The last time I wrote using pencil and paper, at the end of the line I was looking for the "save" button. No joke.

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There is something so visceral and warm about slowly filling a page with ink. However, after the first couple of pages one has to scrap because of changes to the orchestration or the whole accompaniment, one reluctantly accepts the coldness of the pixel (and the concomitant radiation).

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Good point Bill, part-writing was always assigned to copyists or students of composers. I don't know how Dorico fares as yet (for scores slightly more complex than Haydn), but we should charge for parts more than we charge for commissions (significantly more since we are expected these days to slave to write music for nothing...)

Guy, thank you for sharing your composition process. I am going to try your methods for my next piece. 

I can't remember if I posted this earlier, but my working method (so far and open to change) is to focus on the feeling or emotion I would like to write about, then when I can hear a melody or chord progression in my head I notate that idea in Sibelius. Sometimes I will keep trying lots of permutations until I can create a melody fragment or motive that in my mind excites me. This is the hardest part of composing for me, creating the basic melody or motive that excites me. I then gradually expand or "fill out" the original idea and will generally complete the entire composition in notation before working with samples. I used to work using a keyboard, but I stopped doing that a few years ago. Sometimes I end up abandoning an idea as boring or I simply can't imagine how to expand upon that idea.

When the entire piece is finished, I print the score, then use Cubase to create a midi-performance.  

VSL samples are the only library I have found that is conducive to working in this fashion. I own various libraries from other developers and find them extremely hard to use to create a midi-performance. The samples are not consistent in volume between patches, or even within a patch. The articulations available in other sample libraries are also limiting.  

I really hope that the new Synchron products (I have already purchased Strings I) will continue the VSL tradition of highest quality. To be frank, I am a little worried about the pricing being too low to support the high quality. 

Anyway, I am going to hook up my keyboard and give Guy's method a try. 

Composing without thinking to the real instruments, but to the sampled instruments, is really a game-changer. It is not easy to change one's attitude, after years spent thinking to the very versatile human-driven instruments.

Composing with what you have is really liberating. You can try the sampled instruments, explore their abilities, immediately listen to the results, feel the sound under your fingers. Having good libraries would be worthless, if you still force yourself to hear sound you don't have, and can't really listen to.

Thank you, Guy, for making this clear.

Paolo

@PaoloT said:

Composing without thinking to the real instruments, but to the sampled instruments, is really a game-changer. It is not easy to change one's attitude, after years spent thinking to the very versatile human-driven instruments.

Composing with what you have is really liberating. You can try the sampled instruments, explore their abilities, immediately listen to the results, feel the sound under your fingers. Having good libraries would be worthless, if you still force yourself to hear sound you don't have, and can't really listen to.

This is interesting. While I also agree that it is amazing to have the ability for instant feedback with a virtual orchestra, I wonder how composers were able to make such amazing music before the computer era. In other words, my question is not so much about how would Beethoven, Strauss, Ravel, or Mahler would exploit these modern tools if they were alive today, but rather how they produced such amazing tone colors without these tools, but purely with pencil and paper and imagination. 

Obviously the older generations had to undergo rigorous training to hear sounds in their inner ear(precisely because they did not have these tools), otherwise they could not have written with such finesse. But does having the ability to instantly get feedback from sampled orchestra do away for the need for inner hearing? Does the presence or abscence of inner hearing ability have any influence on the quality of the artisic output? On the other hand, if having an orchestra at our fingertips is really a game-changer and gives us so much power, why arent today's composers exceeding, or even matching the compositional prowess of someone like Prokofiev or Stravinsky? Just wondering.

Anand 

@agitato said:

I wonder how composers were able to make such amazing music before the computer era. In other words, my question is not so much about how would Beethoven, Strauss, Ravel, or Mahler would exploit these modern tools if they were alive today, but rather how they produced such amazing tone colors without these tools, but purely with pencil and paper and imagination. 

My 2 cents on this:

I think it has to do with the time and enviroment you live in. Surely the young talented musicians of those times must of developed extraordinary abilities that would be impossible to duplicate living in today's world. Once your mind gears into a certain way of learning, it starts to become lazy in other areas, and how far this can, well seems there's almost no limit. Just an example, imagine not having the invention of the phonograph or radio, you would develp a much better ear, you would take the habit of memorizing much of what you hear, orchestra colors as well. This is impossible for us to conceive, different times. 

@agitato said:

Does the presence or abscence of inner hearing ability have any influence on the quality of the artisic output? On the other hand, if having an orchestra at our fingertips is really a game-changer and gives us so much power, why arent today's composers exceeding, or even matching the compositional prowess of someone like Prokofiev or Stravinsky? Just wondering.

Anand 

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I agree wholeheartedly with Guy's assessment, but would like to add some further thoughts for consideration.

