene Pool said:


> I don't think my having inadvertently tweaked your insecurities justifies the fallacious tactic. Perhaps it would be better for you to leave your petty personal grievances aside and respect the OP,



Hmm, nothing to do with insecurities, everything to do with an unfortunate inability at times to shy away from letting someone know that I find them annoying. Regardless, I agree that it's time to stop polluting the thread with it.


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## InLight-Tone (Aug 1, 2020)

Whoever is relevant in the marketplace is the one who is correct in my opinion. Unless you're just doing this for fun and mental masturbation...


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## mikeh-375 (Aug 1, 2020)

Mike T said:


> I wouldn't equate this subject with whether or not having a solid technical understanding of music is worthwhile (a subject which my own rigidity about may surely annoy some).
> 
> I'd say that being possessed of good technique is vastly more determinative of what you can do than if you put an idea down on paper or capture it as MIDI. It's all just manipulating small building blocks either way.
> ......................................



Mike, I'm not sure of your stance in this regard and I can interpret the adjective 'determinative' either positively or negatively at this moment, depending on your view. _If_ you are saying that it shoehorns creativity, you may have misunderstood the application of technique to ones own aesthetics. If not, well sorry for the digression.

My view is positive in this regard. Not only can technique be determinative in a really good way - as in inducing inevitability into one's work - but it can also give you options. It's like being able to see beyond and able to cherry pick what you like, or which way to head forward and being able to quickly discard dead ends. That's all good when one is in the fog and ambiguity of creativity. There is always room for inspiration and serendipity too. Inspiration in particular needs to be nurtured, found even, and technique is one hell of a way of doing that.


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

Oh no, I'm certainly in favor of technique! What I mean is that I expect that to have _far_ more bearing on the nuance and elegance of one's music than one's chosen way of working.


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## mikeh-375 (Aug 1, 2020)

hang on, one's chosen way of working will either utilise technique or no, correct.....? Are you still separating technique from composing? My thought is that the creative act itself should be informed by technique - a subliminal guiding hand and not a dictator - at the point of inception.


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

I'm not sure I follow. The distinction I'm making is between possessing compositional technique/not, and composing by hand/through a DAW. 

I see a lack of technique and musical understanding as a much more definite limit on what one can do than the latter variable. I completely agree with your view of technical knowledge as a subconscious guide. I just haven't seen that composers who have that in heaps are hampered by working in a DAW as opposed to on the page. It seems like a non-issue to me, the form in which you get musical ideas out of your head and organize them, but obviously everyone will find their own particularly efficient and effective way of working.


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## Gene Pool (Aug 1, 2020)

I don't know if I can put this delicately enough to accommodate all levels of unwarranted sensitivity—and I don't intend anything I say pejoratively—so...

...a DAW (the music-data-input-and-playback-basis of which is a graphical implementation of MIDI, which as everyone knows was only intended to link keyboards) does not contain or allow the level of complexity and detail of nuance that notation provides; neither at the micro _or_ macro level. My earlier real world examples provide more than ample evidence of this fact, which is helpful, since even a halfway thorough coverage of the issue would be a rabbit hole reaching all the way to China.

Moreover, this fact would not be anything resembling a controversial statement in a normal, intellectually honest environment where people are knowledgable enough in both technologies (DAW and notation) and the fuller array of music composition goals that exist to rationally examine the issue without any emotional investment in the conclusion.

And I will emphasize, since certain types of people consistently misread me:

There is nothing at all wrong with anyone meeting his or her musical goals by using and not using whichever methods (s)he prefers, and no one has declared otherwise. Personal decisions regarding creativity are, well, personal, and there is no secret tribunal issuing decrees on those personal creative decisions. As Tangina in Poltergeist said: _All are welcome_.


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## Rob (Aug 1, 2020)

although I'd be curious to see what Igor would do today with a DAW...


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## Farkle (Aug 1, 2020)

olvra said:


> yeah? like what?



Most stuff from Ravel, particularly the ballet Daphnis and Chloe.

Stravinsky's early Russian Nationalist stuff, most notably, his scores to Firebird and Rite of Spring.

Anything textural and aleatoric, like Lutoslawski's works, or Ligeti's.

Lots of Prokofiev's ballet stuff.

Those are just off the top of my head.

Mike

PS. If you're talking about what TECHNIQUES are better to notate rather than DAW in, that's a whole other list, which would be much bigger.


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## Gene Pool (Aug 1, 2020)

Rob said:


> although I'd be curious to see what Igor would do today with a DAW...



Haha, me too. He'd probably start complaining about the samples like everyone else.

But come to think of it, he _did_ write something for pianola—the original piano roll—but I don't recall anything about it otherwise.


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> I don't know if I can put this delicately enough to accommodate all levels of unwarranted sensitivity—and I don't intend anything I say pejoratively—so...
> 
> ...a DAW (the music-data-input-and-playback-basis of which is a graphical implementation of MIDI, which as everyone knows was only intended to link keyboards) does not contain or allow the level of complexity and detail of nuance that notation provides; neither at the micro _or_ macro level. My earlier real world examples provide more than ample evidence of this fact, which is helpful, since even a halfway thorough coverage of the issue would be a rabbit hole reaching all the way to China.
> 
> ...



As far as I'm concerned, this is a normal, intellectually honest environment, and the only emotional investment on my part comes from continued annoyance at the fact that you insist on using this sort of vague gatekeeping as proof of this mystical threshold of complexity beyond which the world of MIDI simply can't reach.

I earnestly, simply don't agree with this, as far as creativity itself, the act of composing note by note, goes. If you're talking about the limitations of notation itself in a DAW environment, or of *performance,* then we are not so far apart. But I don't think that's what you're talking about.

Either way, again, there's little point in carrying on a discussion where everyone thinks they have the right of it and the consequences are infinitesimal. And I don't think I'd feel the need to if not for your ever so subtle implications of your indisputable rightness.


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## jbuhler (Aug 1, 2020)

I know folks who can improvise fugues, and it indeed was once a skill that many possessed. Thinking in fugue requires much training, but it does not require notation per se, and the test of skill was always whether one could improvise on a given subject immediately, that is, without working it out via notation.

Notation clarifies some things but obscures others. It facilitates a kind of complexity and nuance to be sure—but so do DAWs. And, no, the complexity and nuance of one is not the same as the other. But it is also not a question of level and hierarchy of value. And though midi may have indeed been designed to link electronic instruments, intention does not bind, does not really even determine future use. At best it acts as a constraint, a kind of friction, to certain kinds of uses and developments. And much the same can be said for notation.


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> I know folks who can improvise fugues, and it indeed was once a skill that many possessed.



This is an excellent historical point, along with the examples of composers known for improvising and then meticulously attempting to reconstruct that into a finished piece. I have to imagine that they would jump at the opportunity to have those improvisations captured in a form that can then be edited, or at least revisited for further development, and wouldn't stop to consider if this were limiting to them.

Since Ravel has been mentioned a few times, let's use him as an example.



This is, of course, originally a piece for piano, which was composed, presumably, through "performance," as Ravel was a formidable player. In that original form, and in this orchestral arrangement, every compositional decision was made in Ravel's head, before it was played on the piano or written out by his hand. If he can achieve that sort of textural (and formal) intricacy by that method, why would he be unable to extract those same compositional decisions, one part at a time, into a DAW via keyboard, using even the most primitive samples?

It's a genuine question for those who think it's just "too complex." I struggle to see what makes that impossible. It is the same exact process of idea in the brain --> audible/readable form.


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## ed buller (Aug 1, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> I know John Powell uses 3-4 piano staffs in Cubase - but is he really composing that way or only using these for sketching his orchestrations?



I am curious...How do you know this. Is there an example out there?

best

ed


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> Hugo Norden, my counterpoint teacher, could do that, but an improvised fugue is a different animal than a composed one. For example, the former relies on an array of voice-leading formulas, has less types of canon in the strettos, modulates less remotely, and is limited by the complexity of the subject and number of voices.
> 
> Bach's famous meeting with Frederich the Great is one example that testifies to this, since Bach improvised a fugue in three parts on the theme Frederick gave him, but when Frederick asked him for one in six parts, Bach declined and essentially said he'd have to work on it and get back to him—which he did, resulting in _The Musical Offering_, including the 6-part fugue and lots of other fun stuff.



But this isn't really a question of improvisation versus working it out. You can work something out as much as you like, whether on paper or in a DAW. The latter will almost certainly also facilitate using improvisation as a method of developing material better, unless you've got a killer memory.


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## Gene Pool (Aug 1, 2020)

Mike T said:


> This is an excellent historical point, along with the examples of composers known for improvising and then meticulously attempting to reconstruct that into a finished piece. I have to imagine that they would jump at the opportunity to have those improvisations captured in a form that can then be edited, or at least revisited for further development, and wouldn't stop to consider if this were limiting to them.



That is a different subject from the one under consideration.



Mike T said:


> It's a genuine question for those who think it's just "too complex." I struggle to see what makes that impossible. It is the same exact process of idea in the brain --> audible/readable form.



I always adjust to new information—and not reluctantly—and should I ever come across any of the type of entirely DAW-composed examples I requested earlier in this thread I will make the necessary correction. Short of that, bare assertion and speculation doesn't really do it for me.


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## jbuhler (Aug 1, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> an improvised fugue is a different animal than a composed one. For example, the former relies on an array of voice-leading formulas, has less types of canon in the strettos, modulates less remotely, and is limited by the complexity of the subject and number of voices.


Well, not really... The line is much fuzzier than what you imply, as you surely know from historical accounts of improvisation, as well as from study of printed music loaded with voice-leading formulas.



> Bach's famous meeting with Frederich the Great is one example that testifies to this, since Bach improvised a fugue in three parts on the theme Frederick gave him, but when Frederick asked him for one in six parts, Bach declined and essentially said he'd have to work on it and get back to him—which he did, resulting in _The Musical Offering_, including the 6-part fugue and lots of other fun stuff.


I'm quite certain Bach would have had not issue working out a six part fugue in a DAW, because what the task requires is contemplation rather than notation. Or rather a DAW provides the requisite notational aids to allow for the kind of contemplation one needs for this task. It's really not a good example of what you would need to show to make good on your claim about the superiority of musical notation.


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## Gene Pool (Aug 1, 2020)

Mike T said:


> But this isn't really a question of improvisation versus working it out. You can work something out as much as you like, whether on paper or in a DAW. The latter will almost certainly also facilitate using improvisation as a method of developing material better, unless you've got a killer memory.



I was responding to a point someone made about improvising a fugue.


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## Keith Theodosiou (Aug 1, 2020)

I can't see that this piece would have been better if it was written on paper, Isn't this what the OP was asking?


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## Gene Pool (Aug 1, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> It's really not a good example of what you would need to show to make good on your claim about the superiority of musical notation.



As I have said several times now, I will gladly evaluate any examples of DAW-composed pieces of the type I requested earlier. I am all ears.


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## Gene Pool (Aug 1, 2020)

Keith Theodosiou said:


> I can't see that this piece would have been better if it was written on paper, Isn't this what the OP was asking?



I can't see where anyone said that that piece would have been better if it was written on paper. I didn't know that that piece was even under discussion. Heck, I didn't even know that paper, of all things, was a part of it. I gave specific examples. I think they were pretty clear. If they were not, then I am at a loss. I haven't the patience to dumb this down.

