Notation and Sequencing Software

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by Florestan

What's that? I'm at work.

A personal message from Professor Hawking to Herzeleide.

[haydnguy]

There IS one thing marquis is probably right about tho.... It's too late to turn back the clock. Usually on things like this, for better or worse we're probably stuck with software until something better comes along.

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by marquis66

That is a dangerous statement there, friend.

Who says? What is your basis of comparison? Popularity? Relevance? Use of Medium? Output? I don't agree with the statement at all and moreso, I don't think that composing software is the devil here over, say, the nature of the whole frelling world. You are right that criticism is necessary, but for there to be criticism there needs to be good and bad. But those tastes are so subjective! Who are you to tell me that I shouldn't like Stockhausen? If I want to pay him* gadoodles of dollars to rent helicopters and radio me in a string quartet because it is what I like... well, hell isn't that the musical patronage system? Isn't that how most of those great artists survived to produce the works that we look at 150 years later and appreciate?

I would think just about anyone says... Stockhausen was very different from Brahms.. Different because of the time he lived in. Also, as far as todays composers are concerned, the ones that are going to shape the early 21st century.. It is just common knowledge that they are not the masters of their crafts like the great masters were. It is impossible for one to devote ones life so wholeheartedly to music like the great ones could.. There is to much possibility for distraction for another composer to reach Brahmsian levels..

And I don't think music software is strictly the devil here.. It certainly has its place, and even I use Finale to enter in my incredibly amateur pen and paper compositions after some progress to be able to listen.. It is also easier to enter things into finale for performance. For example, I have written choral things by hand, but then entered them into finale to have my friends and fellow choir members sing through simply because my hand writing sucks and I need several copies.. There are great things that software does for us.. Yet we need to be wary of the possibilities... Every time I see a cheaper movie us a synth OOOHH AAHHH choir in a movie, I die a little... Thats at least 100 choral musicians out of a job that week. This is something I take issue with.. A computer should never be able to replace a human, but as people grow lazier and lazier, it is what we inch towards. And that is a scary thought for a 20 year old musician with high hopes of studying early performance and history...

In conclusion, I am not all that against using tools for our advantage.. But I think many people, especially as far as electronic instruments and the "editing and mixing" process, have gone to far already..

[stephen w]

Originally Posted by Philidor

it seems daft to cut a field with a scythe while a brand new combine harvester sits rotting in the barn. The key thing, surely, is to prevent the combine from spraying the fields with petrol and shredding the hare population?

awesome metaphors.. an image of farming einsatzgruppen massing hidden on the border. . or is it echoes of napalm, and Vietnam? Either way I feel desperately anxious for the poor hares.. .

[stephen w]

Originally Posted by Florestan

No, I am glad you are persistent. I am glad you are passionate about what you believe.

My only (slight) concern is that no one feels they are being personally attacked - whether that perception seems accurate to others or not. I am not suggesting anyone has done anything wrong but let's avoid any escalation of rancour. I shoot my mouth off too, I know, but it's too hot to argue.

A dreadful fight broke out very suddenly and literally right next to me in Oxford St yesterday afternoon, on the exact spot outside McDonalds where somebody was fatally stabbed a few weeks ago. I fully expected to be witness to another murder but fortunately some people grabbed the kids who were fighting and forcibly separated them.

Take it easy my dear... I've been watching with great interest the big beasts lock horns , (thinking about all the interesting points made), but we're not talking murder here. Let us take counsel from Mr Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, as he says to Elizabeth, "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?"

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by Jeff

Every time I see a cheaper movie us a synth OOOHH AAHHH choir in a movie, I die a little... Thats at least 100 choral musicians out of a job that week.

I'm keen on musicians organising to subvert Sibelius-type market forces, not in a shouty political way, but quietly and ruthlessly getting control of the cash, the assets, and the organisational power, and sending the capitalist barbarians off with fleas in their ears.

Two examples: the Columbus Symphony Orchestra is locked, this instant, in a struggle with a rapacious, incompetent, management. It's uncertain who'll win. Second, the London Symphony Orchestra* (my fav London orchestra) split from the Queen's Hall Orchestra in 1904 and has been self-governing ever since. They're politically powerful (in the music world) and twice sacked Elgar!

Both groups operate through vigorous trade unions, part of whose job is to keep Sibelius out of film sound tracks, to preserve jobs for real singers, and keep music real for listeners. But musicians must organise collectively with other musicians, or the capitalists run rings round them and serve the public any old tripe.




* The LSO was due to sail on the Titanic in April 1912, but the booking was changed at the last minute. So God smiled on them from the start! It's an orchestra of scruffy, self-confident, bolshie, highly unionised trouble-makers, much used by Hollywood, and you can hear it in their playing.

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by Philidor

I'm keen on musicians organising to subvert Sibelius-type market forces, not in a shouty political way, but quietly and ruthlessly getting control of the cash, the assets, and the organisational power, and sending the capitalist barbarians off with fleas in their ears.

Very good.. Nothing like the ol' LSO... I am glad there are people out there doing something about this potentially dangerous situation.

[Philidor]

Good to see people at Columbus start talking about self-governance: http://glitteringstew.com/reed/2008/...ing-orchestra/

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by Philidor

Good to see people at Columbus start talking about self-governance: http://glitteringstew.com/reed/2008/...ing-orchestra/

:grimlins:

[Herzeleide]

Originally Posted by Jeff

It is just common knowledge that they are not the masters of their crafts like the great masters were. It is impossible for one to devote ones life so wholeheartedly to music like the great ones could..

'Common knowledge'? How many contemporary composers do you know? How much about contemporary music do you know?

It may only be 'common knowledge' because people are generally ignorant about contemporary music.

I hate hearing tiresome plaints about the music of bygone eras. There have always been people yearning for the past, and thinking it's all gone to the pits. Like Italy for over a hundred years after Palestrina...

Plus, it's not impossible to devote oneself to music to such an extent. There are experts and masters of music living today. Robin Holloway's second, third and fourth concerto for orchestras are longer, feature more instruments (and thus more staves) are more complex than anything Brahms ever wrote. Ditto with much of Elliott Carter's music. Carter is, indeed, a living legend.

There are plenty of masters of music today! As a composer myself, I can't abide such pessimism.