The Pros And Cons Of Using Notation Software [Part 1]

Notation programmes – like Sibelius, Dorico and Finale – are useful tools for composers. But make sure you are writing to the full potential of the musicians you’re writing for, and not the weaknesses of the software.

Featuring interview with Cassie Kinoshi, Isobel Waller-Bridge, Errollyn Wallen & Yazz Ahmed.

0:00 Intro
1:43 Are the virtual instruments any good?
3:32 You hear certain techniques more than others

Watch the other videos in our series on notation software.

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[hannekehommes]

About the sounds: I would really recommend NotePerformer! Not too expensive, quite realistic sounds compared to all the really expensive ones! Artificial Intelligence, with great dynamics and stuff.
Love this series!

[mrcet]

7:43 — Another really helpful thing in writing for orchestra is to go to a local music store, rent an instrument of interest, and find a teacher. Tell that teacher, and yourself, “I’m not trying to become a great French-horn (or whatever) player; I’m not even trying to become a mediocre French-horn player; I just want to spend a couple months understanding the _general gist_ of the experience of playing the French horn.”

[smak]

Omg... This channel. Is sooo underrated!

[ToXball]

Very helpful and precious advices. I’ve lost years about tweaking softwares and loosing the main reason of all tasks: the music! Thanks for your videos

[GitFiddler]

To discover what the real instruments sound like, there's a YouTube area somewhere that demos each orchestra instrument.
Other than that to learn how the instruments sound, go to a live performance; or spend some time listening to recorded live orchestra. We do not have to learn how to 'play' each instrument in order to write for them, but that can help also. What I would mostly ask a real player is about performance issues with that instrument. For example, with violin tremolo, would you really write that to be played for 100 bars continuously? No, as it would literally wear out the violin player. Nor would you write a soft pp dynamic for a trumpet in its high range. But this kind of info can also be learned in orchestration texts like Rimsky-Korsakov or by Adler.

[noslowerdna]

Yes just using piano as the instrument is a wonderful piece of advice!

[JafuetTheSame]

you can summarize that the instruments which depend heavily on tone cultivation - strings particularly, but winds as well - are really hard to sample, while pianos, percussion, harps, even guitars sounds pretty good in these softwares.

[NickBatinaComposer]

Honestly, it’d be worth the money to buy dorico simply for the robust write mode features, and then XML out to Finale for the long hours deep work!! It works well as kinda a sheet music DAW, or an idea workstation

[CRSrikanthSymphonicResonance]

All good, but funny part is that you criticising a lot on electronic music and I heard the background, starting and ending notation were produced in electronic music . It would be really happy if you have used or shown playing real instruments by the analysts in this video and used their music as background score ..

[pauldelcour]

Very interesting and very true over all. I use Finale purely for notation, not reproduction, the sounds are usually pretty awful, they're just there to check for wrong chords or notes. I compose/arrange for piano, organ and mainly choir. And let's be honest, musical life has improved so much since I could do away with pencil and paper. Image still having to write choral arrangements by hand and copying them.

[mutee]

This is a very well designed tutorial, strangely other videos I watched on the topic failed badly at answering my question: Why use a notation program instead of DAW, which is what I have used all my life.

[MarkPeotter]

The clip you played from an old 1940"s movie was probably recorded with one or two mics in a room. Modern movie music often sounds as if each instrument has it's own mic. To me this is an indicator that the music was not performed by an orchestra in a room but by keyboards and computers.

[nicolasroy]

I want to buy Notion 6 because it's the one with the best sounds from what I heards. Some of you have a comment for or tips for me? I don't want to imagine sounds. I need the software to sounds like a real orchestra right away. So any tips can be nice. Thanks !!!. Great video.

[rivernorth]

Really good idea about using a piano sound for everything. Even though the sounds I use sound pretty good (note performer), the sound, volume and timbre of the different ranges on the instruments are all quite identical and unrealistic, which can lead to misleading sonic ideas.

[mrcet]

5:14 — Zackly! The most important thing is your audio-imagination (“audiation”) of your music. The playback from Sibelius or Finale (etc.) can only be used as a limited sanity check. Even traditional sight-singing is just a sanity check, because, obviously, you can’t sing an orchestra!

[fingerhorn]

I agree. The biggest flaw using notation software with orchestral samples is that the combination is extremely poor at rendering believable fast legato strings and string "runs". To get them convincing requires a huge amount of concentration and infinite care. I'm pretty sure that's partly why many "composers" of "contemporary" film music actually avoid certain phrasing unless they have access to a fine live orchestra. The media composing world is now full of hideous cliches, over-use of bombastic percussion and very poor knowledge of BASIC harmony. Those "old fashioned Hollywood composers were light years ahead of most current media musicians who have no clue about harmony, polyphony or thematic development. Oh well.

[torstirovainen]

Thanks for posting. I'm about to start a project of taking the piano I use to accompany the musicals I've written to make scores that are both understandable and expressive for other who might play them. Wondering if you've found a best/better real-time MIDI input software for piano? As you might guess (and you mention in a later video), being able to play the entire thing fully keeps its spirit alive much better than bar-by-bar; but don't know if there's a software program out there (Finale, sibelius, etc.) that can notate real-time piano in an even mostly accurate or satisfying way. Thanks for any tips!

[michaelsharpe]

I arrange for piano.. When I play it is hard for me to listen objectively because I am concentrating on playing. So I enter into Noteflight.

[kevinmkraft]

Are there a software out there that includes the best as far as notation software AND film score composing software, including realistic-sounding instruments?

[arunkrishnan]

I guess now we have vst support in notation software🎉