And now that the thread has entered the zone of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch, I shall get back to some productive business.


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## borisb2 (Aug 1, 2020)

ed buller said:


> I am curious...How do you know this. Is there an example out there?
> 
> best
> 
> ed




He is talking about JW, HZ and John Powells way of composing/sketching. The way he describes the first 2 seems correct, so I‘m assuming describing JP way of composing (starting around 8:00) seems correct as well. At least it matches the examples from JP himself on his youtube-channel. But as I mentioned in my original post, I‘m not sure if JP is actually composing that way. I.d like to get more proof on that.



Keith Theodosiou said:


> I can't see that this piece would have been better if it was written on paper, Isn't this what the OP was asking?


There you go.. I would have never thought, this was written in the DAW... thanks.


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

Keith Theodosiou said:


> I can't see that this piece would have been better if it was written on paper, Isn't this what the OP was asking?




I wouldn't assume that Andy didn't use some degree of notation in the process of writing this. I'm not entirely sure how he works.


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## Keith Theodosiou (Aug 1, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> I can't see where anyone said that that piece would have been better if it was written on paper. I didn't know that that piece was even under discussion. Heck, I didn't even know that paper, of all things, was a part of it. I gave specific examples. I think they were pretty clear. If they were not, then I am at a loss. I haven't the patience to dumb this down.
> 
> And now that the thread has entered the zone of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch, I shall get back to some productive business.


By the way you talk, i get the impression that you think you are way above everyone else, I just put an e.g. up of what i interpreted what the OP was asking and you bring out words like 'dumb' and 'Monty Python'.
Are you one of those people that think everything you know is correct?


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## Keith Theodosiou (Aug 1, 2020)

Mike T said:


> I wouldn't assume that Andy didn't use some degree of notation in the process of writing this. I'm not entirely sure how he works.


That's fair enough but i assume that what the OP asked was is it possible for a DAW to create complex pieces that are done on score paper.
The point is if Andy did use score paper, doesn't it prove that it can be done in a DAW too.


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## borisb2 (Aug 1, 2020)

Keith Theodosiou said:


> but i assume that what the OP asked was is it possible for a DAW to create complex pieces that are done on score paper


wait, no.. my main question was related to the composing process, how much diference it makes (during the process of composing) using notation vs. using DAW


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## Keith Theodosiou (Aug 1, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> wait, no.. my main question was related to the composing process, how much diference it makes (during the process of composing) using notation vs. using DAW


Ok but i was going by your original question which was ' Is there a limit how complex/contrapuntal/polyphonic a piece can be composed when composing straight into DAW?'


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## ed buller (Aug 1, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> I‘m not sure if JP is actually composing that way. I.d like to get more proof on that.


yeah me too...I actually asked in the posting space on this youtube video. Just becuase theres a bunch of youtube piano mockups with JP pieces on piano seems to be the reason. I'm curious becuse it's sort of a midi version of "short score"....so maybe it makes sense


anyway thanks for the response

best

ed


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## borisb2 (Aug 1, 2020)

Keith Theodosiou said:


> Ok but i was going by your original question which was ' Is there a limit how complex/contrapuntal/polyphonic a piece can be composed when composing straight into DAW?'



yes, and circling back to Blaneys piece I am wondering, when he composed that, did he hold a (plastic) mouse in his hand or a pencil... or rather both. Reading through the last posts it now sounds more likely that he did use pencil and paper in some form along the way.. not sure


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## jbuhler (Aug 1, 2020)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> ....and actually, since I have been writing into the DAW, my eye has developed a skill for recognizing errors in the midi note piano roll.
> 
> Has anyone else experienced this? Being able to spot mistakes from those little colored bars a sideways piano keyboard?


Yes, all the time. I also don’t find formal issues are always easier to resolve on paper. And the counterpoint I work out in a DAW is frequently better and more imaginative than what I work out on paper, though DAWs are certainly not optimized for writing counterpoint.


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## Dave Connor (Aug 1, 2020)

The Andy Blaney piece strikes me as perfectly representative of a piece written and executed entirely in a DAW. Not a negative observation but comparative to the types of composers Gene Pool mentioned.

Have a look at Strauss’s Rosenkavalier. It‘s incredibly facile writing that appears like three dimensional chess on the page. Although it’s rooted in the compositional technique leading up to that time, it’s still thought of as it’s own _school: _Late Romantic. There may in fact be certain mechanical procedures more favorable to writing that kind of music. It would hardly be against nature for such a thing to be true.

Strauss, Mahler, Stravinsky, all achieve remarkable results that are the result of very sophisticated compositional procedures that fit together a very wide range of instrumentation options. That’s two planes right there. In order to manage those options and encode them into musical information - which contain multiple musical cells with numerous notational minutia (Stravinsky’s odd-grouped arpeggiated harmonics in strings in The Rite) - in order to manage those vast numbers of options - an environment that literally puts eveything at your fingertips is needed. That is, it must be capable of the delicate as well as the more straight forward.

That type of environment is not the the primary or even secondary purpose of DAWS. They orient you toward a sort of machine operation. They’re basic in nature. Will they evolve to create a similar environment to pen and paper? Look how popular Staffpad is when DAWS are entering their fifth decade. People are hungry for that ancient orientation.

It isn’t that DAWs are ultimately inferior in a general sense. Gene Pool was merely saying that they aren’t at all conducive to specific types of music writing that mysteriously have not been issuing from many DAWS since their inception.


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> but the form 99% of the time is absolute trash.



A piece's architecture is something that is probably always worth drawing on paper for more lengthy stuff. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that unadventurous use of form has less to do with DAW-based composing than it does a general drop in awareness of such things. 😕


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

Dave Connor said:


> specific types of music writing that mysteriously have not been issuing from many DAWS since their inception.



I think it's clear that for someone brought up in the world of the written score (including myself), the level of conduciveness of a DAW to certain types of music would, at first, seem understandably narrow. I wonder, though, how much of this lack of such music from DAWs has to do with what the typical DAW-using composer is tasked with.

While it remains something overwhelmingly utilized by media composers for obvious reasons, and therefore rarely for anything approaching Strauss in textural density, there are the odd concert composers who have been known to utilize them.

I'm thinking particularly of John Adams, who I recall reading about using Digital Performer as his primary means of putting a piece together, between the roughest earliest sketches and the final manuscript based on the result of that lengthy, detailed mock-up process. I don't think anyone could accuse his music from the period after which he adopted this process of lacking complexity.

I expect that as composers of the younger generation who are open to the possibilities of this technology, and interested in pushing its limits, reach greater prominence, there will be many more such examples, and this issue will be thought of as we now think of skeptics of the piano and the compositional limitations they feared it would impose.


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## Dave Connor (Aug 1, 2020)

Let’s be honest. The feedback from a DAW is addictive. Adams is certainly sophisticated and if he’s doing most of his work in a DAW that is telling. As I said with Van Dyke Parks, he was perfectly comfortable writing sophisticated textures in DP. I imagine both these guys are using or least referencing the score view. Both of them are old school pencil guys to be sure - so they’ve adjusted, and the benefit of feedback can’t be diminished.

As you said, Strauss and company wrote incredibly complex works. That isn’t the strength of a DAW by it’s design. Eventually the twain shall meet. Arguing that it hasn’t quite yet doesn’t seem to be a superior argument by anyone but more of a general observation.


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## ProfoundSilence (Aug 1, 2020)

I mean, just about every one I looked up to wrote on the piano/organ 

paper certainly helps, but using the piano as a writing tool is part of I would venture almost all composers. 

I will say that I think basic theory/composition done with pen and paper/ear training/ect is really important, and maybe should be the first step before using a DAW. But I don't think somebody with established capabilities without a DAW will degrade by using one.


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## Gene Pool (Aug 1, 2020)

Dave Connor said:


> It isn’t that DAWs are ultimately inferior in a general sense. Gene Pool was merely saying that they aren’t at all conducive to specific types of music writing that mysteriously have not been issuing from many DAWS since their inception.



Correct. I pointed that there is a threshold of complexity and nuance beyond which a DAW is unsuited but which notation has provably handled just fine for a long while now. Thereafter, a special person took my harmless observation to mean, _"here's how I know it's done and there's no room for anything else.”_

That is a Grand Canyon-sized leap, and it beggars belief.

I should be more careful. Should I ever say that there is a range above which an oboe is unsuited but that a flute can easily traverse, someone might ask me why I hate oboes so much. Then another will step in and teach me that vile Flute Supremacists like myself are not born that way; we are taught such hatred from an early age. And when I ask for examples of oboes playing ably in the range I mentioned, all I will hear is crickets, like usual.

The internet is a fascinating place.


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## ProfoundSilence (Aug 1, 2020)

serious question, why do you hate oboes so much


Gene Pool said:


> someone might ask me why I hate oboes so much.


Sounds like something a vile flute supremacist would say.


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> Correct. I pointed that there is a threshold of complexity and nuance beyond which a DAW is unsuited but which notation has provably handled just fine for a long while now. Thereafter, a special person took my harmless observation to mean, _"here's how I know it's done and there's no room for anything else.”_
> 
> That is a Grand Canyon-sized leap, and it beggars belief.
> 
> ...



We get it, you're one of those horribly misunderstood and underappreciated people who can't fathom the fragility and ignorance around you. I think we know your shtick by now. I hope someday you can find a life free from such troubles, truly!


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## ProfoundSilence (Aug 1, 2020)

Mike T said:


> We get it, you're one of those horribly misunderstood and underappreciated people who can't fathom the fragility and ignorance around you. I think we know your shtick by now. I hope someday you can find a life free from such troubles, truly!


What is there to misunderstand about Oboe inequality. #WoodwindPartsMatter can't matter until #OboePartsMatter

Lighten up!

we composers are the most pretentious bunch of secluded people I know, and I wouldn't change it for the world. Sometimes we pick tiny hills to die on, and I think in the end we're silly about it.


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## CT (Aug 1, 2020)

Eh, I'm fairly light. Mr. Pool has just rubbed me the wrong way today. I'll have forgotten about him within the hour though. That is the way of VI-Control!


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## mikeh-375 (Aug 2, 2020)

What the DAW and notation paradigms do have in common of course is the composer's mind. The way the mind has learnt or been trained in composing will have a strong bearing on how a DAW and/or notation is, or is not practiced and integrated. This is more to the point I believe, the learning is also an instigator and is the sole arbiter in matters of composing and production.

fwiw, I work on custom size 38 stave ms that is 60cm tall in conjunction with a DAW, because as Ed (@ed buller ) said above, DAW's are very handy to catch that serendipitous improvisational moment if all else fails.

....what's Lenny B doing with a koala?


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## ptram (Aug 2, 2020)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> ....and actually, since I have been writing into the DAW, my eye has developed a skill for recognizing errors in the midi note piano roll.


Reading music in the piano roll helps me understand the unbalance or lack of elegance in the full/empty sequence. It also makes easy to see unwanted dissonances in an ensemble.

Notation helps me better recognize a melodic cell or a chord/cluster as an acting persona. Music is a stage where figures move, and recognizing where each of them is going seems to me a lot easier on the score.

Paolo


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## CT (Aug 2, 2020)

mikeh-375 said:


> ....what's Lenny B doing with a koala?



