A Practical Guide to Becoming a Composer: A wealth of advice, tips, strategies, and examples by Michaels Arthur

Author:Michaels, Arthur
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arthur J. Michaels
Published: 2020-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

16

Equip yourself with the tools of the trade.

“Pictures at an Exhibition

Some of the equipment you may need includes a powerful computer, maybe a good external sound card, decent monitors and headphones, music notation software, sound libraries, a DAW (digital audio workstation), and perhaps a keyboard or a keyboard controller. I’ve used the music notation program Finale since the late 1990s. Other composers prefer Sibelius. Still others use Dorico, MuseScore, Notion, and LilyPond. There are other notation programs for PCs, laptops, and portables. See the “Resources” section for website addresses.

Composer Zander Hulme offers a caution on equipment. “There is no point buying middle-of-the-road tools,” he says. “If you can’t afford great gear, get the cheapest gear you can cope with using, and save up for great gear. The mentality of slowly climbing the gear ladder, progressing from item to item, is hugely wasteful and will cost you much more money in the end. I like to ask myself, ‘if I had double the budget, would I still be considering buying the thing I’m considering now?’”

There are many choices available in hardware and software. If you are in school, or were in school, you probably use the same kind of equipment on which you learned in the classroom—mainly Sibelius or Finale, for notation software. If you’re choosing hardware and software without having been school-trained, consider your needs and then get plenty of recommendations from composers whose work is similar to yours.

Composer Kim Diehnelt favors MuseScore. “Although I have used Sibelius when working for a music publisher, I have found that MuseScore works much the same,” she says. “All my composing, printing, and publishing is done with MuseScore. I’m always delighted when musicians comment on how beautiful the manuscripts are.”

For evaluating playback, composer Teresa O’Connell says, “I use my MacBook Air’s internal speakers, headphones, or my Oontz Angle 3-Plus Portable Bluetooth Speaker.”

Composer Ari Romppanen offers a useful insight into the tools of the trade for composing. “For me, the most important tools are pencils with erasers and paper,” he says. “With them I feel free to do whatever I like. Any kind of technology helps in some way, but it can make barriers in other ways. For this reason, hardware and software can be a liability until you’re proficient enough with it.”

Composer Elizabeth Raum says, “I started using a notation program in the late 1990s, although I had written several operas and a great deal of music by hand,” she says. “At first, I didn’t think I could work with a computer because the requirement to work with something as mechanical as a computer was like trying to compose through remote control. However, eventually I was forced to figure it out because I had so much work to do. I knew I’d have to go beyond writing by hand and realized there were benefits to working with a computer, like copying and pasting, transposing, and extracting parts. It didn’t take long for my brain to accept the computer as a piano substitute. Even

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.