Friday, March 25, 2005
I'm looking for some feedback on my plans for the upcoming Stardust County album. (obviously I'm most interested in the opinions of people who might actually buy it, but don't let that stop you from posting.) The opera is going to be a two-CD set; the second disc will be an enhanced CD with additional data that can be accessed from a PC or Mac, such as the libretto and detailed credits. One of the things I might include is a software copy of the Stardust County Songbook. I have an idea of how I want to do this re format etc. Here are the options:
(1) The score format will probably consist of lead sheets - the vocal line + guitar chords. If some or all of the songs also included a piano reduction of the full score, would you actually use this? Would you really, or are you just saying that?
(2) Which file format would you prefer:
(a) A score that can be read, played-back, and printed using a free music reader downloadable from the 'Net (and edited using a not-free music editing program).
(b) A collection of graphics files (such as bmp), one file per page of music.
[Updated 26 March 4:33 PM MST]
To be more specific, the music notation software I use is Sibelius. Scorch is a browser plug-in (works with every browser I've heard of) that allows you to read, print, and play-back Sibelius files without actually having Sibelius. There's no MIDI involved. Scorch isn't advertised as Linux-compatible, but if your browser sandbox is emulating a Windows or Mac environment I should think it might work.
12 comments
12 Comments:
Re score format: MIDI-to-printed-score programs are widely available (some free), and MIDI (as you note) has the flexibility advantage of letting folks play it/transpose it/etc, which would be useful for rehearsing if one is trying to learn the material.
On the other hand, depending on what program *you* are using, you may be able to produce a more attractive/readable/expressive score than one of these programs would.
On the other other hand: Monochrome image files which are mostly whitespace, as would be true in this case, compress wondefully. So it may in fact not be unreasonable to provide both representations. Do some experimentation to determine what the real costs will be. Both compressed image and MIDI should be quite small compared to the uncompressed audio tracks, but there's the question of how much spare space you have on the disk.
Re piano reductions: I don't play keyboards well enough to offer a valid opinion.
-- Keshlam
By 
, at
8:32 PM
Hey there, Tony here. You will probably want a bit of Jeff's input, too. He'll be producing it with Logic Audio, which has a lot of built-in scoring features. But those features will only work on tracks where the MIDI notes are programmed in already. So, for example, if he records an electric guitar part, but there's no corresponding MIDI track, then there's no "automatic" score generated for that part, you'd have to punch in the notations yourself.
However, I think the scoring program allows him to drop guitar chords and such into the score, so in theory if the vocal melodies are punched in as MIDI notes, then he could drop the guitar chord notations in after the fact. Then it could export that score in a variety of formats, I'd guess PDF would probably be the most desirable.
I think having a PDF songbook would be a great feature for a 2-CD set.
By , at
10:00 PM
I can't say whether I'd use the music till I know whether there are songs on the CD that I'd like enough, and would fit my style well enough, to adopt. But it would certainly improve the odds. .
I'd prefer files that I could just print out to anything that required a piece of software I don't already have. Ideally, I'd like to see it as one or several PDF's. If you wanted something editable, I'd suggest MIDI files rather than an application-specific format.
By 
Gary McGath, at
2:58 AM
I'll put in another vote against software that needs to be downloaded. Is there a version of this for Linux? How about for Mac? Maybe.
ABC format is widespread. Monospaced text for lyrics with chords above is universal. If you have space, a GIF of the sheet music is something that can be printed out and rehearsed while away from the computer.
(Rich Brown)
By , at
5:50 AM
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
If you use a file format that requires downloaded software please be sure it either works across platforms (such as .pdf or even .html) or is available for all major platforms. You may want a direct link on your site to sites from which the files can be downloaded for each platform (at least for PC, Mac, and UNIX/LINUX).
Also, you may want to use a partially compressed photo format such as .jpg rather than the much larger .bmp files.
By , at
2:58 PM
If you use a file format that requires downloaded software please be sure it either works across platforms (such as .pdf or even .html) or is available for all major platforms. You may want a direct link on your site to sites from which the files can be downloaded for each platform (at least for PC, Mac, and UNIX/LINUX).
Also, you may want to use a partially compressed photo format such as .jpg rather than the much larger .bmp files.
By , at
2:58 PM
1) I would never use full piano scores. I play 6 and 12 string guitars, not keyboard.
2) A copy of the libretto would be almost useless to me anyway, as I have a purchased, bound copy of the songbook anyway.
3) Regardless, a portible format would be best for cross-platform. I personally hate PDF, as the files are huge, don't compress, and the image quality is awfull, but it has the advantage of being reasonably cross-platform compatable.
By , at
11:04 AM
I'm for option 1. When I need to re-learn the parts for performance or whatever, that's probably what I'd want --words n' chords.
TT
I'm for option 1. When I need to re-learn the parts for performance or whatever, that's probably what I'd want --words n' chords.
TT
Having played around trying to do sheet music, I came down to PDF as the best way of doing something that will work, screen and printer, on anything. It will also scale better between A4 and letter, for us Europeans! For us, MIDI is far less useful - in order to learn a song, I'd rather hear you playing it and watch along the chords and words than play a MIDI file. And on the few occasions I've seen MIDI pulled through to score, it hasn't been particularly useful.
On the subject of condensed piano score - well, we'd use it, but we'd also manage with the tune and guitar chords.
One thing - if you do score, I would suggest scoring what you are playing, rather than what you are singing - i.e. if you play a song in G capo 1, please score it in G, not G#/Ab! Too often in condensations you end up playing things in horrible keys which the usual performer certainly would never look at. If we need to adjust to our vocal range, we can then capo/transpose as required.
Just my 2pennorth!
--Martin GK
By , at
9:28 AM
I'd prefer option B. ABC format is very compact; you could conceivably offer that in addition to another format.
I took a brief look at the Scorch page. You could at least link to Scorch on the CD. Actually having it on the CD might be a bit much.
All I personally would need is lyrics/chords. If I needed sheet music, I'd call you. :)
- Patrick
By Patrick Connors, at
12:54 PM