First, as someone that composes concert works strictly using notation and media music strictly using a daw, I can vouch for both the different creative processes involved, as well as the stylistic output of the music that results from each method.  When I compose using notation software, I hear the sounds internally, imagining the blend of timbres from the various instruments, the extended techniques and articulations each instrument will use, etc. etc.  Without the benefit of VSL playback, it forces me to think idiomatically for the instruments; it forces me to do a lot more in my head, and to perhaps write with greater complexity, because I can see my notes in the score and understand the resulting harmony and counterpoint visually on "paper".  In daw composition, I become more influenced/inspired by the actual sounds of the samples as I play my keyboard.  In turn, I sometimes can get more creative in terms of the variety of articulations, the timbral pallette, and a myriad of other things that might simply not come to mind when writing with notation.  That said, I rarely can achieve as complex a piece of music in terms of harmony, counterpoint, metre, etc. when composing in a daw.

Now as to your assertion that today's composers aren't exceeding or even matching the abilities of earlier giants, well, there's much to consider, some of which Guy mentioned.  First, how many composers today are blessed with the ability to focus exclusively on creating music without worrying about a myriad of other things that distract them from music-making.  Sure, distractions existed in Mozart's day too, but composers were able to earn a living through their art, whereas today, those that earn that living are rarely doing so with serious orchestral music.  In other words, if the demand for such complex, developed works doesn't exist, and if the opportunities for modern composers to work with orchestras is so limited, what incentive exists for them to continually create such works and improve their craft?  Further, even if they desire to improve their understanding of what works/doesn't work with a real live orchestra, they don't have the opportunity for the learning process of "demonstrate...try...feedback...revise" that composers in previous eras had.  Simply put, I can't create a symphony on paper today, do an orchestral read-through tomorrow, get feedback, go home and revise the score, and repeat the process.  Being "immersed" in the active learning and creative process is something modern composers can't benefit from (except with the wonders of our sample libraries).

Second, while there is in no way a diminishment of the greatness of the giants of the past, their recognition wasn't always immediate.  It can take hundreds of years for their impact to be realized and written about.  Furthermore, as societal values reflect the world in which we live, it's clear that modern composers today won't receive such recognition in their lifetime, save for a few individuals who can "break through the clutter" (and rarely ever do those that break through qualify as the best/most deserving individuals...see Hans Zimmer).  

Third, as has been discussed ad nauseum in the "tonal vs. atonal" debate (which I don't want to revive), it is simply impossible for a composer today to write music without either being compared to those that wrote similarly in the past, or being criticized for writing music that's too "out there".  Let's face it...there are twelve tones, and millions of works have been written already that exploit every possible combination of harmonic progressions, melodic lines, and rhythmic patterns.  Obviously there are many more pieces to be written, but you can't reinvent the wheel when a million wheels are already out there.  So, composers today face the burden of being aware of everything that came before them, and having to constantly find a way to express their voice in an authentic way, completely aware of the fact that others will judge them against that which already exists.  A lot of pressure, to be sure!

Finally, think of the sheer number of distractions in our lives today, entertainment and otherwise that pull our focus from a constant pursuit of musical excellence.  From television and video games, to books, social media, and outdoor activities, there is more to do today than ever before.  And in my estimation, the greats that we recognize today, probably didn't have the most balanced of lives.  They lived for their art and had many more opportunities to immerse themselves in it for many hours a day than composers today do (again, save for those with academic appointments, film composers, etc.)  

Sorry for rambling, but I felt the need to at least play devil's advocate.  The funny thing is, generally speaking, I agree that very few living composers today are achieving at the same level as those composers of previous centuries...but I don't believe it's for lack of ability, as much as for lack of opportunity to develop those skills to a higher degree than they currently do.

Dave

"Sorry for rambling, but I felt the need to at least play devil's advocate.  The funny thing is, generally speaking, I agree that very few living composers today are achieving at the same level as those composers of previous centuries...but I don't believe it's for lack of ability, as much as for lack of opportunity to develop those skills to a higher degree than they currently do.

Dave"

True that todays technological advances come with the downside of other distractions that perhaps prevent people from achieving a higher level of compositional artistry compared to 100 or more years ago. (although some people even today reach that level but face other limitations you mention) 

Anyways, composing tools like VSL give people like me...non-music professionals....an opportunity to directly interact with this amazing thing called orchestra, even if the intention is not to make a living out of it.

Cheers

Anand 

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@William said:

I think it is the basic fact that creativity always finds a way.

This is so true. And should be a guiding motto for all of us who want to compose. Even one hundred years ago, composers were complaining that all of the best ideas had been used and there was nothing of value remaining to be written. How wrong was that?

Paul

Many interesting points made in this thread. The reason I can compose in notation using Sibelius is the NotePerformer soundset, which makes it possible to get a very good idea of how things will sound just using standard notation. Without Sibelius and NotePerformer I would be forced to go back to composing at a keyboard. Of course, NotePerformer is far short of the quality of VSL and other top-tier sample libraries, so I also do a VSL midi-performance.

