Is Professional Notation Output Important to you?

I was very lucky to have around 12 hours total of rehearsal time with the orchestra when I conducted Sweeney Todd.

I was also lucky to have professional calibre musicians.

We were NOT lucky, however, in that the score and parts the publisher sent us were HORRIBLY written.

We wasted more than half of our entire alloted rehearsal time trying to correct stupid errors in the parts and inconsistancies between score and parts.

So yes, well-written scores are a necessity.

This.

Yes, ideally it shouldn't matter to performers whether it looks like we had a seizure while writing the music, so long as they can EVENTUALLY get it, but no matter what level of performer you are working with, the neater it looks, the better it's going to sound. Just like ideally, it shouldn't matter to performers what the conductor is doing, so long as he keeps time. But SOMEHOW, a conductor can vastly influence the music. It's the same with notation. The job of the composer is not just to write music ("Okay, I wrote it. There it is. Done.") The job of the composer is to facilitate the creation of music. The composer is just the middle guy between the music and the audience. The clearer the notation is, the more time a performer will spend practicing/rehearsing it (instead of figuring out if that's a high G or E), and the better the performance(s) will be.

The composer has many duties, but I will not get into the rest, to avoid derailing this thread.

I will say that if you are concerned with getting a good performance, then you should be concerned about having good notation. If you are not concerned with getting a good performance, then you are a poor composer.

Good, maybe you understand now that you shouldn't judge his work or his style.

If you can't judge the music of those who have come before you, how can you have a context within which to create your own art?

As far as the synthesizer + no score vs orchestra + good score argument goes, it seems that what we're really seeing here is recording artist vs composer. This is comparable to lecturer vs essayist. As a composer who, in the capacity of rock music and soundtrack work, is also a recording artist, I can understand both sides of the argument.

As far as recording arts goes, my first rock album was almost completely synthesized. The vocals and piano (my instrument) were recorded live, but everything else was samplers. Only one track (the hidden track) contained no synthesizers, and even this was edited heavily (backwards drums, phased vocals, pianos through a guitar amp, etc.)

I chose synthesizers for many reasons. Firstly, these songs began as improvisations on the piano, which were then recorded, and augmented with other parts. These parts were written in using midi, because I wanted to be able to adjust the notes right up to the final mixdown of the album (which I ended up doing). Because I was not constrained by the physical limitations of whatever players i would end up getting, I was able to write freely, creating much more expressive music. I did, however, stay within the realms of playability, as a courtesy to accompanists for future live performances of the pieces.

Although the use of synthesizers, painstakingly programmed and altered note-by-note in midi to give the best sounds possible, the robotic and mechanical nature of the sound still came through in the final mix, particularly the percussion. The soul and emotion was diluted and the music suffered.

For my second album (currently in production), I am taking a piano-solo-unless-it-begs-for-orchestration approach, so the point is basically moot. I have a saxophone solo which could not possibly be played by a sampler without being butchered, but then again there is a certain sound effect I want that has to be produced by synthesizer. (Although I am experimenting with how to achieve a fuller version of the same effect with strings).

For soundtracks, I use exclusively samples. Especially with the type of stuff I've been scoring (artsy short-short comedy films under 20 minutes) it would be impractical to use a full orchestra. However, I know that these scores would shine much more if they were played by human beings.

An example I have of computer vs human is one of my early works, a fugue and fantasia (yes I know that's backwards) for cello duet. I gave the handwritten score to two cellists and, just from their first sightreading, heard one of the most gorgeous things I had ever written. Every nuance of phrase and gesture was there, and the fugue had a deeper emotional resonance than I had even hoped for. About a month later, I got around to putting it into the computer. I duplicated my score exactly and then added a lot of notations in for the things that any musician worth their salt would know to do, but the computer didn't. The worst part was the fugue, transformed from the emotional exposition of the work to a mere counterpoint exercise, technically immaculate but lacking the - how to put this... - lacking the music. It became music by robots for robots.