I don't know, but I bet it was a better time than anyone ever had engaging in myopic debate on the internet!


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 2, 2020)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> ....and actually, since I have been writing into the DAW, my eye has developed a skill for recognizing errors in the midi note piano roll.
> 
> Has anyone else experienced this? Being able to spot mistakes from those little colored bars a sideways piano keyboard?



Whilst I started out writing on DAW's, two things inevitably happened to me when composing (or trying to compose) in them:

1) I quickly lose track of what is exactly going on in complex sections. Yes, with practice I do get better at reading the piano roll, but it's still easy to become a bit overwhelmed with all those different coloured lines.

2) I _always _end up writing to the samples. I should be able to resist this, but always fail miserably in the attempt.

As a hobbyist who travels a lot, portability is a big thing for me, and now I use Staffpad to get things down. Oddly, I dont seem to write to the samples in Staffpad, as I do with a DAW, though I've simply no idea why that is.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 2, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> There's a certain level of complexity and detail of nuance that can only be accomplished in notation.



Nonsense. You can attain any level of detail within midi programming that you can on paper. Now, whether the samples can play it back especially well, is another matter, but that's not the point, there's no musical line you can conceive of that is impossible to program into a DAW and the process of working it out is exactly the same.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 2, 2020)

If you'd like to argue the opposite, write down on a piece of paper any musical passage you'd care to claim "cannot" be programmed in midi.

Whether or not it'd be tricky to make the samples sound a certain way makes the assumption that you're always programming the sequence _purely_ to sound great and that the musical decisions are being made based on the sound of the samples. That's not the case for many composers who know their stuff is being played live, and will write it in and just know the playback isn't quite right.

It's a pitfall, just like there are pitfalls with pen and paper. The trick is to not fall into them.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 2, 2020)

Now, are there crazy nested tuplet passages that might be quite difficult in_ some_ DAWs to program, especially in the past? Sure, but even that's been basically solved, within Cubase/Nuendo you can now program insanely complex tuplet passages easily and quantize to them rapidly. In fact, sometimes easier than you can in score notation software now.


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## ProfoundSilence (Aug 2, 2020)

vgamer1982 said:


> Nonsense. You can attain any level of detail within midi programming that you can on paper. Now, whether the samples can play it back especially well, is another matter, but that's not the point, there's no musical line you can conceive of that is impossible to program into a DAW and the process of working it out is exactly the same.



it has more to do with writing than programming. You're probably not going to write the same if it's not at least partly worked out on paper first. 

there are things that are more immediately obvious looking at staff paper than midi rolls. 

selecting all the midi in a project doesnt show you everything. Especially when you're dwelling on the same 4 bars for significantly longer than you would be on paper.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 2, 2020)

ProfoundSilence said:


> it has more to do with writing than programming. You're probably not going to write the same if it's not at least partly worked out on paper first.
> 
> there are things that are more immediately obvious looking at staff paper than midi rolls.
> 
> selecting all the midi in a project doesnt show you everything. Especially when you're dwelling on the same 4 bars for significantly longer than you would be on paper.



Again...no. This may be true of _some_ people. It may be true of you. That does not make it true of all, nor better, nor worse, nor any statement about music qualitatively. The statement that there exists any piece of music that _could not_ be written solely in a DAW is just factually incorrect, for reasons that really should be pretty obvious. There are big pitfalls and benefits to any method of writing music, including pen and paper.

Also, the midi analogy is weird - I can see as much as an overview zooming out if not more. On an orchestral score you're often limited to 8-10 measures of complex music without turning the page.

I can read the piano roll pretty much as well as I can read a score at this point, I have no trouble with either. I can spot misprints or errors easier in the piano roll, funnily enough (clusters of notes in tonal music where something got slid up or down, for example). They're just tools, but some people seem to get this feeling of superiority from one or the other. It's bizarre.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 2, 2020)

All that isn't to say there aren't pitfalls on the DAW side nor examples of people writing music where it's basically the DAW doing half the work. Or writing solely for what sounds good in the samples.

It's all a matter of whatever gets you to what you want. Successful music composition is about _control_, and if the medium controls the composition instead of the composer (say....via the temptation to copy paste in a DAW for example), that's obviously bad. 

The idea that writing music into a digital representation vs dots on a page however is both culturally weak (much of the worlds music doesn't use western notation, for starters), often used slightly snobbishly ("that composer is better because they use paper"), and given there's no musical line that you can write on paper that you can't meaningfully represent in midi (and possibly there are things in midi that would be almost impractical to notate, given midi has vastly greater resolution per measure, technically)...it's purely about where someone spends their time.


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## ProfoundSilence (Aug 2, 2020)

okay.

hate to be THAT guy, but there are many things not visible from a piano roll. If you cant see that, I'm not going to point it out for you - as clearly you know everything. 

I cant wait to hear your sophisticated orchestrations, because surely - YOU don't need pen and paper, only us peasants do.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 2, 2020)

ProfoundSilence said:


> okay.
> 
> hate to be THAT guy, but there are many things not visible from a piano roll. If you cant see that, I'm not going to point it out for you - as clearly you know everything.
> 
> I cant wait to hear your sophisticated orchestrations, because surely - YOU don't need pen and paper, only us peasants do.



Nope, that's not the point. There are absolutely things invisible from a piano roll in certain views. Ultimately, if you zoom in, you might have to focus on one part and not open all of the parts in the same editor. It's not like there is "hidden data" that is intrinsically invisible.

But this is true of scores too. You can't compare page 3 and page 11 without turning the page. Your eye can only look one place at once.

Pen and paper is a fantastic tool. So is a DAW. It just _isn't _true to say there's anything you can musically achieve with one that you _can't_ achieve with the other.


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## CT (Aug 2, 2020)

For my part, I should clarify that I've not been talking about using the piano roll as a substitute for notation. I've been talking about the act of composition treated entirely as a bunch of captured and layered performances without the use of visual representation of the music, in traditional notation or otherwise, at all.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 2, 2020)

ProfoundSilence said:


> okay.
> 
> hate to be THAT guy, but there are many things not visible from a piano roll. If you cant see that, I'm not going to point it out for you - as clearly you know everything.
> 
> I cant wait to hear your sophisticated orchestrations, because surely - YOU don't need pen and paper, only us peasants do.



And the other major point is simply this. 999 times out of 1000, somebody citing pen and paper is in the midst of saying "oh this music is better than that music, because it was written with pen and paper." - it's about the only time it ever comes up.

No normal audience member of a performance nor filmgoer nor person listening to the radio ever said "I'd like this music, but the absence of a handwritten five-lined staff spoils it". It's just the preserve of a very weird kind of Western composer snobbery that thinks the western system of notation is the greatest gift to music ever and there's music that _cannot_ be conceived of without it, which is both factually wrong (midi has vastly greater resolution, technically, not that it matters on a practical sense) and also presumptuous of how long someone is willing to spend working with midi based "notation".

It's a great gift, sure, but there's centuries - millennia in some instances - of musical tradition utterly unconnected to it and very prevalent in the world - it's also incomplete, has big deficiencies and cannot accurately represent many forms of music. DAWs are similarly incomplete. Neither is "better". They're all good and helpful when they are used the right way and the composer is in control of their material.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 2, 2020)

Case in point, it's equal to arguing music written in Sibelius is better than music written in Finale or Dorico.


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## ProfoundSilence (Aug 2, 2020)

got it, so all talk. 

have you considered that there is music that takes actual brains to make? Move thr goal post though. "could be made" doesnt matter. 

lightning could strike a nueral network and cause it to accidently write Mozart's clarinet concerto, but it wont happen.


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## ProfoundSilence (Aug 2, 2020)

LOL knew that was coming. 

have a great day. I'm glad your music is complicated enough to be written exclusively in a daw


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 2, 2020)

ProfoundSilence said:


> LOL knew that was coming.
> 
> have a great day. I'm glad your music is complicated enough to be written exclusively in a daw



I never said anything like that. I simply said that there's no piece of music that can be written in score that couldn't equally be conceived in a DAW.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 2, 2020)

ProfoundSilence said:


> LOL knew that was coming.
> 
> have a great day. I'm glad your music is complicated enough to be written exclusively in a daw



The entirety of Carnatic classical music, which vastly predates western music, was never even written in a DAW nor pen and paper and it's often _vastly_ more complex than most western music, both in tuning, tonal structure, rhythmic structure...

It's a bizarre argument to argue that there's a degree of musical complexity only attainable by western notation, especially since western notation is a system that is so in flux and incomplete. Case in point there, we've scarcely even settled on how to notate many percussion parts!


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 2, 2020)

(and yes, I know about Sargam, before you say "there was Sargam notation"...the tradition is still an oral tradition, is the point).


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## Al Maurice (Aug 3, 2020)

To me notation acts as a kind of metaphor, just code or a language so I can transmit my ideas to other collaborators or musicians; also it allows me to record them easily, so I can rework them or improve them later. 

Notation like language evolves: I can read a work of Chaucer only if written in the language of our time. If I tried to read it in his lingua franca then I'd be out of luck. Likewise with older musical works.

So I suppose you could get by quite happily without it, as for certain idioms the lead sheet or tablature holds sway more now, and some musicians manage perfectly well with just that. Electronic music brings a plethora of new concepts to the table, leading to attempts to revitalise notation to capture their unique nuansces too.


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## borisb2 (Aug 3, 2020)

In the meantime - as the one who originally asked that question - I now came to my own personal conclusion:

In the end its all about capturing those little ideas that circle in your head, as quick, as efficient and as connected as possible. The benefit of paper (among others) is being able to capture / focus on multiple lines (staffs) at the same time - in a linear way - and keeping an overview that goes beyond selecting multiple tracks in the piano roll editor. There is just no way to visualize the notes, articulations and dynamics of 15+ tracks at the same time in a DAW - unless one works heavily with the score editor - which again comes close to paper.

The benefit of DAW on the other side is better feedback/playability, quicker input (without the need to actually read any notes) and all the other benefits that come with a recording system.

But to me that seems to be also the biggest pitfall using the DAW so far: it is after all a recording system that records my performances, simple as that. But the moment I am trying to capture what was in my head with a "piano-performance" (in other word trying to somehow play that 3-octave string voicing, harp glissando or woodwind staccato) I am not only slowing down myself but limiting myself compositionally to what I can play in. Noodeling on the piano (sometimes I am actually practising on the piano what I want to record next) becomes a bottleneck for the composing process.. and THAT is something that wasnt so clear to me when I started this thread. In other words, as long as I use the DAW as a recording system, yes the music probably will be different from writing it down on paper. If I can start to detach from that, but use the DAW in a more abstract linear way - the lines should blur hopefully. Interesting enough, all of that seems only true for composing ochestral music. As we know for most other genres (jazz, blues, pop etc.) its all about performance. Weird.

So the practise for me now will be to have a closer look at the step input, score editor and other tools to capture my ideas in a more similar/linear way to writing them down - and listen more to the inner ear than to my piano skills.

Thanks everybody.


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## ptram (Aug 3, 2020)

Forgive me for having missed the point, but when has "notation" became the equivalent of "pencil and paper"? Notation can be used on a computer screen, profiting of the same digital age advantage as the piano roll. It is therefore not "obsolete", as opposite to the "modern" piano roll.