Almost all of the great composers composed at the keyboard. The only two I can immediately think of who could compose entirely "in the head" are Mozart and Handel. Even Bach composed at the keyboard. This is not to say that great composers did not do some things "in the mind's ear." Beethoven would take long walks while singing his ideas. Dvorak also was a walking aficionado walking every morning to the local train station and thinking about his composing for the day.

Before recorded music every family created their own music. Every middle-class family owned a piano and most families had several musicians. As a result, composers could easily bring together a string quartet or various wind and brass instruments to try out ideas before making a final commitment to publication. Beethoven in his many notebooks often made notations regarding various "readings" with musicians that he held in his apartment. Bruckner was notorious for making changes to his orchestrations after hearing the initial performance. When I began composing in the 1970's I had numerous musician friends who were willing to try out new music for me. Today there seems to be fewer gifted family and amateur musicians, so getting a reading is probably impossible unless one is connected to a music school. To compensate we have software. 

I do believe that with experience and training, one begins to have a firm conception of what various instrument combinations, harmonic progressions, and articulations will work in performance. So the more feedback we receive (as someone previously mentioned) the better we become at composing in the mind's ear.

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@Acclarion said:

Finally, think of the sheer number of distractions in our lives today, entertainment and otherwise that pull our focus from a constant pursuit of musical excellence.  From television and video games, to books, social media, and outdoor activities, there is more to do today than ever before.

Like this morning I saw in my coffee, "don't forget black friday!".

@William said:

Another thing that occurred to me is it can be very helpful to first compose in notation like Finale or Sibelius because converting that into MIDI is fairly easy.  However, if you have something that was composed first playing into a keyboard, especially with a lot of different tracks, it can be a nightmare converting that into notation.  I've had to do that on a lot of stuff that I deliberately did with loose performance accuracy in order to make it sound more human, but then I wanted a notated score.  That of course requires quantizing and no program does that perfectly, so it becomes a huge editing hassle to get everything accurate for conversion to notation.  It is interesting how the humanize features of VSL have become so good that having a perfect sheet music quantized MIDI sequence works very well without a mechanical feel.  So now it makes sense to have a notated score to begin with if you ever plan to convert it into sheet music.  

Yes, my experience exactly! It is easy to export MIDI from Sibelius or Finale into a DAW, which gives a great starting point for the midi-performance. One still has a lot of work left to do, but it isn't too onerous to select articulations and paint CC curves for dynamics and other controls like start and release. Once again this is another area of VSL advantage because as you point out, the VSL humanization features obfuscate the need to manually humanize note start times and tuning variations. 

My limited experience with going from MIDI to notation also matches yours. This became painfully clear to me a few weeks ago when I was trying to create notation from a MIDI file created by another composer. The midi sounded great, but it was so sloppy that it took forever to get it notated.

As we discuss these VSL advantages, it really makes me wonder about the folks on the VI-Control forum who seem to hate the VSL instruments. I wonder if they simply do not think like classically trained musicians? For so many the only consideration seems to be "out of the box" initial impression of the sound.

@Paul McGraw said:

As we discuss these VSL advantages, it really makes me wonder about the folks on the VI-Control forum who seem to hate the VSL instruments. I wonder if they simply do not think like classically trained musicians? For so many the only consideration seems to be "out of the box" initial impression of the sound.

@Acclarion said:

(...) and the fact that a large percentage of consumers are amateurs that see sound libraries as products that should "just work" without developing skills and intricate knowledge of how best to use these tools. And unless you have a solid foundation in orchestration, music theory, etc. you may not understand how to improve the quality of your midi recordings, and so, would be better off using a library that provides a "decent" out of the box sound, that is often quite good for virtually all styles, but classical. Dave

This is also what I experienced back when I started making music with samples. I am not a professionaly trained musican, but have at least 10 years experience with notation software and also play some instruments.
When I started using VSL over a year ago my results were far less good and realistic compared to results with other libraries because I didn't know how to use it properly; but the other libraries couldn't deliver the realism I was looking for, so I took the time, researching not only how to work best with samples (and VSL) but also how an orchestra and the instruments in it are working (in particular the strings). As result my mockups are far more realistic than I could ever do with the other libraries out there. And you get better at using VSL every day you are working with it 😊

Right now I am working on a CD project with some friends and we needed a good piano that fits our budget. So I listend to about 70-80 virtual pianos out there to find the best within the budget. Some of the pianos sounded great, but they are not so good for classical music. So we bought the "Bösendorfer Imperial" and we are happy with the results so far.
MIDIs from notation software are a good starting point. I import the scores of my friends into the sequencer and the results are great after a lot of work. But if I compose directly in a sequencer it's even better and sounds more interesting because the available samples inspire you to experiment with new sounds and techniques.