Notating Music
Hi Members,
I am a long time musician and continue to study music theory. I studied music theory in college and now studying composing. Although I understand the timing of notes, rests etc., I have never notated anything beyond basic riffs and ideas. Is there an online source or book that actual explains how to get your ideas and composition notated on paper (musescore)? In other words, the art of moving from what you perform to notating the composition on staff paper (or musescore) is a huge leap. For example, I find myself forever trying to get the rhythm that I composed to match exactly what I notate . I understand meter, counting beats etc., but was curious if there was a particular source that made the transition from performance to notation a more organized step-by-step process. I understand the fact -like most anything- time and practice make perfect but curious if there was a notation guide of some sort.
Thank you for your time.
Comments
It's an interesting question. There are lots of resources out there to teach one to *read* music, and in principle you'd like to think that anyone that can read it would also be able to write it, but the reality, this is not the case at all. Writing music successfully - figuring out how to correctly spell rhythms, accidentals, and other aspects of music to represent the sounds can be baffling. I have become good at it over the year and I do try to teach these skills in my theory class, but I don't really have any teaching materials to work from other than whatever I put together myself.
One of the techniques I stress is to sing your rhythm *slowly*) while counting 1-2-3-4 (or whatever) using your fingers, so you can be very clear on what beat each note is supposed to fall on. Once that is sorted out, then figuring out how to *notate* it can be dealt with using a set of pretty specific rules than can be learned in fairly short order.
In reply to It's an interesting question. by Marc Sabatella
Maybe this trick will help after a while: When I hear a piece of music (not necessarily a good piece) I try to figure out the rhythm in a sort of idle manner and without any intention of doing anything else except figuring it out. Since I do this in idle moments (like waiting for the commercials to be over) I don't really lose any time doing it.
For example the title song of "Cheers" seems kind of complicated rhythmically at first hearing. If you play around with it in your head you'll find it is in 6/8* and has a very strongly emphasized hemiola in it (hence the somewhat confusing effect when first heard). Lets say you now hear a "Furiant" (it's a Cheque folk dance) by Dvorak or Smetana: You'll recognize the same pattern (hemiola) quickly now. You'll be slow in finding the "solution" at first but if you get into the habit of trying to figure these things out I am sure over time you'll get fluent in this.
I am sure you know that sometimes the rhythm one plays is not exactly identical to what one writes down (it is called "rubato"," jeu inégal" and other terms depending on genre).
* Maybe another tip: Start with figuring out the meter before getting into the details.