Paolo


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## ptram (Aug 3, 2020)

Notation in music score has the advantage of being extremely efficient. A single note, when you know the referring system (clef, key, tempo), can communicate pitch, duration, type of attack, type of sustain, dynamic, expression.

To do the same in a grid system you need several streams of information, not all yet standardized or immediately readable. Take for example a tremolo, that you can only discern on the piano roll if you also know the meaning of the note color, or can see an expression map lane.

Paolo


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## muk (Aug 3, 2020)

It's a sophistic discussion really. It's impossible to prove one way or the other.



vgamer1982 said:


> and there's music that _cannot_ be conceived of without it, which is both factually wrong



If that were the case you would be able to prove it. But all you do is claim it very strongly, as it is impossible to prove. Could Beethoven's 'Grosse Fuge' have been composed entirely in a DAW? Or his Missa solemnis? Could Richard Strauss' 'Ein Heldenleben'? I don't think so. You do. None of us will ever be able to prove our points, because these works have already been composed with paper and pencil. They can not be composed again without notation.

All we can do is go from our own experience, and generalize from there. Not really helpful, because everyones experiences are different.

For me personally, a DAW is quicker to work with if the end product is going to be a mockup, without the need for a score. Also, for me it is worse to work out large form, voice leading, and counterpoint. My orchestration is quite different when working in a DAW as opposed to notation. Different, not necessarily worse. For some people it will be similar, for others different.

Paper and pencil vs DAW are without a doubt quite different methods of working. Both with their own set of strenghts and weaknesses. To argue that these different ways of working are always capable to produce the exact same results for every conveicable piece of music? That is to say that for the results of a composing process, the method doesn't matter. I don't believe that that's true. But again, it is not something that can be proven or falsified.



vgamer1982 said:


> And the other major point is simply this. 999 times out of 1000, somebody citing pen and paper is in the midst of saying "oh this music is better than that music, because it was written with pen and paper." - it's about the only time it ever comes up.



This might be true, but it has no bearings on the actual question. It may explain why somebody thinks the one or the other is true though.

Again, the question is: will different ways of composing lead to different results, or the same results? For me personally, it leads to different results. Some of the pieces I have written with paper and pencil I could defninitely not have written directly in a DAW. And vice versa. This leads me to believe that different ways of working will lead to different results. Could anybody else compose exactly the same piece that I did on paper and pencil, without knowing it, directly in a DAW? Maybe. Maybe not. We will never know until somebody does. And that is very unlikely to happen. And even if it did, it would only clear the question for one single piece of music.



vgamer1982 said:


> It's a great gift, sure, but there's centuries - millennia in some instances - of musical tradition utterly unconnected to it and very prevalent in the world



Again, this has no bearing on the question. It's out of question that complex music has been composed without notation. But there is also complex music that has been composed _with_ notation, _and not without it_. That it is possible to compose _certain_ kinds of complex music without notation does not prove that it is possible to compose _every _kind of complex music without it.

Where I agree with you @vgamer1982 is that I too don't think that one method will necessarily lead to _better _results than the other. Different results - yes, this I believe.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 3, 2020)

muk said:


> It's a sophistic discussion really. It's impossible to prove one way or the other.



I disagree; it's self-evident. There's no passage or piece of music that you can notate on paper that you couldn't _equally well_ represent in midi. So it proves itself.



muk said:


> Could Beethoven's 'Grosse Fuge' have been composed entirely in a DAW?



Yes. It wasn't, but there's absolutely nothing that would technically make it actually _impossible_. Whether or not it would be plausible for Beethoven, for you, for I, for anybody, isn't actually relevant to which medium is "better".

Just to reiterate, the claim being made here by some is that it would be technically impossible to write a piece of that quality in a DAW. If you concede that it isn't, and that actually it could be possible, then neither medium is superior, by definition.



muk said:


> Where I agree with you @vgamer1982 is that I too don't think that one method will necessarily lead to _better _results than the other. Different results - yes, this I believe.



Correct!! This is my entire point, and one that a few people are completely missing. You can absolutely say that. Someone can absolutely say that for them, personally, there is music that they personally could not compose in a DAW and would need to use pen and paper, or even vice versa. There's music I couldn't figure out without a piano, similarly. That's perfectly normal....

The point is that that is _not_ equivalent to pen and paper being _compositionally superior_ _by definition_, irrespective of personal taste, which is _absolutely_ what some are trying to claim. It's the difference between the objective claim and the subjective claim.

And the objective claim is almost always made in the attempt to seem "musically superior" to those who work in a DAW over pen and paper. Seen it claimed many times. Even seen it used to criticize both John Adams and Philip Glass (by a very misguided music critic in the UK), who both use DAWs, just for the mere fact that they even _touched_ a DAW, that supposedly made them "inferior" composers.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 3, 2020)

ptram said:


> Forgive me for having missed the point, but when has "notation" became the equivalent of "pencil and paper"? Notation can be used on a computer screen, profiting of the same digital age advantage as the piano roll. It is therefore not "obsolete", as opposite to the "modern" piano roll.
> 
> Paolo



Not claiming obsolescence for notated music - far from it, in fact, the complete opposite. It's just that writing music on pen and paper is not _objectively_ better in all cases by virtue of it using western notation.


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## TinderC (Aug 3, 2020)

Good discussion and it seems it was also covered in






Who composes in Notation programs and why?


In my several years on Vi-C, I have the impression that most members compose directly into DAWs and most developers therefore gear their products to DAW composers. That makes me an anomaly in that I compose into a notation program. I'm looking to get the perspective of members who have perhaps...




vi-control.net


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## muk (Aug 3, 2020)

vgamer1982 said:


> This is my entire point, and one that a few people are completely missing.



To me it looks the other way around: you are discussing another question than everybody else. The question is not: is paper and pencil _superior_ to writing in a DAW? That's a reframing you did. The question is: will it yield _different_ results when you use one method or the other? To the first question my answer would be probably no, to the second yes.



vgamer1982 said:


> There's no passage or piece of music that you can notate on paper that you couldn't _equally well_ represent in midi. So it proves itself.



That again is not what the discussion was about. Yes you can represent every piece of music that was notated on paper equally well in a DAW, and vice versa. But that's not the same as: you can _compose _every piece of music equally well on paper or in a DAW. The latter would be to say that the method of working has no influence on the outcome. And that I believe not to be true. I could even go as far as to say that is self-evident.

My point is: composing on paper and pencil will in many cases not give the same results as composing in a DAW. I am _*not*_ saying that one method will necessarily give better results than the other. But neither would I say that they give the same results.


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## Keith Theodosiou (Aug 3, 2020)

What we have to remember is back in the classical era, quill and paper was the only way they could 'record' their works. They actually used to compose in their heads the write down those parts so they had a record of what they where creating. Then thos records of each part could be given to the members of the orchestra to perform.

Now, we have DAWs and recorders and all sorts and we can still compose in our heads but we can now 'record live' as we compose.

If a composer knows pen and paper inside out, he can work wonders (obviously if he has that ability) and if that same composer knows DAWs inside out, he can work those wonder still.

I may not know pen and paper much (very minute) but i stiil can't see what pen and paper can do for your music that a DAW can't.

What i do know is now, there will be some people that will try and rip into what i just said.

That's fine, we are all Human and every Human has an opinion and are entitled to that opinion.

Like you, my opinion won't change by what you say as yours won't change by what i say. So, unless one way or the other can be proven 100%, this could go on till doomsday


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 3, 2020)

Keith Theodosiou said:


> If a composer knows pen and paper inside out, he can work wonders (obviously if he has that ability) and if that same composer knows DAWs inside out, he can work those wonder still.
> 
> I may not know pen and paper much (very minute) but i stiil can't see what pen and paper can do for your music that a DAW can't.



Completely agree.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 3, 2020)

muk said:


> To me it looks the other way around: you are discussing another question than everybody else.



Except that isn't the statement as made by several people in the thread, to whom I was responding (Gene Pool, in particular)....eg...

"There's a certain level of complexity and detail of nuance that can only be accomplished in notation."

"...a DAW (the music-data-input-and-playback-basis of which is a graphical implementation of MIDI, which as everyone knows was only intended to link keyboards) does not contain or allow the level of complexity and detail of nuance that notation provides; neither at the micro _or_macro level."

Are all incorrect statements made in this thread...both extremely incorrect technically, musically and (unintentionally, I assume) remarkably ethnocentric to the very limited nature of Western notation, which misses out the entirety of Indian, traditional asian music, numerous musical heritages which are un-notable in the western system, and so on and so forth.

I was responding to those.


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## Keith Theodosiou (Aug 3, 2020)

Well how about we find out the views of someone that maybe did compose a piece on paper then put it to a DAW. I am talking about the Andy Blaney piece for the BBCSO. Now someone did state that it may well have been done using both mediums. So, why don't we just ask Christian to find out how he wrote the piece and what are his views about the two if he did use both?


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## Gene Pool (Aug 3, 2020)

Mike T said:


> We get it, you're one of those horribly misunderstood and underappreciated people who can't fathom the fragility and ignorance around you. I think we know your shtick by now. I hope someday you can find a life free from such troubles, truly!




That's at least the second time in this thread you've presumptuously made up some crap and tried to hang it around my neck, only this time you didn't use quotation marks, so maybe your sense of ethics is slowly maturing. Yay!

But the part I enjoyed most was after your first lie, you laughably claimed that this was an intellectually honest environment. Gave me a good chuckle. Instant classic.

It's probably fun for you to imagine me as Fafner cuz for once in your life you wanna be Siegfried, but I'm thinking that your petty personal grievances should remain more of a private matter in the future, since nobody cares but you.

Substance > muh feelz


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Just a basic question, but isn't it your sample library(ies) as much as MIDI in the DAW that creates the limitations ?

I mean how do you 'notate' an articualtion in MIDI on the piano roll that doesn't exist in your sample library ? 

Also how about the concept that the MIDI piano roll is actually the 'performance' rather than the music itself ?


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## mikeh-375 (Aug 14, 2020)

Answers to Mike's questions..

1 - yes, along with lack of knowledge. If you don't know about something, it ceases to be an expressive resource.
2 - I don't believe you can. If it's not audibly produced it's not part of the performance/music and therefore not an option.
3 - Bugger, that's not a quickfire answer. Is a score the music or instructions that lead to the music?


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## CT (Aug 14, 2020)




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## Gene Pool (Aug 14, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> Just a basic question, but isn't it your sample library(ies) as much as MIDI in the DAW that creates the limitations?



Michael,

Yeah, and more so in fact. Even being generous, all the samples in the world combined can maybe simulate to some degree roughly about 5% of what musicians and orchestras can regularly pull off.



Michael Antrum said:


> Also how about the concept that the MIDI piano roll is actually the 'performance' rather than the music itself?



Yes. What MIDI can perform is limited to the type of data it understands, and unlike musicians, it doesn't understand music itself.

One of the main problems with MIDI is that it's channel-based, and conceiving for orchestra is an entirely different thing. Your brain automatically adjusts itself to compose according to what you have to work with for that particular composition. A composer who can write competently for orchestra and DAW will automatically have a different mindset to composing depending on whether the final product will be the result of the DAW output or ultimately an orchestral performance. Just the same as if you're writing a piece for clarinet, your brain will gear itself to composing according to what a clarinet can and can't do, and if you know the player, what (s)he can and can't do.

