The Swings & Roundabouts Of Notation Within DAWs

[THE INTRANCER]

Years ago, in the very early 1990's of High School (1989-1990) Music as a subject was compulsory as part of the curriculum. Having spent my entire primary years loving the music class we had and having my own home keyboards to play on, I though great, I'm gonna love this......

( Weirdly though, neither did I ever see a computer program / sequencer ever being shown on any of the computers we had in the 1980's. Spectrums and Amstrads were for basic computer games and database programs. No Atari's or Commodore's made their appearance during my young years of the 1980's, even up to 1989. )

I sang in the choir at primary school also, travelling around to big cities and reading the words under the notation was often the case in preparation for contests. Like most kids we played instruments like xylophones for songs we performed in front of public audiences at Christmas.



In regard to High School..... it didn't turn out to be fun at all....because learning music notation was all done by hand and given that we had so much more to learn, English, Maths, Art & Design, Science, Technical (Woodwork/Metalwork),Home Economics, Physical Education, RE, Geography, French, Drama and History back then, and having homework for almost all of them, having to do Notation as homework was like punishment.

Listening to Bach & Handel on headsets was what we did for much of the time. There was of course tables set out in a C shape with keyboards, but man these keyboards looked more primitive than my mid 80's Casio SK1 keyboard in the beige decor they had.



By 1992 having acquired a Mega ST, sequencers were all notation based so making music was all about drawing notes with a mouse instead of a pencil because I didn't have a midi keyboard at the time. By the time I got to an Amiga based sequencer, I had already discovered the options to create music wasn't so limited to just notation.



How likely are you to embrace traditional notation, as opposed to what has become the norm of modern day DAWs in really not needing to know much at all ?

[jancivil]

I learned to read music in the fifth grade and honed that over my first few years. I learned to deconstruct complex drum parts (a goal at 12 was what Mitch Mitchell was doing in Hendrix' Fire and writing it out was the m.o. I was shown); write out the parts (kick, snare, hat particularly) on staves and grasp parts independently.

The normative for me is to know things. In 1986 notation was pretty much all there was to computer sequencing of music except for millionaires (and the things I know from at the high end used the knowledge from the domain of notation). So the first sequencing I did was on notation programs on the MacIntosh of that time. (straight notation for a convincing playback of music is quite insufficient, it's a shorthand and instructions for musicians that have the technique and convention together to turn it into sound. Note durations are far too coarse in notation, needing extra signs and language, compared to drawing bars in a piano roll application). By 1992 certainly the Synclavier II had other ways of input and editing.

Only the most gifted of us can ignore the lessons from reading and knowing the mechanics (so-called theory) of how this or the other music are put together, and only need their ear.

Not knowing much as a norm is a very screwed-up premise. I don't personally bother with notation in Cubase, but the knowledge obtained in knowing the mechanics of music (knowing the language in order to speak it seems essential) is invaluable.

[THE INTRANCER]

I learned to read music in the fifth grade and honed that over my first few years. I learned to deconstruct complex drum parts (a goal at 12 was what Mitch Mitchell was doing in Hendrix' Fire and that was the m.o. I was shown); write out the kick, snare, hat particularly out on staves and grasp parts independently.

The normative for me is to know things. In 1986 notation was pretty much all there was to computer sequencing of music except for millionaires (and the things I know from at the high end used the knowledge from the domain of notation). So the first sequencing I did was on notation programs on the MacIntosh of that time. (straight notation for a convincing playback of music is quite insufficient, it's a shorthand and instructions for musicians that have the technique and convention together to turn it into sound. Note durations are far too coarse in notation, needing extra signs and language, compared to drawing bars in a piano roll applicaition.)
Only the most gifted of us can ignore the lessons from reading and knowing the mechanics (so-called theory) of how this or the other music are put together, and only need their ear.

The post there is not about the "swings and roundabouts of notation in" anything, it's a posture against learning and a description of not liking the work. It's <accentuate the negative> some more again.
The main takeaway for me from this text and the whole trip coming from you is music (the kind of work music entails) really is not your strong suit.

I reflected briefly on my early life in the above post, but contrary to your interpretation of my above post, I'm not disputing the importance of notation as a construct in which to compose music in relation to myself to that of what you think is negative. It's just the way in which my experience and much of my own class during high school was taught. She was forever shouting and threatening us with detention, she was never happy and didn't care. Know body knew why, but it was for that reason alone that I didn't take it as a subject in third and fourth year. In fact there wasn't even a high school band.

I was deaf until the age of 4, and I was already at that age playing the keyboard, even if the keys were a little large. My dad could play five instruments, and he learned by ear and his natural talent. Similarly, that's, exactly what I did when I started. Learning to play by ear with what was on adverts and Top Of the Pops at the time, with myself on the keyboard. My sister use to sight-read and play back in the 1980s and does to this day. I've played in bands on stage, so I have needed some music theory but as yet, none that required traditional notation.

In 2000, I spent a year studying music vie an open learning course and with an actual music tutor that played the keyboard. I was doing 18-hour days 7 days a week dedicated to music production and technology... Notation was really something I considered to be for learning pre-existing works in which to learn and perform with. Of course, I listened and learned the basics of notation whilst in high school, but my motivation to create music at all was to create my own music.

