# How composition software contribute to today composition?



## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

in comparison to architecture, the present of 3Ds or CAD software unlocked many new building designs that 50 years ago Le Corbusier will not able to imagine, without seeing it in 3D.

similar to music composition. although I believe Beethoven can composed 9th symphony without ever heard it, would he composed much beyond if he able to review his composition right after he finished write it off? what contribution of today composition software that only by this technology that such an idea can be unlocked?


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## Zuo17 (Jul 8, 2009)

I think one of the great contributions of software is that it enables the composer to have a much cleaner writing of their music. Many sketches can be quite difficult to decipher and copy onto clean sheets. I'll think of more and if any more thoughts pop up , I'll post again later. 

Until again,
Zach


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## JAKE WYB (May 28, 2009)

i compose on sibelius software - it has no ionfluence on my actual writing so it hasnt transformed my music but i prefer to compose by ear rather than my mental picture - my mental picture of music is largely visual because I a more of an artist/designer so I need help in refining the actual sound of my music when it comes down to note-spinning hearing quickly experimented chord and note combinations and sequences gives me previously unconcieved sound worlds that splodging at the piano wouldnt.
Im afraid I am a conventional instrumental cpmposer and dont use fancy computery techniques that result in a whole new sound or anything - but it shows you dont have to be creatively innovative to benefit from technology


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## JAKE WYB (May 28, 2009)

whereas as im an architecture student - strangely i have somehow managed to avoid using computer programs for my desiging as i like drawing too much. and a building is a craft to be wrought using human intuition and artistry - theinfluence of compoters in 20/21st century architecture has either made architecture formulaic and sterile or is used as a toy to create buildings that are seldom related to their environment ruining the sense of place and without principles. Not that the computer isnt great transormation in design of course in many great situations. 

I think computers can create all sorts of new and curious shapes/spunds yet my pointis is how lookable/listenable they really are in the long run.

For me they are a means of working regarding process not necessarily related to the result though it will be affected somewhere along the lines


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

It helps me compose a lot faster, and a lot more spontaneously I think. 

It does howver cause dissonances to sounds more horrible than they are so you tend to dumb down the harmonies,


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## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

actually what i mean is , how accurate you can composed 16 different instruments without review it live as in old timer. by sibelius/cakewalk/midi etc, you right away check the written pieces and if somehow not nice, can be improved right away. so composition will be more "practical" rather than "theorytical" ,is such a term exist.

i am also an architecture student and actually practised as architect until now. the present of 3D helps a lot but of course use with cautions. i mean don't trap into the CAD "template" and result in all uniform style. but with 3D there is a lot of possibilty to review your design and improve it, rather than relying on freehand, sometimes freehand is "dishonest" and computer is "honest" to tells that the design simply looks bad in reality. is such things happens in music ?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

One thing software can do that no piano can is to allow exploring odd tunings or even microtones or 24 toned music. I'm beginning to think this will never catch on however. 24 tone scales have been around at least since the baroque (I understand Rameau wrote a treatise on it) and maybe before, but you just don't hear it much.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

jurianbai said:


> in ... architecture ... 3Ds or CAD software unlocked many new building designs that 50 years ago Le Corbusier will not able to imagine, without seeing it in 3D.


I disagree entirely. What has happened, and is now realizable with computers is that some building contours and structures which were previously not possible due to a prohibitive cost can now be done due to computers being used both calculate and fabricate those building parts.

The Architect, then and now, can imagine and draw all sorts of things. Much did not make it to paper because the actually physical making of it would have been prohibitively expensive.

Music software just enables a more rapid way of notating music, correcting scores and parts, adding or deleting measures, and printing score and parts.

It adds nothing to the imagination of a trained composer. Fact is, the newer notation for contemporary scores, extended techniques, are a pain in the A__ to render in the computer score programs, and are quickly and easily done when writing by hand. If anything, at a certain level of contemporary modernity of musical means and different sorts of notation, the computer programs are slower than the 'old way' of simply hand-writing the score.

What music software programs have allowed, for good and ill, is a mountain of music made by people who never had access or privilege to formal musical training - of those, some may be musical, and others have shown - through the music they have made - that they are not musical. Midi and Score programs have enabled tens of thousands of amateurs and dilettantes access to the world of music that was unavailable to them before those programs existed.

Like word processors, the programs make it possible to produce, for both amateur or professional, more work faster. This does not automatically mean there will be more _really good_ music, but just 'more music.'


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Music notation software kills your inner hearing and is bad for your eyes. The most disgusting thing I have seen on Sibelius software is the "proof read for parallel fifths/octaves" function which doesn't let the composer learn anything about finding these mistakes and fixing them. A composer should have the ability to find their mistakes and fix them themsleves and should be able to have good inner hearing. Computer notation software only does these things for you and doesn't help anyone become better at composing at all.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Music notation software kills your inner hearing and is bad for your eyes. The most disgusting thing I have seen on Sibelius software is the "proof read for parallel fifths/octaves" function which doesn't let the composer learn anything about finding these mistakes and fixing them. A composer should have the ability to find their mistakes and fix them themsleves and should be able to have good inner hearing. Computer notation software only does these things for you and doesn't help anyone become better at composing at all.


The parallel fifths and octaves thing doesn't (or didn't, I don't have the newest version) even work - so it doesn't help at all. If you have repeated octaves in a part it goes haywire and destroys the score.

I would probably have never started composing without computer software, or never got to a sufficient stage to be able to take it to the level I'm going to. I am drifting away from it more and more as my ear develops, but still I think anyone can use some help. Even many of the great masters used a piano to help them hear their works as they wrote them, whether they were for piano or not.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

If one uses good music software [i.e. Finale, Sibelius], one can record improvisations as they occur. Then you can go back and transcribe the MIDI files into written notation and clean it up.

If one uses lesser quality software, one tends to tailor one's creativity to the capabilities/limitations of the cheaper software which is not a good thing. Buy the best software you can afford.


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## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

Aha... thanks for bumping this old discussion. Again, musical composition pre-computer era vs computer assisted, let's hear it again.

I still in the opinion that the existence of music software, increased larger possibility of new ideas. The luxury to easily review the composition with software, increased more objective self-reassesment of idea. Thus concluded with a term "contributed" and "unlocked" as in my original thread... almost five years ago. Btw, Sibelius is only score writting software, is only tips of mountain.

Again, I draw parallel comparition to other disciplines such as architecures. Architect built a miniature model to review their design. With 3D software this can be done faster, and more imaginatively because it is as easily as click and see. (Of course we assume the architect himself is masterful in 3D software, where unfortunately in today's time, on profesional level, still this is different set of skills between architect and 3d modeler. Creating a problem almost exactly as in architect vs civil engineers, where the earlier design and the later try to build it).

On the good hand, computer software should boost human creativity, isn't it?


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