The first A-flat section of _Also Sprach Zarathustra_ is one example of something you wouldn't conceive of in a DAW (along with probably something like 75% of the rest of Strauss). Hyper divisi slowing consolidating towards the climax. Can't do that with a channel-based concept.

Maybe examples are better.

Here's a texture from the same piece that's much less granular than the A-flat section mentioned above, but even so, it's still not conducive to being conceived in a DAW because neither it nor the samples could come close to doing what the players have to do to pull this off. You don't want to reach for something and then miss the target, so you adjust to what's possible and effective. And the full score is obviously a lot more complex than a simplified reduction like this. This excerpt was only done for note analysis, and all the dynamics, doublings, articulations, slurs, etc. were stripped out. (The colored lines were a shorthand I used to use for certain things but I can't explain it quickly.)

[example deleted]

Another example like this one from _The Rite of Spring_ demonstrates similarly. Carefully calculated onomatopoeic textures and multiple overlapping of layers of irregular groupings with no rhythmic commonalities like this are not conducive to being conceived in a DAW. In other places in TROS, keeping track of the pitch collections would not be possible without notation. (Pardon the circular noteheads, the bad beaming and the other eyesores. I was still learning to draw notation back when I made this.)

[example deleted]


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## mikeh-375 (Aug 14, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> Michael,
> 
> Yeah, and more so in fact. Even being generous, all the samples in the world combined can maybe simulate to some degree roughly about 5% of what musicians and orchestras can regularly pull off.
> 
> ...



Damn GeneP, is that by hand?? I was never, ever that neat, not even for exams. To think you'd beg pardon for this...


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 14, 2020)

Damn - Every time Gene replies to one of my posts, I get a reply that I need to think about....and I do appreciate the amount of effort you go to to illustrate your point...


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## dcoscina (Aug 15, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> not a new topic I know - but I'm not sure if I'm slowly hitting a wall when composing orchestral music. So the resulting question I am facing at the moment is:
> 
> ...


Hi Boris. I think this methodology depends on the user. I’ve heard some outstanding work composed entirely in a DAW. It is easy enough to work out contrapuntal writing in a piano roll (you can see contrary and parallel motion lines). However, in my personal experience, there’s nothing quite like seeing a full score in notation for orchestration. While DAWs do allow for multiple tracks to be viewed simultaneously in the piano roll, it’s not the same as looking at a score page where I can work out ideas.

additionally, you can edit and shape lines in your piano roll after playing them in. On many occasions I will alter lines so they become less consonant or play around a key centre by adding or embellishing chromatic passing tones or appoggiaturas or whatever the piece calls for. However I’d say working in Staffpad mostly these last few months has also impacted writing in my daw. It’s become more commonplace for me to refine a lot of keyboard performed lines in to move them away from the idiosyncrasies that are endemic the keyboard playing (which don’t necessarily translate to wind and brass phrasing).

but this is my personal experience. And also it’s informed by the style of music I write. Other composers who work in other genres operate differently. For orchestral writing, and we are talking about traditional not modern “epic” or film scoring, I’d say notation based entry or at least editing is almost a given to get the most expression out of your music. My 2 cents


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 15, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> View attachment 34510



There's nothing there that _couldn't_ be represented in midi data, though, is there? All of that's perfectly programmable. Whether the sample libraries will do a decent job of it isn't relevant, it's no worse than the sound the paper itself can make . 

Just because _some_ hypothetical person couldn't conceive of it in a form other than paper doesn't mean _nobody_ could. The channel limitation is no different in concept to a stave limitation; staves are limited in different but similar ways, for example some divisi that is easily achieved on a midi channel with multiple notes is problematic to write out on a single staff. 

Just posting a suitably complex example of a piece with doesn't prove your point at all, and at least you could chuck some Ferneyhough in if it's really serving that purpose alone....I wouldn't want to program any of that either, but it would absolutely not be_ impossible_.


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## Al Maurice (Aug 16, 2020)

All the modern notation programs talk midi which is quantized, just like any DAW. So it's just how notes are represented in minds eye so to speak. Thus nothing will quite compare to pen and ink. Maybe something like Staffpad might come closer to that experience.


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 16, 2020)

Al Maurice said:


> All the modern notation programs talk midi which is quantized, just like any DAW. So it's just how notes are represented in minds eye so to speak. Thus nothing will quite compare to pen and ink. Maybe something like Staffpad might come closer to that experience.



Actually moving on from that - Staffpad is electronically input musical notation - so you can notate anything you like. The fact that the samples may not be able to reproduce that properly is neither here nor there - it can be notated in much the same way as with paper.

How do you write something with Piano roll that doesn't actually exist in the sample(s) available - Well the short answer is that you can't. To state this crudely - If I only have an ensemble library, I can't write individual sections or solos in a DAW with piano roll....


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## mikeh-375 (Aug 16, 2020)

vgamer1982 said:


> There's nothing there that _couldn't_ be represented in midi data, though, is there? All of that's perfectly programmable. Whether the sample libraries will do a decent job of it isn't relevant, it's no worse than the sound the paper itself can make .
> 
> Just because _some_ hypothetical person couldn't conceive of it in a form other than paper doesn't mean _nobody_ could. The channel limitation is no different in concept to a stave limitation; staves are limited in different but similar ways, for example some divisi that is easily achieved on a midi channel with multiple notes is problematic to write out on a single staff.
> 
> Just posting a suitably complex example of a piece with doesn't prove your point at all, and at least you could chuck some Ferneyhough in if it's really serving that purpose alone....I wouldn't want to program any of that either, but it would absolutely not be_ impossible_.



This thread seems to be planing on different levels. MIdi can of course be 'programmed' with those notes but what GeneP (and me for that matter) is saying I believe, is that it would not represent nearly enough, music of a complexity demonstrated in his post above and the expressive reach that live musicianship and ensemble imparts to such work. In fact, the vital 'music' in a midi/sample rendition would be lost imv, much to the detriment of the great classics.

However, I'd love for someone to try and match a live recording of the Strauss with the best available in samples to see how close we can get at present. Another thing, how would one for example perform with samples, the 5 violas harmonic glissando sul C in Gene's second example? Is there anything out there that could do this at the required dynamic and tempo?...I'm genuinely asking as it'd be nice to have a flexible, programmable harmonic gliss for all the 4 strings of each string instrument...oh with solo and divisi options too... 


Likewise on a different plane and getting back to the OP, a composer's creative mindset can be hampered by sample limitations and they may have to decide between writing to sample strength or write in a more unlimited way on the manuscript. Writing successfully, free of sample limitations requires more knowledge than synthestration and the decision on how to proceed (synthestration or orchestration), is inevitably influenced by how much one has an understanding of individual instrumental capability and instruments in combination with others, along with the artistic intention and/or the reason for writing. One can of course, embrace the samples for what they are and with full orchestral knowledge or not, still produce artistic worth.


A mixed approach will inevitably have to be used by those fluent in synthestration _and_ orchestration in the absence of real performance, unless they decide _not_ be dictated to on the ms. It's quite the artistic trap and the temptation to give in to what sounds ok in the DAW can be a limiting factor for some.


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## bryla (Aug 16, 2020)

When DAWs can show a distinction between F-sharp and G-flat...


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## Uiroo (Aug 16, 2020)

Honestly, I have no idea what the discussion is about at this point, people mix up points and arguments. 

Some talk about MIDI Notation vs traditional notation. 
Others talk about how samples aren't like the real deal (duh, no shit sherlock).

So are we talking about samples or notation?
I see three options: 
DAW with playback (I doubt anyone works on a DAW without playback).
Traditional notation with playback. (sibelius, dorico etc.)
Traditional notation without playback. (pen & paper or notation software without sound)

I've never seen anything that is in notation that can't be translated into MIDI or vice versa. 
The argument that DAW playback doesn't come close to the possibilities of live players is pointless. 
So does notation playback. 
If you write with playback you need to keep using your imagination whenever playback falls short and you must not let yourself be influenced by that (except you write for the virtual orchestra).

Traditional notation AND MIDI are both just approximations of what is actually meant. 
In the end it's about what you give to the players and how what you give to them gets interpreted. 
If it's written on paper, in notation software, or in midi and then translated into notation, it's the same for me. 

The original question was about the practicality of both system, and whether it's much easier to write certain things with notation, or even next to impossible with a DAW.
I think both have their pro's and con's, and I have made the experience that most people who criticise
writing in a DAW are not very familiar with it.

I love how it's everything on one staff effectively, I dislike how it can be too crowded and you often don't see when two notes are on top of another.
There are ways around that, I have set up key commands that allow me to switch visibility between sections, so I can say "ok, only want to see brass", or "only percussion please". 
It's so visual and intuitive, even a 3-year-old is able to see the rough shape of a piece only by looking at the key editor. 
No knowledge about transposition, rhythmic values or codas necessary. 
He'll go like "ok, it starts really high, goes really low, then it gets REALLY dense, and then there's something really high with a bit of stuff somewhere in the middle."


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## jsg (Aug 16, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> not a new topic I know - but I'm not sure if I'm slowly hitting a wall when composing orchestral music. So the resulting question I am facing at the moment is:
> 
> ...



Study counterpoint and learn to think in terms of melodic lines in addition to thinking in harmony and harmonic progressions. And it doesn't depend upon how well you can play your pieces into a DAW, it's also possible to use a mouse and compose that way. I compose in my DAW and have for many years. It sounds like your issue is more about composition rather than whether you compose in a DAW or in Sibelius or with manuscript paper. Study lots of scores by composers from various centuries, pay particular attention to texture and textural variety and how composers orchestrate. Orchestration styles change all the time, become familiar with different styles of orchestration, within and beyond classical music.


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## GNP (Aug 16, 2020)

This particular "VS." is quite a dumb comparison.

If you have the budget to record live players - then you need to know how to properly write using a score sheet.

If there's no budget, but yet you're expected to produce "world class" soundtracks - then you need a DAW, and your MIDI chops had better be up to par.

That's. All. There. Is. To. It.


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## Uiroo (Aug 16, 2020)

GNP said:


> This particular "VS." is quite a dumb comparison.
> 
> If you have the budget to record live players - then you need to know how to properly write using a score sheet.


John Powell, John Paesano, Hans Zimmer, Lorne Balfe, Harry Gregson Williams, Trevor Morris, Junkie XL, Dominic Lewis, they all don't write using a score sheet. In fact, it seems to become a rarity to write in notation. 
Sheet music is required for the live players, but that's not how you need to write.
Even. if. you. put. points. between. your. words.


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## GNP (Aug 16, 2020)

Uiroo said:


> John Powell, John Paesano, Hans Zimmer, Lorne Balfe, Harry Gregson Williams, Trevor Morris, Junkie XL, Dominic Lewis, they all don't write using a score sheet. In fact, it seems to become a rarity to write in notation.
> Sheet music is required for the live players, but that's not how you need to write.
> Even. if. you. put. points. between. your. words.



Relax dude...I'm on your side.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 17, 2020)

Al Maurice said:


> All the modern notation programs talk midi which is quantized, just like any DAW. So it's just how notes are represented in minds eye so to speak. Thus nothing will quite compare to pen and ink. Maybe something like Staffpad might come closer to that experience.