The Swings and Roundabouts is about whether if it's really necessary for one as an individual to learn something when alternative approaches have been long ingrained in not requiring it. Of course if you are composing for an orchestra, so instrumentalists can read and perform, but very few around here will be doing that I think. Performing on stage required a chord sheet when playing the synthesizer I was using in front of several hundred people TV/ Press cameras and royalty.. But that's another story.

[Hink]

I learned to read music in the fifth grade and honed that over my first few years. I learned to deconstruct complex drum parts (a goal at 12 was what Mitch Mitchell was doing in Hendrix' Fire and that was the m.o. I was shown); write out the kick, snare, hat particularly out on staves and grasp parts independently.

The normative for me is to know things. In 1986 notation was pretty much all there was to computer sequencing of music except for millionaires (and the things I know from at the high end used the knowledge from the domain of notation). So the first sequencing I did was on notation programs on the MacIntosh of that time. (straight notation for a convincing playback of music is quite insufficient, it's a shorthand and instructions for musicians that have the technique and convention together to turn it into sound. Note durations are far too coarse in notation, needing extra signs and language, compared to drawing bars in a piano roll applicaition.)
Only the most gifted of us can ignore the lessons from reading and knowing the mechanics (so-called theory) of how this or the other music are put together, and only need their ear.

The post there is not about the "swings and roundabouts of notation in" anything, it's a posture against learning and a description of not liking the work. It's <accentuate the negative> some more again.
The main takeaway for me from this text and the whole trip coming from you is music (the kind of work music entails) really is not your strong suit.

I reflected briefly on my early life in the above post, but contrary to your interpretation of my above post, I'm not disputing the importance of notation as a construct in which to compose music in relation to myself to that of what you think is negative. It's just the way in which my experience and much of my own class during high school was taught. She was forever shouting and threatening us with detention, she was never happy and didn't care. Know body knew why, but it was for that reason alone that I didn't take it as a subject in third and fourth year. In fact there wasn't even a high school band.

I was deaf until the age of 4, and I was already at that age playing the keyboard, even if the keys were a little large. My dad could play five instruments, and he learned by ear and his natural talent. Similarly, that's, exactly what I did when I started. Learning to play by ear with what was on adverts and Top Of the Pops at the time, with myself on the keyboard. My sister use to sight-read and play back in the 1980s and does to this day. I've played in bands on stage, so I have needed some music theory but as yet, none that required traditional notation.

In 2000, I spent a year studying music vie an open learning course and with an actual music tutor that played the keyboard. I was doing 18-hour days 7 days a week dedicated to music production and technology... Notation was really something I considered to be for learning pre-existing works in which to learn and perform with. Of course, I listened and learned the basics of notation whilst in high school, but my motivation to create music at all was to create my own music.

The Swings and Roundabouts is about whether if it's really necessary for one as an individual to learn something when alternative approaches have been long ingrained in not requiring it. Of course if you are composing for an orchestra, so instrumentalists can read and perform, but very few around here will be doing that I think. Performing on stage required a chord sheet when playing the synthesizer I was using in front of several hundred people TV/ Press cameras and royalty.. But that's another story.

and what does this really have to do with DAWs besides adding it to the end of your post as if to make it about DAWs to fit this forum? The pic? No sir, this is the problem and in five minutes someone will come in and report it...is it too much to ask for you to post in the appropriate forum...I'm gonna move it to EE for now.

[THE INTRANCER]

I learned to read music in the fifth grade and honed that over my first few years. I learned to deconstruct complex drum parts (a goal at 12 was what Mitch Mitchell was doing in Hendrix' Fire and that was the m.o. I was shown); write out the kick, snare, hat particularly out on staves and grasp parts independently.

The normative for me is to know things. In 1986 notation was pretty much all there was to computer sequencing of music except for millionaires (and the things I know from at the high end used the knowledge from the domain of notation). So the first sequencing I did was on notation programs on the MacIntosh of that time. (straight notation for a convincing playback of music is quite insufficient, it's a shorthand and instructions for musicians that have the technique and convention together to turn it into sound. Note durations are far too coarse in notation, needing extra signs and language, compared to drawing bars in a piano roll applicaition.)
Only the most gifted of us can ignore the lessons from reading and knowing the mechanics (so-called theory) of how this or the other music are put together, and only need their ear.

The post there is not about the "swings and roundabouts of notation in" anything, it's a posture against learning and a description of not liking the work. It's <accentuate the negative> some more again.
The main takeaway for me from this text and the whole trip coming from you is music (the kind of work music entails) really is not your strong suit.

I reflected briefly on my early life in the above post, but contrary to your interpretation of my above post, I'm not disputing the importance of notation as a construct in which to compose music in relation to myself to that of what you think is negative. It's just the way in which my experience and much of my own class during high school was taught. She was forever shouting and threatening us with detention, she was never happy and didn't care. Know body knew why, but it was for that reason alone that I didn't take it as a subject in third and fourth year. In fact there wasn't even a high school band.