I believe that samplers and the like are very useful for composition, giving the composer the ability to hear his work and make any changes necessary, but that they cannot and never will replace human performers when it comes to classical art music.

There are exceptions. Samplers are generally useless when writing for voice. On the flip side, certain serial styles favor mathematical precision over human feeling. (On the recording arts side, techno features synths and samplers much more than live instrumentation, partly because the trademark and arguable goal of the genre is roboticism.)

In general, a claim that a sample orchestra can replicate an orchestra is ludicrous. I would suggest that those who claim this have never truly compared a great orchestral performance to a great sampled recording on an emotional level. On a more objective note, I would add that one of the reasons a live orchestra is so powerful is that the instruments' tones resonate on each other's bodies, strengthening intervallic relationships - whether they be consonant or dissonant, simultaneous or consecutive. Why do they

put the brass and the winds behind the strings? So that their sounds are refined by resonation on the soundboards of the strings before reaching the listeners' ears.

I hope my two cents provide some thoughts to both sides.

...Also (last minute thought), in reference to someone's comment about using "ethnic" instruments in soundtracks, and the angry replies that he was being close-minded, might I suggest that he was referring to inappropriate or lazy use of such instruments? Id est, using a koto playing a pentatonic riff to generate a faux "oriental" feeling? Just a thought...

As a performer, the quality of a score matters as much as anything.

As a listener, however, only the sound matters. If an orchestra is reading from a crappy score and playing great music, the listener isn't missing out.

For classical music, which is usually published, the score matters a fair bit because it will be read often and by many people (if you're lucky). But I really don't think that Metallica even had scores. So in that sense, they don't matter at all.

Well, that's right. If composition and interpretation aren't strictly separated and the whole composition process happens together with the performers (which is of course very common in non-classical music), much can be arranged verbally and a perfect score isn't necessary. What I'm just working on (a 45 minute program for Viola, Guitar and Live-electronics) is just like this. I've been working together with the performers for months and they have been involved in the whole composition process, so my score is more a "reminder" for what they already know to do, rather than something meant for random musicians to understand and able to play right away (which wouldn't work without all the live-electronics stuff anyways).

It's a program meant for a single performance and for specific performers, so it has different requirements than something meant for publishing.

Does it seem to anyone else that it's always the "electronic" composers who feel that interacting with actual musicians is not what you should be striving for?

Is this a reflection of this new generation... who can't seem to interact with real people, but can spend hours a day playing with electronic equipment? Just a random thought.

Placing that thought aside, a correct and professional score is not an "option"... it is expected and necessary! If you ever expect your music to be played by musicians other than those you know personally and can ignore or overlook your flawed score, do it correctly, or don't do it at all!

A real composer must be absolutely fanatical about the notation standards of their compositions.

After all, you have to sell them to make money, so if yours doesn't look, clean, nice etc then you might as well kiss your income good bye.

You have to do everything you can to get your work chosen over any other and messy notation is off putting to musicians.

A real composer must be absolutely fanatical about the notation standards of their compositions.

After all, you have to sell them to make money, so if yours doesn't look, clean, nice etc then you might as well kiss your income good bye.

You have to do everything you can to get your work chosen over any other and messy notation is off putting to musicians.

Not everybody has the same intentions as you do, so I wouldn't say that anybody who isn't "fanatical" about the quality of their score isn't a real composer. That's just downright stupid. . . hate to break it to you.

A professional notation output is important if you want to be professional.

(this includes proper notation for people and computers alike, mind you ;))

Case closed :rolleyes:...

Once again, it's not always necessary. When it's necessary, it's necessary, but that isn't all of the time. Were I composing for an orchestra, I would want professional notation just as much as you would, but were I just scratching out some guitar chords for a coffee shop performance so I didn't forget how a song went, it wouldn't be that important for the end of a song to have a double bar line.

I think of it this way... professional musicians are professional all the time. That's why they're called professionals.

You do realize that professional can mean either that somebody produces the bulk of their income from that field, or that their work is of a high caliber, right? Different definitions, brah.

True, that.