Er....notation is quite obviously inherently quantized, 1000% so. A quarter note is a quarter note. In fact, inflexibly and entirely so. You can write "rubato" over the top but you can write "rubato" on a midi part. There's no _actual_ difference except in our minds.

I think what some of you are mistaking is that you can easily read into notated music more than is _actually_ there, which is the essence of interpretation. That's fine, but that exists in any non-notated tradition also (and remember, in terms of notation, you're talking about the notation system of a _tiny_ fraction of all the music that ever existed in the world, albeit one strongly prevalent and well-preserved today).


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 17, 2020)

mikeh-375 said:


> This thread seems to be planing on different levels. MIdi can of course be 'programmed' with those notes but what GeneP (and me for that matter) is saying I believe, is that it would not represent nearly enough, music of a complexity demonstrated in his post above and the expressive reach that live musicianship and ensemble imparts to such work. In fact, the vital 'music' in a midi/sample rendition would be lost imv, much to the detriment of the great classics.



All of that is in _interpretation_. It's not _actually_ on the page at all, and in fact, you are highlighting a limitation of notation that has been pointed out many times (it's actually an incredibly _un_expressive medium, which is why you see a great many composers of the last 150 years actually fighting it, whether through the graphical notation of Penderecki and others, quirky performance descriptions by Satie, and so on and so forth).

What is problematic to me is where it leads; the inherent "I am a better musician than this other person because I use pen and paper" which is quite obviously nonsense but often present. Very, very, very often present, from educational establishments high and low, music critics throughout recent history, and numerous other outlets. It's an incredibly dangerous, ethnocentric (most music from the history of our species does _not_ use Western notation) and slippery slope. 

I'm not saying that that is why you are saying, or GeneP, but when I hear people say "music of XYZ complexity" it _does_ seem a little like saying that notation is superior to midi data, which...simply isn't true when you pick it apart properly. It's factually untrue (apart from the minor enharmonic spelling point, which is true).

Just because we as people who read music then apply a degree of interpretation naturally, and hear wonderful things beyond the rigid dots on the page, no matter how inspiring, _does not_ change that.


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## Uiroo (Aug 17, 2020)

vgamer1982 said:


> It's factually untrue (apart from the minor enharmonic spelling point, which is true).


I'm not sure what you mean there.
In Cubase it shows the note name, so you can make it Gb or F#, if that's the issue.


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## mikeh-375 (Aug 17, 2020)

vgamer1982 said:


> All of that is in _interpretation_. It's not _actually_ on the page at all, and in fact, you are highlighting a limitation of notation that has been pointed out many times (it's actually an incredibly _un_expressive medium, which is why you see a great many composers of the last 150 years actually fighting it, whether through the graphical notation of Penderecki and others, quirky performance descriptions by Satie, and so on and so forth).
> 
> What is problematic to me is where it leads; the inherent "I am a better musician than this other person because I use pen and paper" which is quite obviously nonsense but often present. Very, very, very often present, from educational establishments high and low, music critics throughout recent history, and numerous other outlets. It's an incredibly dangerous, ethnocentric (most music from the history of our species does _not_ use Western notation) and slippery slope.
> 
> ...



I'll stick to talking about western notation.
My main issue with midi/samples is the limits on creative options it imposes. The manuscript is free of restrictions other than one's own imagination and skill I believe. I work both ways btw but for me, I work best when on the manuscript as I tend to become even more aware than normal of idiomatic writing, phrasing, slurs and potential articulation subtleties and dynamics - all immediately written down with no fuss and in a state of flow. These details become creative options for me and inform my writing. Spacings and timbre take on a more physical aspect on my large 38 stave manuscript, which becomes a physical representation of the acoustic spectrum. Once music is written this way, the midi/sample programming of such becomes a little more focused and the result is more musical, at least for me and my way of working. The manuscript has a way of helping me focus in on details that could well be ignored if one is writing for samples - a potential expressive advantage or opportunity can be missed as a result. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that ms detail and an equivalent in midi are incomparable, it's just what works for me and my background. Subconsciously too, I believe it helps me create better music than I would without such focus.

I therefore disagree that the manuscript is unexpressive, in fact I find it creatively liberating to be free of physical constraints. And, for every aleatoric score or other innovative notational convention you can name in use by composers, there will be a "great many" composers who use standard notation in advanced or everyday ways and will find that it adequately translates their musical intent.

I'm not sure really what you main beef is though. I did acknowledge that complex music can be inputted via midi but that would then only churn out music such as in Gene's examples say, with a severely hampered expressive, interpretive and timbral result and in some cases, would not be able to play the articulations or techniques anyway. One can easily level the adjective "unexpressive" to midi too but admittedly that does depend on who's programming, their skill and the genre.

As to your "inherent implication" problem, well yes, one has to understand much more if one is to be a composer/ orchestrator as opposed to a synthestrator (samplestrator?). I can't do much about that, it's the way it is. That can be overcome with work and study.
It doesn't necessarily make one a better composer though and that I learnt a long time ago, when I would lose media briefs to good tracks by colleagues who could not read. Mind you, they couldn't write concertos.
For me the manuscript allows me to contemplate utilising resources I've learnt about in studies that are not available to the DAW.


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## Gene Pool (Aug 17, 2020)

Uiroo said:


> I have made the experience that most people who criticise writing in a DAW are not very familiar with it.





vgamer1982 said:


> What is problematic to me is where it leads; the inherent "I am a better musician than this other person because I use pen and paper" which is quite obviously nonsense but often present. Very, very, very often present, from educational establishments high and low, music critics throughout recent history, and numerous other outlets. It's an incredibly dangerous, ethnocentric (most music from the history of our species does _not_ use Western notation) and slippery slope.




Welp, looks like I get to add yet another topic to _The Official List of Things That Can't be Discussed Cuz Muh Sensitivities + You're a MIDI-ot + Discount Strawmen @ 3-for-a-dollar + Off-topic Axes to Grind + Virtue Signaling "You Might be an 'Incredibly Dangerous' Rayciss™ if You Prefer Notation Over Smoke Signals."_

Over four months to go in the year and my 2020 VI-C play-at-home bingo card is already filled up.


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 17, 2020)

Uiroo said:


> Honestly, I have no idea what the discussion is about at this point, people mix up points and arguments.
> 
> Some talk about MIDI Notation vs traditional notation.
> Others talk about how samples aren't like the real deal (duh, no shit sherlock).



My point is that composition in MIDI notation is inextricably linked to the sample libraries it triggers. Inherently the only way it works is if it is connected to a specific sample library patch. How do you notate a portamento note transition in MIDI ? Or a Rip ? If your library does not have those articulations you cannot notate it in MIDI. That’s why samples are a part of this conversation. You are limited from the very start by that capabilities of any specific library.

And that is before we get to compositional aspects that have also been discussed thoroughly in this thread, which I find is a rather more interesting discussion that the usuals ‘which is the best brass library’....


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## Uiroo (Aug 17, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> My point is that composition in MIDI notation is inextricably linked to the sample libraries it triggers. Inherently the only way it works is if it is connected to a specific sample library patch. How do you notate a portamento note transition in MIDI ? Or a Rip ? If your library does not have those articulations you cannot notate it in MIDI. That’s why samples are a part of this conversation. You are limited from the very start by that capabilities of any specific library.
> 
> And that is before we get to compositional aspects that have also been discussed thoroughly in this thread, which I find is a rather more interesting discussion that the usuals ‘which is the best brass library’....


If its for live players, you could fake it (so it sounds roughly like a rip)






or you put rip into the expression map, even though it doesn't change the playback





or both:






the same with portamento, you either add that into the notation when you later do the score, or you make an expression map called "portamento" and put it on there.

BUT I agree that the DAW makes you write with what you have. For me it's worth it, since I want to produce finished mock-ups. If you want to write concert music, the DAW is probably not a good choice.


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## MartinH. (Aug 17, 2020)

bryla said:


> When DAWs can show a distinction between F-sharp and G-flat...



It seems like @robgb and the other Reaper fanboys have been slacking off, so I'll pitch in and tell you that Reaper can do that:


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## cmillar (Aug 17, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> My point is that composition in MIDI notation is inextricably linked to the sample libraries it triggers. Inherently the only way it works is if it is connected to a specific sample library patch. How do you notate a portamento note transition in MIDI ? Or a Rip ? If your library does not have those articulations you cannot notate it in MIDI. That’s why samples are a part of this conversation. You are limited from the very start by that capabilities of any specific library.
> 
> And that is before we get to compositional aspects that have also been discussed thoroughly in this thread, which I find is a rather more interesting discussion that the usuals ‘which is the best brass library’....



Yes, good interesting discussion and thread.

I think of these points:
- as Duke Ellington said, there’s good music and bad music. Hopefully, good music is composed with thoughts towards doing ones best to express something worthy of being listened to hopefully more than just once.

- 99% of the world doesn’t care whether the composer used pencil/paper either before recording their music or even handing out parts to real musicians for some music to be recorded. They just want to hear the end result.

Computers are great tools, right? They can be used to produce all kinds of music these days... good and bad.

If we all want to sound the same and produce ‘trailer/epic’ music in the style of someone else, we can do that pretty easily. (...no knowledge of notation or much of anything is needed except knowing how to cut and paste with accuracy)

But, some new expressionistic-art can be produced as well, as prove by contributor Jerry Gerber (a true veteran of the MIDI world and the “real live” music world.

I mention Jerry because I’ve bought and listened to his music. If you haven’t heard his music, then do yourself a favor if you are really interested in hearing the potential of sample libraries/synths used to create new music. Fresh ideas, fresh orchestration ideas, tried and true ideas, some synths, melodies, cool chords, some real ‘busy’ section, some real ‘ambient’ sections... all of which bear listening to if you like music.... good music I must add.

His music, as he says, is meant to be heard as music that has just utilized his computer in order to create some art that he wants to put out there.

Not to mimic someone or do another rendition of some other composers music to show off some MIDI skills... but to just compose some music...and yes, using the capabilities of what libraries/synths he has on hand.

What blows me away is that he inputs the notes with a mouse into his DAW (even though he‘s a more than competent pianist!)

...which further proves that it doesn’t matter what the heck you use to get your ideas down in order to be heard by a listener!


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## jsg (Aug 17, 2020)

mikeh-375 said:


> I'll stick to talking about western notation.
> My main issue with midi/samples is the limits on creative options it imposes. The manuscript is free of restrictions other than one's own imagination and skill I believe. I work both ways btw but for me, I work best when on the manuscript as I tend to become even more aware than normal of idiomatic writing, phrasing, slurs and potential articulation subtleties and dynamics - all immediately written down with no fuss and in a state of flow. These details become creative options for me and inform my writing. Spacings and timbre take on a more physical aspect on my large 38 stave manuscript, which becomes a physical representation of the acoustic spectrum. Once music is written this way, the midi/sample programming of such becomes a little more focused and the result is more musical, at least for me and my way of working. The manuscript has a way of helping me focus in on details that could well be ignored if one is writing for samples - a potential expressive advantage or opportunity can be missed as a result. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that ms detail and an equivalent in midi are incomparable, it's just what works for me and my background. Subconsciously too, I believe it helps me create better music than I would without such focus.
> 
> I therefore disagree that the manuscript is unexpressive, in fact I find it creatively liberating to be free of physical constraints. And, for every aleatoric score or other innovative notational convention you can name in use by composers, there will be a "great many" composers who use standard notation in advanced or everyday ways and will find that it adequately translates their musical intent.
> ...