I was deaf until the age of 4, and I was already at that age playing the keyboard, even if the keys were a little large. My dad could play five instruments, and he learned by ear and his natural talent. Similarly, that's, exactly what I did when I started. Learning to play by ear with what was on adverts and Top Of the Pops at the time, with myself on the keyboard. My sister use to sight-read and play back in the 1980s and does to this day. I've played in bands on stage, so I have needed some music theory but as yet, none that required traditional notation.

In 2000, I spent a year studying music vie an open learning course and with an actual music tutor that played the keyboard. I was doing 18-hour days 7 days a week dedicated to music production and technology... Notation was really something I considered to be for learning pre-existing works in which to learn and perform with. Of course, I listened and learned the basics of notation whilst in high school, but my motivation to create music at all was to create my own music.

The Swings and Roundabouts is about whether if it's really necessary for one as an individual to learn something when alternative approaches have been long ingrained in not requiring it. Of course if you are composing for an orchestra, so instrumentalists can read and perform, but very few around here will be doing that I think. Performing on stage required a chord sheet when playing the synthesizer I was using in front of several hundred people TV/ Press cameras and royalty.. But that's another story.

and what does this really have to do with DAWs besides adding it to the end of your post as if to make it about DAWs to fit this forum? The pic? No sir, this is the problem and in five minutes someone will come in and report it...is it too much to ask for you to post in the appropriate forum...I'm gonna move it to EE for now.

Because many Daws include notation within them... It was for instance only until version 5 of Studio One that notation was included. Some Daws, have been really poor in regard to how notation has been implemented, such as Sonar.. bugs and so forth but it's an opportunity for users to reflect back on their experience in how they have been taught if at all in the requirements in which to learn music from a young age or have chosen to through their path to create music and how that has changed in how modern DAWs provided ways in which to create music without needing an understanding of notation. How does that affect them in the path to create music, such as like for example, a user of a DAW may instead compose music in a way that they once did and forgo the modern approach to create music in purely recorded audio files, or piano roll methods. Although the piano roll was seen in early 1990 based sequencers, it was traditional notation that was predominantly found in the 1980's. Some people don't use a keyboard at all and prefer to just draw in notes on a piano roll because they find it easier, but these same people can also adapt to using the scoring methods that we once did in the 1980's and actually learn a new skill in being able to read music and from there to be able to use that to sight-read music to play an instrument. Could someone forgo modern techniques in favour of notation. Is a dedicated notation piece of software even required... and would they even switch to one and dump their normal DAW to go to being completely notation driven to compose with for real instruments... like we all had to as kids at school.

The images posted are there to set the theme and that what I'm recalling from my own personal experience growing up. It's all interconnected to follow the topic in essense.

[Hink]

well I'll tell you what, there is one sentence about DAWs...lets see how it goes, it can be moved back

[BertKoor]

The Swings & Roundabouts Of Notation Within DAWs

If you want this thread to be about notation in DAWs, studying a bit of history doesn't hurt.

There is a large group of DAWs that started as a midi sequencer. They could not record any audio.
If the primary task is handling midi notes, then a representation of them in staff notation is doable (but far from trivial.)
And what's written down is just a representation (a model) of what a performer could do. There's still plenty of room for interpretation. Midi events carry the exact information of a performance. In the transformation to staff you lose some of that.

Another group of DAWs started their life as multitrack audio recorders. They could not do midi.
Shoehorning in midi sequencing in the existing program was difficult enough, let alone showing those notes in traditional notation, let alone editing them in staff view.

Design decisions in the technical architecture and user interface have consequences. The history of the DAW will likely tell you whether it's any good to use in staff editing mode.

How likely are you to embrace traditional notation, as opposed to what has become the norm of modern day DAWs in really not needing to know much at all ?

If you don't use it, you lose it

I think the type of music has a strong correlation with its notation. What's the target audience? What are they supposed to do with it?

• Classical or orchestral music is done with staff notation. Each orchestra member is supposed to play what's written, nothing more & nothing less. You need a notation that's widely understood and easy to read.
• Jazz, rock, folk is better off with chord schematics (when it's not about the melody) because each player in the band has a lot of freedom in the interpretation. This type of music is about improvisation and interaction between musicians. Just writing down a schema suffices, more detail is overkill.
• Computer-produced music is better off with the piano roll. You edit it in the view that gives most detail at glance (staff lacks that detail) and nobody other than the computer needs to perform it.

[jancivil]

"how likely are [the universal you] to embrace traditional notation, as opposed to what has become the norm of modern day DAWs in really not needing to know much at all"
Seemed unambiguous in an attempt to negate learning it to me. The response acknowledging its usefulness seemed surprised I took that statement at face value. "Notation was really something I considered to be for learning pre-existing works" is one individual's sort of half-assed [mis-]construction of it.
While my point is that as a means for studying and knowing from music it is, and should be embraced by people even today, with "DAWs" built for people in a way to suggest to some that people that can't really be arsed any more.

Sorry if I brought too much heat in trying to bring light, the context of this quality of comment (there in the DAWs and Hosts board with all the rest of the dross), is what it is, though.