# NotePerformer doing Debussy/Ravel impressionism



## leslieq (Jan 21, 2020)

I wanted to try something a little different in NotePerformer focusing on orchestral texture and colour so I turned to two extracts from some of my favourite impressionistic works by Debussy and Ravel.

*"Daybreak" Lever du Jour - Daphnis et Chloé (Ravel)*
Someone [I forget who - maybe Simon Rattle] once described this as: "what you see on the page are the grains of sand; what you hear in your ear is the whole beach"





*Jeux de Vagues - La Mer (Debussy)*
Almost all the dynamics were copied verbatim from score to Sibelius. The one thing Debussy often does is he'll direct an overall feel/change in dynamic e.g. a really long gradual crescendo (getting louder)...and real musicians know exactly that he means still preserve lyrical phrasing, just be getting louder with it. However, if you put that in Sibelius, you sure do get a long gradual crescendo, but it's not very musical sounding. So my workaround (only in one small section) was to bypass the long crescendo during playback, but added hidden crescendo/diminuendo for better musical phrasing but still gave the impression of a long gradual crescendo.




Not bad at all for AI performance. Oh, and also started fiddling with Altiverb... pointers gratefully received.


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## Franklin (Jan 22, 2020)

Hi Ieslieq, sounds very impressive.
I also use Sibelius and Noteperformer 3.3.1 but are gradually getting to know Sibelius. Could you explain how you did the workaround to bypass the long crescendo and add hidden crescendo/diminuendo.
Are you willing to share the Sibelius file?

Cheers, Franklin


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## Wallander (Jan 22, 2020)

Brilliant work, as always. 

I have a few tips on how you can greatly improve your video exports from Sibelius. You can make the music fill out the entire video display, and magnify the score so that it's much more readable, by playing around with a few settings in the "Layout" section on the Sibelius ribbon: 

1) Reduce margins to "narrow".

2) Increase "Normal staff size", to twice its value. 

3) Reduce "Space Between Staves", to half its value. 

You may need to play around with the 2) and 3) parameters a bit. Video exports usually look their best when the score itself is ridiculously magnified, with all the staves overlapping in a total mess. You need to go back and forth with the video export preview window, to see what each tweak does. The appearance on screen has little to do with the appearance of the video.


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## leslieq (Jan 22, 2020)

Franklin said:


> Hi Ieslieq, sounds very impressive.
> I also use Sibelius and Noteperformer 3.3.1 but are gradually getting to know Sibelius. Could you explain how you did the workaround to bypass the long crescendo and add hidden crescendo/diminuendo.
> Are you willing to share the Sibelius file?
> 
> Cheers, Franklin




@Franklin I'll delve into this a little later when I get home.


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## leslieq (Jan 22, 2020)

Wallander said:


> Brilliant work, as always.
> 
> I have a few tips on how you can greatly improve your video exports from Sibelius. You can make the music fill out the entire video display, and magnify the score so that it's much more readable, by playing around with a few settings in the "Layout" section on the Sibelius ribbon:
> 
> ...




Wow, these are super useful tips. I'll experiment for sure. Thanks


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Jan 22, 2020)

leslieq said:


> I wanted to try something a little different in NotePerformer focusing on orchestral texture and colour so I turned to two extracts from some of my favourite impressionistic works by Debussy and Ravel.
> 
> *"Daybreak" Lever du Jour - Daphnis et Chloé (Ravel)*
> Someone [I forget who - maybe Simon Rattle] once described this as: "what you see on the page are the grains of sand; what you hear in your ear is the whole beach"
> ...



Great work - noteperformer really is incredible software.


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## leslieq (Jan 22, 2020)

@Franklin 

So for bypassing playback in Sibelius, it's quite simple. You just select the item, then in the Inspector panel (i) under the Playback group, you'll see 8 checkboxes, all of them checked. Simply uncheck the first checkbox under "_Play on pass_". This will prevent the articulation or marking that would otherwise affect the playback from taking any effect. You can see this for the long crescendo selected Cello section part in the image below. 






