Last week flew like a bird…

I finally managed to get myself on track for my current The Three Musketeers project, and does it ever feel good. However, I cannot believe we are a week away for August! Wow! Where is the summer going? I am just a little less than 2 months away from opening night, and I think I am finally on track.

It was hard to let go of blogging at first, but I think I am good to go with posting again, however, it may only be 1 post a week for a while.

Last week I managed to conceptualize how the music should feel for Act 1 of The Three Musketeers production that I am assisting with for The London Community Players in September. That is to say, I finally made it to step 3 of my 4-step process. This time around, it has been a bit trickier than usual to go through the process because of it being summer and the concept of this production is just so much bigger than anything I have ever done before.

I was invited to a few summer parties last week, but I didn’t go and felt so guilty about it. That is, I would have also felt guilty had I gone because I should be working on the music for this. Can’t win…I can easily say The Three Musketeers is the hardest production I have been involved with so far, but it is faring me better than I have expected. I am getting more excited as we get closer to September. Add to the fact that at last night’s rehearsal, we used some actual swords for the first time. If you check out my Twitter feed – @artsyTechyLisa – you will see some of the action of these swords.

Now on to Music Notation Software…

In this day and age, just about everything is available on your computer, iPhone or iPad, and the ability to notate music on the fly is no exception. Before I talk about how this is done, I need to talk about a computer/electronic keyboard term known as MIDI.

MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. MIDI’s file extension is *.mid, but it is not an actual “music” file the way an mp3 (*.mp3) or wave (*.wav) file is a music file. MIDI is a file of computer information and binary code that tells a computer to play the music that is written in its language. MIDI computer language has 16 channels built-in. In these 16 channels you can put different instructions or “instruments” that will come out as sound through another program that understands the MIDI language. And MIDI is the language that every electronic keyboard, such as KORG, Roland, Yamaha, etc. understands.

In order for your computer to receive MIDI messages, it needs a connection that can interpret the MIDI. That device, in techno speak, would be an interface. An interface is required because MIDI has it’s own set of cables, however, unless you buy a custom built computer, computers do not come with the MIDI cable adapter. There are many MIDI interfaces out there, such as those made by MOTU, M-Audio, or just a plain USB-MIDI. USB-MIDI is the most popular version these days since it usually does not require extra drivers or installation discs. It will connect to your computer via USB 2.0, and then your MIDI cables would then go into the interface.

Now that you are set up, you should be able to use MIDI with your computer; this is where the fun begins. Some keyboards will let you save songs to disc in MIDI, or will at least let you save songs to its on-board memory. Once you have these songs saved, you can then play them through your computer via MIDI. Naturally, as a composer, you will want to save the music for posterity, or perhaps even for public release. This is where MIDI software comes into play.

I spoke about one type of MIDI application in my 4-Steps to sound design posts – Garritan Personal Orchestra. Since MIDI instruments sound very artificial and electronic, there are programs that can take that MIDI instrument and replace it with a more actual sounding instrument. That said, there are also computer programs that can take the MIDI instrument and notate the music.

Through the MIDI channels, you can tell the notation program what instrument you want it to be, and even transpose it to that instrument’s key (e.g. Bb Flute). Notation software can go from budget to very expensive. Of course, the programs that are more expensive have better options than the cheaper counterparts.

A particularly very good expensive one is Encore by GVOX. It is the leader because it offers so much more editing options from how the MIDI is played back, transposing, arranging, entering accidentals and notes by “writing” them in, etc… Encore averages at $250-$300 U.S. So much more information is available here.

There is a more budget friendly notation program simply called “Notation Composer” by Notation Software. They have been around since 1994 and their options have not changed much since. However, if you are just looking for a program that will write down your music to share with others, this is for you. It will transpose, and you can edit, however the interface is not near as user-friendly as Encore. Their main mission is to help the “everyday musician”, and therefore keep the price a bit lower. Compared to Encore, their software only costs $90 on average. You can find out more here.

I hope you have enjoyed this post about how you can notate your music via MIDI. I will be back next week with a post about portable keyboards. Now that we all know a bit more about MIDI, portable keyboards is just a short turn down the road.

Remember, you can always follow me @artsyTechyLisa on Twitter to be abreast on the developments of The Three Musketeers and the weirdness of my daily life happenings.