Rhapsodic Thoughts

Rhapsodic thoughts on the Library of Congress, new music, my new piano CD, free music, my mom, and the Rapture. Here we go:

* Going to see Eighth Blackbird for the first time on May 20th. Really looking forward to seeing them for the first time, and it's free since it's at the Library of Congress! Speaking of...

* Saw a concert of George Crumb's music at the Library of Congress last week. Fantastic performance of his American Songbook (selections). Brilliant reworkings of these shared cultural artifacts, but decidedly not "for the people" - except for those people who have 100 percussion instruments and a lot of time on their hands. Really enjoyed his pre-concert talk; makes me want to write more practical music. Speaking of...

* I just completed Music for a Rainy Day, my first album of piano music. Each "practical" track serves as an accompaniment to a specific part of the day: "Music for Waking," "Music for Sitting," "Music for Driving," etc... [Subject for a future post.] Right now, I'm trying to decide whether to market the CD, or post it as a free download. Speaking of...

* I've been thinking a lot lately about the business of music, especially regarding the Creative Commons movement, wherein an artist allows the free distribution of their work, presumably spreading it around faster and leading to greater word-of-mouth. [Subject for a future post.] I'm pondering releasing Music for a Rainy Day under a non-commercial CC license. Free music, yum! I'll of course give it away to family, especially considering it was conceived as a gift for my mom, so she'd have some music of mine she might actually enjoy. Speaking of...

* Mother's Day is tomorrow, Sunday, May 8th. Don't forget to call. My immediate family and a few others are making the trek from South Dakota to see my graduation next weekend. So excited! Just in time: the piano CD gift is actually a 4-months-late Christmas gift. Speaking of...

* Okay, Christmas and the Rapture are only tangentially-related. Have you heard that the Rapture is coming May 21, 2011? That's in two weeks! 6 p.m. local, to be specific. I'm considering hosting a Left Below/non-Rapture/Reason party that night. Any takers/suggestions?

BEDA Day 24: Music Notation and Production Software

Here are some programs you might find useful, either for notating sheet music or producing audio. This list isn't particularly ground-breaking or complete, but I wish I had known about all of this software 10 years ago.

Music Notation - for creating printed music (MUS, PDF, etc.)

I use Finale 2007, about to upgrade to 2009. It's very powerful and complete, but pretty difficult to master.

Sibelius is the other main notation software. I hear it's more intuitive and easier to learn than Finale, yet has all the capabilities. They're both rather expensive.

Before college, I used NoteWorthy Composer, which is a cheap, simple alternative. This is okay for quick/smaller projects that don't require an excellent visual layout. (Don't use it for professional work or compositions, but maybe for small classroom examples.)

I have also heard that the open source (free) engraving software Lilypond creates beautiful music, but the input method using ASCII is something text-based with which I am unfamiliar.


Music Production - for creating and editing audio (WAV, MP3, etc.)

Garage Band (Mac only) is probably the easiest way to record and edit audio for home or semi-professional music production.

operationgadget.com has a 5-year old but pretty good article that lists a handful of alternatives.

You may also be interested in Audacity, which is a free, open source audio editing and recording program. It's easy to use and quick; I like it a lot.

For serious audio editing, you can get a digital audio interface such as ProTools, Logic, Cubase, or Reason. These programs are expensive and complicated, but they can do everything: record, edit, and synthesize sounds, use MIDI data, and more.

There are other crazy programs like MAX/MSP that fascinate me, and about which I know nothing.