The Rawmuse Weblog

The death of 9.5″ x 12.5″ paper

rawmuse — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:02:17 +0000

I was at Kinko’s trying to enlarge some standard US letter size charts on to paper this size (we used to call it Dance Band Size, quaint) on to my carefully selected, glossy, sturdy, custom cut paper to find that all their machines will not load it. Got to be either Letter, Legal, or Tabloid. That hacked me off something fierce. I don’t want to even own my own machine anymore, but I may have to break down and get one, and an office to put it in, just so I can keep this going.

Update; Finale vs. Sibelius

rawmuse — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 04:39:17 +0000

At the time of this writing, Finale 2009 has shipped and Sibelius is on version 5. I have both, but I am tending toward Finale at this time, and here is why. Sibelius has been bought by Avid Corp. which is also the owner of Pro Tools®, and now Sibelius is, in fact, the notation module for Pro Tools. Nothing against Pro Tools, (and I think it is a great app. for recording) but I just don’t see Avid as caring a great deal about notational excellence. As if evidence of that statement were required, Sib. v.5 still has a couple bugs that I was griping about since at least v.2. So, I have gone back to using Finale on all my new projects.

To contact me

rawmuse — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 04:28:18 +0000

rawmuse@me.com

Finale tip of the day

rawmuse — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:51:41 +0000

If you are numbering every bar of music, and your music exceeds 100 bars, set up two measure number regions, one for bars 1-99, another for bars 100-999. The second measure region will have a left offset greater than the first, that way the 3 digit numbers do not collide with the music information.

Go to Measure Attributes>measure number regions>Add region
Here are my evpu settings
Create 2 measure maps
The first one is for measure numbers 1-99
-16 left, -155 below
make a 2nd one for measure numbers 100-999
-32 left, -155 below

Stupid things you may have to do for money

rawmuse — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:01:04 +0000

Have you ever been asked to typeset or copy a work from a client that had some clearly stupid things in it? So you did what copyists do, you made them look good. You edited. And then later, the client will ask you put the items back in. Here are some of my favorites 1) putting a crescendo or decresendo hairpin under… a rest. 2) putting staccato dots over a pizzicato passage (don’t want to confuse them the tenuto pizz. passages I suppose). 3) Substituting “remove mute” for “mute off” (Hey, fella, you MUTE OFF!!!) 4) Repeat 2 times (I write that as “Play two times”, otherwise you could get 3 passes, one original, and two repeats. 5) Notating a tuplet that exceeds the value of the measure. What are your favorites?

Conductors, now another victim of automation

rawmuse — Thu, 15 May 2008 07:44:13 +0000

This is cute, compliments of Honda.

It’s where you’re going, not where you’ve been.

rawmuse — Sat, 03 May 2008 19:37:15 +0000

And in this installment we discuss anticipation. No, I don’t mean that feeling of when you guess when you will get your next beer or crab cake. A common mistake for arrangers is to voice the horn hit that occurs on the “and of 4″ (in 4/4 time) or “and of 3″ (in 3/4 time) according to the chord sound in that measure. No, no. When it announces a change of harmony, the chord sound should be of the next measure, not the measure you are in. Of course, tempo can make a difference in this assessment, but unless you are playing in the serious Ray Charles Slow Ballad Tempos of quarter note equals 40 to 50 bpm, then you need to follow this advice.

Frustration is…

rawmuse — Sat, 03 May 2008 04:20:34 +0000

practicing all week for your Temps gigs and have them get cancelled due to illness (not me, them). Oh, well, the music business is not for those who need secure incomes. It helps to have a wife who can support you in the manner to which you have become accustomed…

Get rich, quick

rawmuse — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:32:13 +0000

Richness, as musical terminology, is used interchangeably with “dissonance”. The only difference usually is the register that the dissonance occurs. Now, consider that dissonance can be measured. In this example we see several treatments of a “D” chord of various flavors. The first example has no dissonance or richness. The later examples have some, and it is measured by what has been called “primary dissonance” method or p.d., for short. Primary dissonance is an interval of a minor second, or any inversion thereof (major 7th, minor 9th). Please note, in the following examples, that notes have been moved to create some dissonance, or richness, in ways that create such rich intervals within the voicing.

Cognitive Dissonance can be Rich

rawmuse — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:12:50 +0000

The use of dissonance in writing in the Jazz idiom is something that seems to be falling from favor, if any the recordings of modern artists are of evidence. Not to mention names, but I was perusing iTunes, and listening to some new artists. First of all, you have to have a vocalist (see previous post for that blog). And IF you have some horns, then they seem to my ears to be arranged in the most inoffensive, Wonder Bread style possible. So in coming days I will show you how to incorporate richness (otherwise known as dissonance) in to your writings. Stay tuned.