First, a free ad for
Beat Kaufmann's 2009 tutorials: this is the missing manual for the Vienna Instrument. Simply brilliant! Thanks Beat for putting them together!
Now, this leads me to one main question: how do you organise the workflow when you're composing music?
To me, composing for an orchestra (or smaller ensemble) requires the use of a notation program for one simple reason: I need to see on screen (or on paper) what each instrument is playing or I won't be able to voice correctly. For this purpose I'm using Sibelius.
Now, even if the playback in Sibelius has improved a lot, after I read Beat's tutorials, I eventually understood why I would not be able to achieve what I want with Sibelius only. I would then have to export my score into Logic for the production aspect.
My problem is that I'm still at what I would describe to be the dawn of my scoring life, meaning that unfortunately I cannot only write with a pen and a piece of paper: I need to hear what I am actually writing. In other words, I will spend a lot of time in Sibelius to try to get things right so that I'm happy with the music when I play it back. As it never happens, I lose myself into production considerations (including triggering the right articulations as the written articulation isn't necessary the one I want to hear) that should only occur when the piece is written. This prevents me from going any further in my composition, hearing the same 20 bars over and over, not being happy with the result, resulting in me getting tired of what I am working on and eventually giving up.
Interestingly, this has never happened when working on non-orchestral music. So I blame it on my workflow, which should be:
1. compose and arrange the piece
2. mix and produce the piece
I would imagine that I am not the only person here dealing with this sort of frustrating limitations. So if any of you has some great techniques and pieces of advice to share, please do!!
Best,
Denis