Re: OT Composing (was My homepage is back... some of it anyway

On Tue, Mar 18, 2003 at 02:46:01PM -0600, Tony Hogard wrote:
[snip]
> I was using Mozart [1] crippleware [2] for a while and it was tedious
> having to clicky-click up there & back just to change note lengths.
>
> One way might be for the program to accept length values initially
> as rests -- just type through (numbers for basic types... ) the rhythm.
> Clicky-click on the staves for note value.  I think one could write
> pretty quickly on the fly with keyboard/mouse coordination.
One way I thought of is to use a keyboard-based input language similar to
Creative's CMS language from a long time ago. (Eg., type 123// to get do
re mi semiquavers.) If the input language is designed well, it should be
relatively painless to input notes with all kinds of rhythms. The problem
is, using digits to represent notes is very tedious if you have wide skips
that require frequent octave changes. Another disadvantage is that you'll
have to learn the input language first. Probably a turnoff for
GUI-handicapped people. ;-)

> Copy and "Paste special" just-rhythm or just-melody [3] would be
> handy.
Yeah, I've thought about different variations on that as well.

> [1] One of the few I found that would let me double-dot whole notes
> rather than putting in tie bars.
You're lucky to have tie bars at all... the notator I use is so crippled
that you cannot tie more than two notes in a row. Bye-bye to 4-bar bass
pedals. (Till today, I still do not know how I manage to put up with it.)

> [2] Too crippled: I crashed it with too many (well, for most people,
> anyway)
> time sig changes.  I would find keystroke time changes very useful in my
> work.
I'd find complete keyboard-based input (as in, possible to do everything
with keyboard that you can do with rodent) very useful. Most of the time
spent in notating is in switching my hand from keyboard to mouse, and in
moving the mouse across the screen to change note values. Big pain.

> [3] Invert/tranpose melody, 1/2 or double time... fast canons and fugues!
[snip]

Another idea I had was to have "rhythm templates": I find that I use
similar or identical rhythms repeatedly in the same piece; so I thought of
storing them as "templates" which you can select, and then just input
pitches and it will automatically fit them to the selected rhythm. This
would help *immensely* in many of my pieces.


T

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