 

Yet the notated score, just like the MIDI data, is only a set of instructions, utterly dependent upon the quality of the players or the quality of the samples. One can produce a score that is meticulous down to the last detail but the players still have to have the skills and experience to bring that score to life. And in the studio, the MIDI programming can be rich with every detail, yet still dependent upon the number of and quality of the samples. The local high school orchestra obviously won't be able to interpret the score like the NY Philharmonic can, and a library that costs $200 won't be able to interpret the MIDI programming in the same way that a $6000 library can.


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## mikeh-375 (Aug 17, 2020)

Yes. Jerry is a good example of an exception here which is why I try to word my views accurately. I know his musical philosophy regarding samples and his conviction shows in his work. Embracing midi/samples in their own right is obviously an option.
Oh Hi Jerry, we were just talking about you....


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## jsg (Aug 17, 2020)

mikeh-375 said:


> Yes. Jerry is a good example of an exception here which is why I try to word my views accurately. I know his musical philosophy regarding samples and his conviction shows in his work. Embracing midi/samples in their own right is obviously an option.
> Oh Hi Jerry, we were just talking about you....


Hi Mike, Cam & everyone! 😃


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 17, 2020)

cmillar said:


> Yes, good interesting discussion and thread.



It is, and just to be clear, I don't think that anyone has said that really terrific music has not been or cannot be written using the MIDI Piano roll. There are some examples of beautiful compositions out there. What is being debated is whether MIDI is more constraining and limiting than traditional notation - primarily with reference to compositional technique.

Personally I believe it is (constraining), but that's just my opinion, and I am always interested in hearing alternative viewpoints...


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## robgb (Aug 17, 2020)

MartinH. said:


> It seems like @robgb and the other Reaper fanboys have been slacking off, so I'll pitch in and tell you that Reaper can do that:


Proof that I'm not a fan boy.


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## jsg (Aug 17, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> It is, and just to be clear, I don't think that anyone has said that really terrific music has not been or cannot be written using the MIDI Piano roll. There are some examples of beautiful compositions out there. What is being debated is whether MIDI is more constraining and limiting than traditional notation - primarily with reference to compositional technique.
> 
> Personally I believe it is, but that's just my opinion, and I am always interested in hearing alternative viewpoints...



I've worked in a DAW for some 30 years and have never once used the piano-roll view. I don't know if terrific music can or cannot be created with it, that's not for me to judge. But I do know as a classically-trained and practicing composer that it's impossible for me to create effective contrapuntal music using the piano-roll. In my opinion (just my opinion folks, don't get all bent out of shape over it) the PRV cannot compete with SMN, at least for my musical purposes.

We've got several issues here: DAWs, music notation, the piano-roll, traditional manuscript, etc. etc. My recommendation is DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, and write what you want to write any way you want to write it. I can guarantee this: Whatever you write, somebody might love it, somebody might hate it and somebody won't give a rat's ass about it.


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## borisb2 (Aug 17, 2020)

jsg said:


> We've got several issues here: DAWs, music notation, the piano-roll, traditional manuscript, etc. etc. My recommendation is DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, and write what you want to write any way you want to write it. I can guarantee this: Whatever you write, somebody might love it, somebody might hate it and somebody won't give a rat's ass about it.


and that brings me back to my original question:

using the DAW for composing results for me in a way of composing where I always kind of "perform" (only) 1 line at a time. Being a piano player doesnt help in this case. No matter what sophisticated library with custom build expressionMap I have loaded up, I tend to improvise/perform/focus on one line. I would imagine, using either notation with multi staves (or piano roll/score editor with some good practise) I could more efficiently "web" on multiple musical "threads" at the same time - in other words just work more contrapuntal.

If you say you dont compose/work with piano roll .. what is your typical process when letting your ideas come to life?


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## jsg (Aug 17, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> and that brings me back to my original question:
> 
> using the DAW for composing results for me in a way of composing where I always kind of "perform" (only) 1 line at a time. Being a piano player doesnt help in this case. No matter what sophisticated library with custom build expressionMap I have loaded up, I tend to improvise/perform/focus on one line. I would imagine, using either notation with multi staves (or piano roll/score editor with some good practise) I could more efficiently "web" on multiple musical "threads" at the same time - in other words just work more contrapuntal.
> 
> If you say you dont compose/work with piano roll .. what is your typical process when letting your ideas come to life?



I still maintain that your issue is not about DAW vs traditional notation. It seems to me more about how to learn how to think as a composer, rather than an instrumentalist (actually you want to think as both). Have you taken a course on counterpoint? My own way of working is to pop notes onto the staff using a mouse, which for some might seem absurd. I might start with a motive or melody, or a rhythmic pattern, or a chord or harmonic progression. Then I go from there. I think each person has to find their own method, no one size fits all. There's many ways to use the musical tools that science and technology has given us. You'll just have to do what the rest of us are doing--experiment and find the way that works best for you. I can say that approaching this with enthusiasm, confidence and a certain kind of "lightheartedness" is helpful.


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## borisb2 (Aug 17, 2020)

jsg said:


> I still maintain that your issue is not about DAW vs traditional notation. It seems to me more about how to learn how to think as a composer, rather than an instrumentalist (actually you want to think as both).


I agree .. yet, the DAW still channels me of thinking less contrapuntal, but more in blocks / individual parts .. - guess I have to free myself from that thinking. (I have to mention, in my earlier life I used to produce EDM and pop music for years - using Emagic Logic Audio  )
Thats why I think either using notation or the DAW in a bit different way than I used it before would be sort of a fresh start for that.


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## jsg (Aug 17, 2020)

mikeh-375 said:


> This thread seems to be planing on different levels. MIdi can of course be 'programmed' with those notes but what GeneP (and me for that matter) is saying I believe, is that it would not represent nearly enough, music of a complexity demonstrated in his post above and the expressive reach that live musicianship and ensemble imparts to such work. In fact, the vital 'music' in a midi/sample rendition would be lost imv, much to the detriment of the great classics.
> 
> However, I'd love for someone to try and match a live recording of the Strauss with the best available in samples to see how close we can get at present. Another thing, how would one for example perform with samples, the 5 violas harmonic glissando sul C in Gene's second example? Is there anything out there that could do this at the required dynamic and tempo?...I'm genuinely asking as it'd be nice to have a flexible, programmable harmonic gliss for all the 4 strings of each string instrument...oh with solo and divisi options too...
> 
> ...




Here's another perspective: When Strauss or Mahler or whoever was composing for orchestra a hundred or 150 years ago, the orchestra was IT. That's all they had, that's what they knew, that's what they wrote for.

What is the end game here? Sure, as musicians the end game is to write the best music we can, to put our commitment, time, energy and love into what we're making. That's a given. But isn't the goal, in a more general sense to be happy, to be a reasonably content human being, to strive for, yes, of course, but also to be able to go to work and be grateful, thankful that you're alive and lucky enough to be able to even be writing music. Any one of us could drop dead any moment, get COVID, get into a car crash, whatever. Life is uncertain in every respect. The pandemic just brings it out more.

If your chief pursuit is to take a classic, say a Mahler symphony, or a Strauss opera and interpret using samples and a DAW, well, that's certainly your right to do that. And if you do, you'll probably learn an awful lot about music, harmony, orchestration and sequencing in the process. But remember: You're re-adapting a work for one medium into another medium. Strauss and the other composers of that day knew nothing of our instruments today. They wrote for their medium. Not ours.

When it comes to writing your own music, might not the wiser course of action be to decide: Am I writing for a new medium as an end in itself, or am I settling for something I don't really love because what I really want deep in my heart of hearts is getting works played well by a great orchestra (not to mention getting a good recording)? But these opportunities are really hard to get unless you're writing for film or some other commercial pursuit, which brings an entirely different set of compromises. (The politics and economics of getting works played is a whole other discussion). Remember, composers are in a profession where we're literally competing with about 300 years of dead people! Yes, most of the music played by top American orchestras is music composed by men (very few women unfortunately) who passed away decades or centuries ago. Now that's competition! 

If your dream is to get all, some, most, or even one of your serious works played by a live orchestra, go for it! Keep on pursuing it until you get what you want. But I think comparing what samples can and cannot do relative to a live orchestra is kind of self-sabotaging. Part of the problem is in the terms we use, terms like "mockup", or "symphony" (I plead guilty) or "virtual orchestra"--they invite us (tempt us) to compare what should be a new, exciting musical frontier with a long-established tradition. I personally do not think this is healthy.

To compare a live performance in a great hall with expert musicians, an eager audience, a gifted conductor with a recording of a virtual electronic piece is, to my mind, such a futile comparison that I don't ever even go there. First of all, the psycho-social aspects of live musicians interacting with each other in real time is not duplicatable with MIDI. Even when I improvise with just one or a few other musicians, I realize there's a give-and-take component of the experience that is unique. I think we're setting ourselves up for unhappiness and frustration by comparing the old way with the new way of music-making.

So how is it I wake up nearly every morning, eager, enthusiastic and excited to go into my studio and work in a medium that will never be a real orchestra? Because I never pretended, even to myself, especially to myself, that it is that in the first place. I completely accept it as a different way to make music. Better? Worse? Good? Bad? It doesn't matter, what matters is I show up, do my best, and let the chips fall where they may. I am not seeking immortality through music, I seek it through being human. If I put meaning into my work, and I get meaning out of it, that's all that matters to me. I could be dead tomorrow and I sure as hell don't want to spend my life not appreciating what I do have and what I can do.

Mike's work is incredible. I keep urging him to post on here but he has his own reasons for not doing so and I respect that. I know he's worked with top players for years, which I am sure colors his thinking on these matters. And yet I've been listening to his MIDI interpretations of his scores and they are, by any standard, superb. Are there some moments where we might realize we're hearing samples? Sure, but so what? He' still showing great skill as a composer, orchestrator and electronic music producer and I think the hair-splitting he does regarding samples vs real players is beside the point. If you're really a good composer and you know you are, why do you care if some one picks apart your work and exclaims "Yikes! I heard a sampled instrument"! Maybe that person is unable to let themselves really sink into the music for reasons having nothing to do with you or your piece. Does that make you a fake? Illegitimate? Not a real musician? C'mon people, get some courage and self-esteem going and believe in your creativity. The medium is just a medium. It's not your entire destiny.

My philosophy has been and still is to embrace the medium I work in. There are people who love my work, people who hate it and people who are utterly indifferent. Should that matter? Just keep growing and learning. Life is short. A photograph isn't a painting, yet there are great photographs. A film isn't a play, yet there are great films. A recording made with samples and synthesizers is not an orchestra, but there are people do great work in this medium. What's the problem? I really don't think there is one.


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## vgamer1982 (Aug 17, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> Welp, looks like I get to add yet another topic to _The Official List of Things That Can't be Discussed Cuz Muh Sensitivities + You're a MIDI-ot + Discount Strawmen @ 3-for-a-dollar + Off-topic Axes to Grind + Virtue Signaling "You Might be an 'Incredibly Dangerous' Rayciss™ if You Prefer Notation Over Smoke Signals."_
> 
> Over four months to go in the year and my 2020 VI-C play-at-home bingo card is already filled up.



