Finale Dependent

I'm in college and I take weekly composition lessons with one of the heads of the department. However, he seems to think I'm Finale dependent. When I write, I don't make sketches or anything, I just put everything right into Finale and fix it from there. Is this bad? What should I do to help me compose without Finale? I'm great with solfege, I'm just lazy I suppose. Any help?

Your teacher may be wrong, but he may also have a point anyway.

Sketch lots in a manuscript pad. Play at the piano, and when you discover something you like, write it down.

Force yourself out of your comfort zone. Push yourself - try something different.

Buy a nice pencil, some BIG paper, a good eraser (important)...set some boundaries and see what happens.

Finale can be a great compositional tool, but it shouldn't be the main one. I think what your teacher wants to do is get you to a piano and out of straight "computer, oh random note here," or so for and so on. Not saying that you do that. However, when I was younger, it was the same way for me.

"computer, oh random note here," or so for and so on.

I take it the general consensus here is that there is something wrong with this approach. :veryunsure: Well, if you're studying music in college, I guess I can see why.

I NEVER compose on Finale. I use it to make scores.

I get my stuff played... so what is the point of playback :P

Not everyone has that luck, unfortunately.

There's nothing inherently wrong with composing at the computer. However, I think it is generally enriching to not constrain yourself to one method too much, as that carries the danger of always choosing the easiest or most comfortable solution with that given method and thus repeating yourself. This particularly applies to composing on the computer. (And composing with a sequencer instead of a notation program would probably even be more extreme in that aspect.)

So yes:

Force yourself out of your comfort zone. Push yourself - try something different.

Buy a nice pencil, some BIG paper, a good eraser (important)...set some boundaries and see what happens.

I really second this last point too. If it's already hard to change your method, at least make this change as easy as possible for yourself and use tools that are as comfortable as possible for working with them for a long time. As silly as it may sound, for me there's a huge difference between composing with a too short pencil with a lead that's much too hard/soft, or a nice weighted mechanical pencil. What exactly you feel comfortable with is of course very individual.

Things like having a piano to try out stuff on can also help, but not everyone has or can afford one, especially not a mechanical one. One reason people feel it's hard to write on paper is that they don't get any physical feedback in the form of sound. So ease into over this change by singing, whistling, playing at the piano, clapping your rhythms, conducting your own piece (doesn't give you an audible feedback, but a tactile one, which I find very useful) etc. Oh, and I personally always like to work on a -huge- table, where I can spread out the sheets freely, have an overview of the music I'm writing and having sketches, formal plans, structural ideas, etc. all in sight.

You may find that this multitude of different physical feedbacks you get that way let you experience your piece from many more sides than a computer playback function and the lousy short passage of your score you can see at a given time (unless you have like five 30" monitors).

Wow. Thank you all so much! :)

"Composing at Finale" isn't necessarily a bad thing, it really depends on how you are actually working. I guess you could say I "compose at Finale" as well... after I've done tons of conceptual work and planning. I suppose if you were just randomly plugging in shtuff, that would be bad, but if you're just using it as a tool, I don't see anything wrong with that.

Is your teacher a Luddite, or is this something objective from him/her?

Think of it this way:

What should matter is the actual output, not how you got to it. I've sketched stuff on toilet paper and napkins, but who cares so long as the score looks all pretty and junk later? I've written a lot of stuff directly on the computer, and I don't see the problem. Self criticism should be in effect no matter how you write what you write.

Moreover, the more stuff that helps you make something that sounds like you want it to sound, the better. Turning down this sort of aid/blah for educational purposes is fine, but not when you actually want to write music.

If you want to exercise writing away from the computer, there's plenty of advice already in this thread from others. But like I said, use the tools you have at your disposal and worry about the end product, cuz all else is pointless if the result isn't what you wanted (and you're not happy with it.)

This has been discussed in the past (here's my reply).

And of course, I agree with robin and gardener :D

Ooh I also posted some stuff there. I stand by what I said there too. :>

I was about to say what SSC said until I read that post and found I was beat to the punch. I'd say I'm guilty of composing almost entirely on Finale. Sometimes I write things on the keyboard... I'll improvise something then I'll punch it straight into Finale after I played through it enough times to be happy with it. More rarely I actually write things without the computer OR an instrument at hand. I prefer Finale because it's fast. Whenever I try to use paper it just takes too much time to write every note an barline and signature and clef, that by the time I wrote a phrase, I forgot where I wanted it to go because it took so much time just to write it. With Finale, I don't have this problem, everything flows a little more smoothly. But of course, I don't think it matters how you write it - as long as you're happy with it and you've accomplished what you set out to do.

Nothing wrong inherently with any composition style. However, a good composer at least tries other styles wholeheartedly, so that he can better himself.

The problem, so I've been told, of composing on computer is that the composer generally does not know good orchestration techniques, so he relies on a highly inaccurate playback as to tone (or too accurate with timing). I'm having this problem with a big 8-part piece - the tone is all wrong and the timing is too inhuman to be useful.

There was a story one of my professors told about a major competition that was decided based on the computer playback, only to realize that the playback was completely impossible for a human.(don't remember specifics, but the point's in there somewhere)

Playback is a spot checker, not the be-all end-all... A composer should never base his/her orchestration for real instruments based on what a computer plays.

There is nothing wrong with writing at the computer and using the playback to aid you. But sometimes if you are feeling in a rut, using a pencil and paper, or going to an instrument can really help too.

It's more about how you compose and not about where you compose.

It's more about how you compose and not about where you compose.

Playback is a spot checker, not the be-all end-all... A composer should never base his/her orchestration for real instruments based on what a computer plays.

If you're not composing for real instruments, though? In my case, I'm writing electronic game music which would probably never be performed by real instruments. (It's not like I have access to an orchestra if I ever did want them to be performed, anyway.)

That's of course something entirely different. In that case, the midi sound -is- your real instrument and therefore your "be-all end-all". Nothing wrong with that.

Gardener said it.

i am also very dependent on finale