what kinds of composing tools do you all use?

and which ones do you WANT to get?

Pencil, paper, rubber, ruler, piano, table, chair, coffee.

What I WANT to get? More coffee!

I love to drink coffee while composing as well, but more than anything, I have to be in a tree. I compose all of my music in trees.

My viola, staff paper, a pen, white-out (I don't like pencils for composing), the free demo version of Sibelius, my spinning chair, and some kind of hard surface.

Pencil, paper, eraser, Sibelius, flute, piano, and Vitamin Water or tea. Coffee isn't good for 14 year olds. :)

My old style: Piano, bench, table, paper, pen, ink, whiteout, candles, lighter, ruler, copy machine, EARS, tea.

What I wanted: pizza, computer with Finale, printer.

My new style: Electricity, computer, Finale 2002, Autosave protection, piano, printer, EARS, tea.

What I want now: pizza, RAM, printer ink.

I always have enough tea. As soon as I go through a cup, I start the next. Can't be healthy.

Piano, pencil, eraser, staff notebook --> Sibelius

Alternately, just Sibelius

Alternately, short score --> Sibelius --> piano --> sibelius

Alternately, pencil, eraser (LOTS of eraser), staff notebook

Alternately, pencil, graph paper. (Shh.)

pencil+paper > logic pro > finale

usually. :)

logic actually has a great score editor...

and i love the undestructive moving around (you slice and dice to bars and its way easier to move them/alter them than in finale.. trust me)

A3 Manuscript pad, A4 manuscript pad, various mechanical pencils, rubber and a piano if I can find one. I usually have a poetry book with me if I'm setting a text for voice and ensemble.

Pencil, paper, rubber, ruler, piano, table, chair, coffee.

What I WANT to get? More coffee!

coffee, ew...

I also use a hammer and some allen keys.

Manuscript paper, pencil, eraser, enough Dr Pepper to kill a horse.

What I want: Enough Dr Pepper to kill 7 horses.

A computer, Finale, a MIDI controller, a rotating monitor, my imagination, and an endless supply of Diet Coke.

What I want: a larger rotating monitor and a large format laser printer.

Pencil, paper: CONNECT HB with rubber on the back pencils and A3 sized manuscript customized by me. A movable IKEA desk which helps me work anywhere, literally. Baby sitter for the kids when I'm working! :D

Before I compose, I need to sacrifice two beautiful virgins before the altar of The Great Frescobaldi.

Then I eat a hamburger.

And then, just then, I'm ready to write music.

While I write, I like to engrave each note on the flesh of a sinner being punished for his crimes against The Great Frescobaldi. Preferably using an uncomfortably hot iron. For inspiration's sake.

Then, I eat another hamburger otherwise the process is not complete. Plus all this arduous work makes me hunger for hamburgers.

And finally, I make the final revision of my MASTERPIECE (before the altar of The Great Frescobaldi) during the ritual sacrifice of yet another virgin (or a goat, if we're running low on virgins.)

Too bad I haven't gotten around to writing music as of late...

SSC: I thought for the piece to be over you had to burn your piece.

SSC: I thought for the piece to be over you had to burn your piece.

That was part of the plan until our curtains caught fire the other day. :/ Then it was like o shiz no moar fires in the house plox.

plox. like, chicken plox?

yes

good thing i have no sandwich.

Loved the graph paper post, I used to do that a lot because i had it around and its easier for ledger lines and designing your own instrumentation just how you like it on the go (grand staves and such)

Loved the graph paper post, I used to do that a lot because i had it around and its easier for ledger lines and designing your own instrumentation just how you like it on the go (grand staves and such)

xD I'm glad. Yay, graphic scores are finally finding some love!!!

I'm using graph paper too, from time to time. (Not for the final score, but for sketches, etc.) Sometimes I use my nice custom graph paper with groups of 12 horizontal lines per "unit", one for every chromatic note in the octave, and 4 vertical lines per unit, for example representing 4 sixteenth notes.

My viola, staff paper, a pen, white-out (I don't like pencils for composing), the free demo version of Sibelius, my spinning chair, and some kind of hard surface.

you use your demo CD to write on? weird...

I use a pencil, paper, preferably with lines on it, a sitting surface and a hard surface to write with, eyes, ears, piano, fingers with good dexterity

OR my computer, a monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse, and scoring software, electricity, eyes, ears, fingers, power chord for my computer, plug for my power chord, preferably has a surge protector, extra USB ports for my mouse and keyboard, and a cannon ball, just in case ;)

hmm coffee seems to be popular, i think tomorrow (with the rest of the week off 'cause of the snow storm in town XD) imma get me some coffee and write my next song. see if it doesn't turn out 10x better.. or just 10x faster.....

I use MusicDNA Composer > Logic.

Ploki is right on about Logic, its score editor is surprisingly good for arranging/changing music, Finale's a bit too fussy about how everything looks.

In the future, I hope to get some piano fluency, and more compositional fluency so I can compose straight to paper. Heheh, I guess I'm moving straight backwards, technology-wise.

Chemically speaking, I think a certain green substance beats caffeine hands down ;)

Ploki is right on about Logic, its score editor is surprisingly good for arranging/changing music, Finale's a bit too fussy about how everything looks.

Finale is a Notation program, not a sequencer. Being "fussy" makes it considerably more powerful for people who care more about how a score looks than how a computer can play it.