Ethnocentrism isn't really racism and that's not the point I'm making. It's simply that we tend to think in the western tradition that we are the be all and end all and the highest art in music. We're not, necessarily. But I'll tick the "a few people missing the point entirely" box on my card and move on.

One of the most interesting things of notation vs an oral tradition that relies on basically no notation at all for the most part can be found here; Kopatchinskaja is playing from a written out transcription. Shankar is playing it entirely from memory. The violin part is pretty much as close as you could hope to notate traditional raga, and still doesn't even get close to all the detail in some ways, but it's a truly extraordinary performance and illustrates a bit of what I mean, especially if you skip in a few minutes to the really mind bending stuff for the violinist.


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## TinderC (Aug 17, 2020)

jsg said:


> Here's another perspective


Sounds like we're getting philosophical but that's OK. VI libraries allow lots of people to express themselves and find an audience on sites like VI-C. Many of us I'm sure find validation from feedback on the sites, but unless you're a media composer with a client it's a bit like self-publishing a book. When the relatives say "So ... how's the music coming along these days?" we'd be even more happy to say "The local chamber orchestra chose my piece to perform next month".


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## jsg (Aug 17, 2020)

TinderC said:


> Sounds like we're getting philosophical but that's OK. VI libraries allow lots of people to express themselves and find an audience on sites like VI-C. Many of us I'm sure find validation from feedback on the sites, but unless you're a media composer with a client it's a bit like self-publishing a book. When the relatives say "So ... how's the music coming along these days?" we'd be even more happy to say "The local chamber orchestra chose my piece to perform next month".



Maybe, maybe not. Lots of fine writers and musicians publish their own works. People aren't the same; we all get validation in different ways. The kind of validation a 30 year old needs can be quite different from what a 60 year old needs.


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## Gene Pool (Aug 17, 2020)

The discussion was—according to my understanding of the OP's initial inquiry—work methods, or maybe work _modes_ is better, when one is composing either with MIDI or with music notation, specifically with respect to how the alternate approaches can change one's mindset during the compositional process.

But after you and a couple others here continued to demonstrate what was in some respects a somewhat superficial understanding of notation in its fuller sense (which I remained charitably silent about for the duration), you started off on some tangent about “slippery slopes” and “extremely dangerous ethnocentrism.” And now we have a decidedly off-topic sitar + tablas concert, and you claiming that it’s _other_ “people who are missing the point entirely.”

This subject is already tricky enough to discuss in and of itself, but it's made worse by people acting as if their usual work method was being impugned—despite emphatic declarations to the contrary—or as if it was a contest between one thing and another thing. And the goalposts were being moved so often and so quickly it could give one whiplash. Fer cryin’ out loud, one post unexplainably tried to narrow the issue down to a list of his favorite film composers, since non sequiturs never go out of style, and immediately after that we were going on a whirlwind globetrotting tour for our Ethnomusicology 101 field trip, first stop, New Delhi.

I don't think this should be a revelation, but I'll go through it anyway. The process of turning someone else's DAW or MIDI files into something that will work for orchestra is typically not what one would describe as a straightforward process. Before the actual orchestration can begin, there is editing; lots of problematic, unusable stuff clogging up the notation view has to get deleted. Then the essential bare bones remainder is transferred usually to Sibelius. In the working out of the score, there is a great deal that has to be added to it that wasn't in the original data. Some of that is because it just wasn't included in the original, but some it is because the data for it simply doesn't exist outside of the notation environment. The list of notation elements and instrumental devices for which there is no MIDI data is quite long. Hence, my initially stated position.

Most people I know work in two modes, according to the task at hand: notation _and_ MIDI. None think either is perfect, nor that one's usually preferred approach testifies to their skill as a composer. Simply, that they are two different environments, therefore not the same, therefore not equal in all tasks. There should be nothing controversial about this reality. A hammer does not compete with a wrench.


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## mikeh-375 (Aug 18, 2020)

jsg said:


> Here's another perspective: When Strauss or Mahler or whoever was composing for orchestra a hundred or 150 years ago, the orchestra was IT. That's all they had, that's what they knew, that's what they wrote for.
> 
> What is the end game here? Sure, as musicians the end game is to write the best music we can, to put our commitment, time, energy and love into what we're making. That's a given. But isn't the goal, in a more general sense to be happy, to be a reasonably content human being, to strive for, yes, of course, but also to be able to go to work and be grateful, thankful that you're alive and lucky enough to be able to even be writing music. Any one of us could drop dead any moment, get COVID, get into a car crash, whatever. Life is uncertain in every respect. The Pandemic just brings it out more.
> 
> ...





You're too kind Jerry. I'll send the cheque via pigeon carrier as your postal service is about to get f**ked... 
There isn't much to discuss here as it is an absolutely valid position you have taken in your work and the results prove it. (I'm still jealous of the fact that you have written, what 11 symphonies...11 fer christ sake. I'm still pissing in the wind with my 2nd....).
Excellence can obviously be achieved in either medium, separately or in combination. I concur with GeneP's (@Gene Pool) last paragraph above which I believe is an even-handed, straw free desription of mine, your's and many others approach to creating music within a DAW.

_......Most people I know work in two modes, according to the task at hand: notation and MIDI. None think either is perfect, nor that one's usually preferred approach testifies to their skill as a composer. Simply, that they are two different environments, therefore not the same, therefore not equal in all tasks. There should be nothing controversial about this reality. A hammer does not compete with a wrench._

Amen.

(I preferred the coloured tree Gene, who's the Prokoffievan geezer in the hat)


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## ptram (Aug 18, 2020)

While I know that my music will only live in digital form*, I still believe that the orchestra is the highest achievement of the Western civilization, together with the big-building architecture and the comprehensive system of philosophy systems.

Orchestra is a term born when an organized society was first meeting in a theatre. It ultimately means putting our conscience together in a public space, to form a collective idea on ourselves. More than a technical term, it is an idea and a way of being humans.

Composing for the orchestra is not just a matter of putting together particular sounds, but to act for a complex form of social organization. El Sistema is a strong representation of the equivalence between a music band and an idea of society.

Writing for the orchestra is a social act. My music will remain in a computer, but I try not to ignore that I’m not writing for a violin, but for a violinist that is playing (and living**) together with other violinists. Thinking to bowing and breathing should connect us to the actual body of the people who are going to play the music.

Then, samples are also _objects trouvés_. We can do with them what we want to do with them. It's legit. But I’m still convinced this shouldn't be their ultimate goal.

Paolo

(* Actually, I had an orchestral piece performed by a real orchestra; but the version performed with samples sounds better!) (Of that experience with a real orchestra I have better memories of the human, than the musical experience).

(** The corrector wrote "loving" instead of "living'. It would have been perfectly fine. Germans also rightly use similar words for both concepts.)


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## Vik (Aug 18, 2020)

I finally read through this thread – interesting topic. I would be interesting with a parallel discussion about DAWs could improve in order to make them more convenient for composing orchestral music.
Relevant to the topic of this thread, I believe we also have to look at not what our DAW or pen/paper can do, but what our hands can do. We can, for instance, even with only one hand and a keyboard instrument, improvise a some bars with three different lines, some harmonic structure and hopefully interesting counter point movements. This is easy to translate into notation with pencil and paper (for someone who knows how to do it, obviously). When trying to record this into a DAW, and edit it – and listen to it before we make edits – the process will vary from one DAW to another. Some of the actions that are very easy to perform only with one hand and a piano sometimes require a lot of steps and key commands in a DAW, and the process is sometimes quite counterintuitive.

Example: At some point – say, at the second beat of bar 2, play chord with three or four notes, as one of the ingredients in the bars I'm improving. I want to check out how that chord would sound if I changed the G into a G#. Relying on the hand>piano>pencil method, the workflow is obvious: Hage the finger you have on a G to a G#. If you do that while the other notes still are being sustained, you'll hear how that G# will work with the other notes. If you you want you can also lift your hand before playing that G# instead of the G - easy. some DAWs/notation programs may deal with this in an elegant way – others aren't. In Sibelius, for instance, there are key commands which allows you to transpose the selected note which also will play the other chord notes every time change one of the notes. There are also key commands in some programs that – when proceeding to the next note – will let you hear all the notes happening at the same time position as the note you are proceeding to – if you want that. And so on. Many things have be done to emulate what we, in the composing process, easily could do with minimum effort (using our fingers).

We can't really discuss DAWs/notation programs as one homogenous group of tools here; they are, after all, quite different from each other. Some of them also create hindrances for us when we want to edit our way through an improvised number of bars, eg. by notating rather simple stuff – even three note harmonies – wrongly. If something a simple as an E major triad is shown as E, Ab and B, things simply look wrong. Of course – it's not that we don't understand that it's an E major triad, we'll just auto-translate that into correct notation – which, of course, may take some more time with a chord with 4 notes using a not-so-common combination of notes. But I want my DAW/score editor to be smarter than me, not more stupid. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while most stuff is possible with any workflow we choose, tools _are_ important (as usual): how _convenient_ and obvious/intuitive are the DAWs we use, compared with relying on the piano>hand>pencil method? Of course both methods have their pros and cons, we know that, but the above question is still important IMHO – and maybe even more interesting that a simple A vs B comparison, because there's still massive room for improvement in DAWs.


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## Uiroo (Aug 18, 2020)

borisb2 said:


> and that brings me back to my original question:
> 
> using the DAW for composing results for me in a way of composing where I always kind of "perform" (only) 1 line at a time. Being a piano player doesnt help in this case. No matter what sophisticated library with custom build expressionMap I have loaded up, I tend to improvise/perform/focus on one line. I would imagine, using either notation with multi staves (or piano roll/score editor with some good practise) I could more efficiently "web" on multiple musical "threads" at the same time - in other words just work more contrapuntal.
> 
> If you say you dont compose/work with piano roll .. what is your typical process when letting your ideas come to life?


Why don't you just work in the DAW the same way you'd work on notation software?
I do, my shortcuts on notation software are 90% identical to Cubase. Step-input is a godsend, it works awesome in Cubase. 

What I love to do is to improvise on the piano, until I have something good. 
Then I put it in via step-input, so it can be 1000x the complexity of what I could normally play. 
Then work on it until I am sure the notes are exactly right, then I orchestrate it.

When I started working with a DAW I used to perform every part, and the music I did was the horizontal linear kind of music you typically expect from a DAW composer. 
Now I rarely perform anything in as long as I'm still writing.


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## borisb2 (Aug 18, 2020)

Uiroo said:


> Why don't you just work in the DAW the same way you'd work on notation software?
> I do, my shortcuts on notation software are 90% identical to Cubase. Step-input is a godsend, it works awesome in Cubase.
> 
> What I love to do is to improvise on the piano, until I have something good.
> ...


it might sound stupid, but thats exactly what I have to learn - back to the drawing board.
/blabbering on:
When I worked with Logic back in the day (we're talking 15 years, doing EDM), performing a part was all we wanted, Logic (Emagic) was considered more musical because of things like groove and human quantize, swing factors etc., step input was considered a curse - not "musical" enough  .. working with Cubase now it seems to be like the opposite is true, at least for orchestral music ... funny world


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