I agree, seems the long threads tend to do this. It is interesting to see how narrow perspectives get at times, but based on my experience I have been and will continue to be an avid Cakewalk supporter. From the company, to customer service, to even prompting for feedback they have always exceeded my expectations. Not all feedback/requests have the same level of priority (nor can they). There are very few software companies that even prompt for "what would you like to see" let alone act on it.

Working with notation is a joy!  So much easier to make a well crafted piece of music.

Composing in Sebilus or notation programs is like running in sand.  Just impossible to make things sound realistic.
 

mettelus


I agree, seems the long threads tend to do this. It is interesting to see how narrow perspectives get at times, but based on my experience I have been and will continue to be an avid Cakewalk supporter. From the company, to customer service, to even prompting for feedback they have always exceeded my expectations. Not all feedback/requests have the same level of priority (nor can they). There are very few software companies that even prompt for "what would you like to see" let alone act on it.

Did you really mean to say "avid Cakewalk supporter"? 

Notation came before audio because it was technically possible first, not because it was more important.

The size of the market for users that mock up a picture score or composition and have the Chicago or London Symphonies perform it cannot be very big compared to average hobby musicians like myself.

I cannot agree that notation is precise. It is a guide to interpretation. Early scores just have notes and no more, putting a lot of interpretative responsibility on the performer.

As time went by, music notation became more precise but increasingly complex. It has always been a compromise between readability, paper real estate and precision.

Are Stockhausian scores anything more than an attempt to bring a PRV, envelopes, matrix etc. into human readable form?

And is Sonar's GUI anything more than an attempt to bring the precision a computer is capable of into human readable form?

I cannot even notate a fully articulated MIDI bass line to a score without a mess of dotted notes and multiple rests. But a cleaned-up version must rely on the intuition of the player and will not be exactly what I wanted.

Notation in some form will be there as long as a human is trying to instruct someone or something to reproduce what is in the human's imaginings, be it paper sheets or Kindle-style electronic scores - or even a DAW GUI.

Schoolbook notation is fine for classical western music, and there are tools that specialize in that. But how would you score a traditional African Kalimba? (NOT a westernized one!) But I could PRV it. And in so doing, I will have in effect invented my own notation, somewhere between Stockhausen and percussion notation. All inside Sonar.

I like the way Sonar is going. As devices get smaller, jotting down ideas and conveying them to other musicians will be quicker, easier and more precise than paper and pen notation could ever be.

Strange thread-I will never use notation, been playing by ear for 35 years. I can read music.
 
Anyway, even though I won't ever use it I can see where many would want to and therefore I think they should be able to.
Hopefully, this may get thru to CW after the last survey. I vote, start improving it all right .

Odd post from vintage vibe there. I just said I'd used them. Are you saying I'm lying?

Where did I put my hazmat suit for glow worms....

This is the thing which renders notation...no matter how well done...so severely lacking. It can not adequately express emotion. This is only really gleaned through historical interpretations and/or experimentation. Using something like MIDI and even something as rudimentary as the PRV one is capable of translating with actual close approximation real dynamics...real emotion...real expressive feeling to be replicated by the folks reading the outputted scores. It gives them an aural template to go by and not just blobs and dry instructions on a piece of paper. Leaving it to the player or conductor to bring whatever humanity they deem appropriate...or can muster to the piece. And it is the MIDI that provides this...not the notation. Flame on:-)

 
 
Yes, Yorolpal,  you are absolutely correct!  But your post is nonsense!!!  And i mean that in a very respectful way 'cause i really respect your contributions....
 
How the heck else do you get 16 violins all to play at the same time???  How do you get the brass section to come in?
 
A good composer/orchestrator knows how to get all the emotion very quickly with music and notation.
 
I try to do it everyday!

And somedays I succeed!

Forgive me I'm approaching 1000 posts...

Which version of the score did they use?

Easy Play? Doubt it.

Who copied the parts? Were they copied correctly?

Or did the copyist 'interpret' the parts to their own predilection?

yorolpal


@vintagevibe...you can't have it both ways...you first say that notation IS midi...then you say that they are TWO DIFFERENT TOOLS for TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.  Clarity is always important when discussing anything, ol pal.
@Jimbo 88...Yup, most of my dimwitted posts are absolutely correct AND nonsense at the same time...I sort of pride myself on that;-)
 
What I was driving at was that with midi and good software vst instruments it's actually possible to provide an aural roadmap for the orchestra you'll be conducting or that will be performing your piece.  They can...you know...actually listen to it...dynamics and all and hear how you want it to be.  They don't have to just rely on the conductor or scrawled notes in the margins of the score.  Trust me...I've been there.  As I said before, I have nothing but the greatest admiration for those that still do this the traditional way.  And I agree that (hopefully) it will be a long time before notation is replaced (by what I could not even fathom now).  But the new paradigms have their place as well.  And some of us put them to good use.

Surely you know that notation sends out MIDI commands?  Notation and PRV are 2 different MIDI tools that in a DAW are designed to control synths.  They have different different strengths and weaknesses.  PRV  is, as you pointed out, stronger at expressing emotion.  Notation is stronger at developing harmonic content.  Regardless of that fact that much modern music has more rhythmic content than harmonic this is true of notation.  Yes both paradigms have their place and yet I hear people arguing that notation has no place in a DAW.  They are wrong.

yorolpal

@Jimbo 88...Yup, most of my dimwitted posts are absolutely correct AND nonsense at the same time...I sort of pride myself on that;-) 
  
  But the new paradigms have their place as well.  And some of us put them to good use.

Yes  very true and wise...but the next paradigms will just be new and better ways to work the traditional notation system,  just as the current paradigams do.
 
So Cake should ground X1 with a decent staff view and will be better prepared to morph into the future.  Cake will have grounded itself with the more stable "jobbing" community.  Software and electronics will come and go (Synclavier),  but real instruments will always stick.   

 

Unlike say the Moog, or the 303. Who uses those any more?