Then to modify the interpretation of that long crescendo, I've added some markings for the cellos and marked them as hidden (COMMAND+Shift+H to toggle visibility) or alternatively from Inspector panel, choosing "Hide" from the General > Visibility group. This allows you to make hidden markings in your score that can be used to manipulate playback, but invisible if you were to print the score out. (For text objects, you can also use "~" before the text and that would hide it too).






Lastly, I've attached an extract of the Sibelius file (I'm on Sibelius Ultimate) but I've included a few back versions and music xml too. In my workflow, I typically work with Dry playback settings in Sibelius but then route it through AltiVerb to apply room distance. But in the attached file, I've left a little bit of reverb on the mixer and playback performance settings.


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## CT (Jan 22, 2020)

Note Performer is something that I'm following very closely! It's pretty remarkable.


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## Steve Martin (Jan 22, 2020)

Wallander said:


> Brilliant work, as always.
> 
> I have a few tips on how you can greatly improve your video exports from Sibelius. You can make the music fill out the entire video display, and magnify the score so that it's much more readable, by playing around with a few settings in the "Layout" section on the Sibelius ribbon:
> 
> ...


Hi Arne,

thanks for that info. I have a large project that is getting close to finishing that I want to post on Youtube that uses Noteperformer. However, I have 2 staves that I want to 'hide'. Would that create a problem with this set up for video export? 

Thank you if you can let me know.

best,

Steve.


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## Wallander (Jan 23, 2020)

Steve Martin said:


> Hi Arne,
> 
> thanks for that info. I have a large project that is getting close to finishing that I want to post on Youtube that uses Noteperformer. However, I have 2 staves that I want to 'hide'. Would that create a problem with this set up for video export?
> 
> ...


Use "Layout > Focus on staves" to hide staves. 

That will hide them from video export, but they will still playback.


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## Franklin (Jan 23, 2020)

leslieq said:


> @Franklin
> 
> So for bypassing playback in Sibelius, it's quite simple. You just select the item, then in the Inspector panel (i) under the Playback group, you'll see 8 checkboxes, all of them checked. Simply uncheck the first checkbox under "_Play on pass_". This will prevent the articulation or marking that would otherwise affect the playback from taking any effect. You can see this for the long crescendo selected Cello section part in the image below.
> 
> ...





leslieq said:


> @Franklin
> 
> So for bypassing playback in Sibelius, it's quite simple. You just select the item, then in the Inspector panel (i) under the Playback group, you'll see 8 checkboxes, all of them checked. Simply uncheck the first checkbox under "_Play on pass_". This will prevent the articulation or marking that would otherwise affect the playback from taking any effect. You can see this for the long crescendo selected Cello section part in the image below.
> 
> ...


@ Ieslieq,

Thanks for explaining and sharing!
Wil try this out later today.
Have a nice day!

Cheers,

Franklin


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## ptram (Jan 28, 2020)

Very beautiful indeed!

@Arne, since we are at the door of the 20th Century with these pieces, may I ask you if you plan to add an expansion pack containing extended techniques used in much of the later music? It would be great with contemporary scores!

Paolo


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## Space Jones (May 8, 2020)

leslieq said:


> I wanted to try something a little different in NotePerformer focusing on orchestral texture and colour so I turned to two extracts from some of my favourite impressionistic works by Debussy and Ravel.
> 
> *"Daybreak" Lever du Jour - Daphnis et Chloé (Ravel)*
> Someone [I forget who - maybe Simon Rattle] once described this as: "what you see on the page are the grains of sand; what you hear in your ear is the whole beach"
> ...



This is great man!!


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## aka70 (May 11, 2020)

Balancing orchestral templates with Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky it's amazing. Thank you for the sibelius file.
I'm building a template and it was perfect timing


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