Dear Michael, You have my sympathy. I wish I had a helpful response, but you can only be responsible for the clarity of your explanation of the limitations of MIDI playback and what it takes to make it resemble music. You cannot be responsible for how that may be perceived (and misunderstood) by your client.
As playback from notation improves, and Robert Piechaud has done remarkable work, expectations increase unrealistically. In a way, the people who spend time and energy exploring how to massage MIDI files into something that approaches human performance are engaged in the study of robotics, another pursuit and area of expertise. When I wrote an arranging book with examples that play back (for Gary Garritan), he found someone who worked on the notation files - making them at least a recognizable sketch of the music - something like the sketches the police use in an attempt to find a suspect. Even that takes hours of skilled work. I could expand on this subject - how it represents an impoverishment of the understanding of music (as I experience it), but I doubt that it will convince your client. This is a philosophical dilemma. Chuck Sent from my iPhone On Sep 27, 2012, at 5:34 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Finalelist, > > I am happy to report that my situation from the summer resolved itself > amicably, so thanks to everyone who gave me advice on that aspect. > > I have a new issue, different, but concerning, all the same. I'm working > on engraving a piano sonata for someone who advertised through the > Orchestralist that I contacted. Actually, they were looking to have it > recorded, > and when it was sent, I told him it needed engraving, first. This person > seems to be a journeyman composer, and frequently isn't even sure of what he > wants, so somewhere along the way he asked me to create MIDI files for him. > I told him I would give them to him at no extra charge, but I wasn't > responsible for how they sounded, as I wasn't being paid, nor is there enough > > time in the day, to worry about programming human-style playback as far as > I'm concerned. I mean, it's a piano sonata, not an orchestral piece, and > these were in preparation for someone making actual recordings. > > What has happened is he has latched onto the idea that the MIDI is this > perfect demonstration of his music, so if anything sounds a little off to him > > (not note-wise, mind you, but tempo), he goes crazy and starts asking me to > alter where things go. I told him, for instance, that a rit. is a rit. as > far as Finale analyzes things, that it doesn't know poco and molto unless > they're programmed, and, again, I ain't doin' it! So, in one movement, > there are tremolos between two chords, and we know how the convention goes > for > how they are written; these particular ones fill big measures (12/4) > bars), so there are lots of double whole notes. Finale looks at these and > is > literally playing one set of whole notes and then the other set of whole > notes, and it doesn't know how to tremolo so it sounds pretty silly. I > received this note concerning these bars: > > > > It troubles me a little, however, to have the MIDI misreading your score > so that it comes out sounding differently from what I meant. From my > corres-pondence with other pianists, I get the impression that they like to > rely > on the MIDI to help them learn a piece faster. Thus, if the MIDI gives the > wrong impression it could confuse them, or cause them to have to unlearn the > slow tempo after they have learned it, which could waste a lot of time. > Can you find a way to notate it so that the MIDI plays it right? Listening > to > it a few more times, I think the whole section with the tremolos (meas. 61 > to 68) is slowed down to half the tempo I intended. Is there nothing can > be done about this? > I told him that this would be an issue, and he still isn't listening to > me. I really can't believe that the pianists he picked are so stupid (yes, > I > said it) that they can't learn the music from looking at the score rather > than relying on a computer-generated sound file. I'm at a loss to know how > to respond; this is probably the fourth time he's told me the MIDI is > right and I need to change something to make the MIDI better, that the MIDI > is > more accurate than I give it credit for, etc, etc. In this case there > isn't a thing I can do for him; the convention is the convention. Let me > iterate that these are in about four bars of music that is causing this > major > concern for him. Again, how stupid can these performers be? Count and > figure it out! He's given metronome markings, so just play the blasted note > values! I censored myself, there, if you hadn't noticed. > I'm glad I had the chance to vent; anyone care to comment on this? I'm > about to tell him to just forget it as this is taking way too much time for > the way too little money I asked for to do this, anyway. > Thanks in advance, as always! > Michael Wittenburg > > > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
