Playing with Finale Allegro and Sibelius, I'm not so far along yet, but I'm
beginning to have concrete ideas for Rosegarden, instead of vaguely groping
around for something I want, but can't describe. So far Finale Allegro is
the clear winner for me in terms of which one is easier to use without
reading any instructions, and it also seems their first time wizard is the
most obvious one from which to draw inspiration, using our existing
infrastructure.
First thing we'd need is a File -> New Document from Wizard as an alternative
to File -> New.
The first page of the wizard should be the equivalent of our current
Composition -> Edit Document Properties -> About page. I'd like to see this
same content redone with less obnoxious widgets. I really hate whatever
widgets are used currently. I don't see any need to be able to edit
the "key" portion either, since we don't print or export things that don't
match fixed "keys" anyway. Replace the ability to make up your own keys with
a simple text entry box for adding comment text using that ubiquitous KDE
editor-in-a-box widget I'm sure exists, but don't know by name.
Next, picking instruments. Sibelius does this by ensemble first, brass band,
orchestra, whatever, and you can pick instruments grouped by categories
like "common instruments," "band instruments," etc. I've mad suggestions to
this effect myself as a way to improve the existing preset database, but we
don't have these groupings now, and adding something to choose based on these
groupings could conceivably happen at a later time. For now, we could do
something more like Sibelius, which is almost free.
Left pane in Finale is the simple category of brass, winds, etc., the middle
pane lists instruments in that category, and the right pane is the list of
instrument parts that will go onto the score. I don't know what widget this
is either, but it's the same sort of thing the edit-your-own-toolbars
interface from KDE uses. So you wind up with something like this after
making some various selections in the first two parts of the dialog:
category instrument score arranger
------------ ------------ ---------------
Piccolo Trumpet Flute in Eb
brass [>] Trumpet in Bb [>]Trumpet in Bb
Horn in Eb Horn in F
Horn in F Percussion
Tuba in Eb
blah
Ordering is accomplished with a combo under the arranger portion of the
dialog. You can choose orchestral, band, and so on, and it rearranges the
contents of the third list accordingly.
Next up, it asks for the initial tempo, initial time and initial key signature
for the piece in concert pitch. Notably, the tempo option lets you specify
the written tempo indication in the dialog, rather than adding it manually
after the fact. I quite like that.
(Feature request: I'd like to have tempo indications that display
intelligently when they're needed. Only on the top part of a grouping, but
displayed on individual parts or individual sub-groupings. Maybe something
detached from the text mechanism and done an entirely different way.)
We could get most of the elements for the above dialog from existing dialogs
or code rearranged. It doesn't have to be, and indeed should not be a clone
of Finale, but I think it's a good model.
Next up, the MIDI question. Both Finale and Sibelius assign patches and
channels and whatever invisibly, so the user has no control (not immediately
apparently anyway) over how anything gets played. One or the other of them
defaults to "Microsoft Wavetable GS Synth" on some combo box. We really
should try to come up with something similar, and add a General MIDI-based
program assignment to the presets in our database. It's not possible to come
up with something sensible for all bazillion instruments, but I think we
should just fake our way through the best way possible, and should make these
program and channel assignments by default, assuming the first playback
device is a GM device. Possibly with some facility for overriding the
defaults in a configurable and repeatable way when they're always going to be
wrong for a given user. (Somebody always composes with their Fancy Synth
3000 with the Orchestral Wonder Instruments Expansion Pack that isn't
remotely GM compatible. I bet these other apps have some way to cope with
that, and I should play with that and mine them for inspiration how to work
that into a Rosegarden context.)
Then of course, you just build a new document with new tracks and empty
segments appropriately (I'd like different segment colors for every part,
maybe color by instrument family, red for brass, blue for winds, etc. or
something) and you're off to a good start.
Now I'll move into some of the other niggling bitchy problems.
Voices.
Finale handles voices as layers, with a simple [1][2][3][4] at the bottom of
the composer window thingie. Sibelius has the same four buttons on a
floating toolpad I haven't figured out how to use yet. I think Finale is on
the right track because I figured out how to input notes into Voice 3
immediately. Layers could be overlapping segments, the off notes displayed
in gray, the active ones in black, with a quick chooser to bring the right
layer to the fore, and a mode to turn off all but the active layer. We can
already display overlapping segments, so this doesn't seem too terribly
impossible to me. The main thing would be creating a new overlapping segment
for the user without involving the segment canvas when they click the [2]
button. There could well be other issues, as with voices that are sometimes
beamed together as part of the same kind of chord construction, etc.
Currently our segments cannot merge together in this fashion, nor can they
export in this fashion either. I have no idea as yet how Finale or Sibelius
handle that same problem, and it bears investigating.
Grand staffs.
There are a number of problems I can't see how to solve using the
treble-and-bass-in-independent-segments model. It almost seems to me we need
a new dedicated staff type where the staff *is* a grand staff, and events
would have to carry some new property to show which staff they belong to.
Only with something that takes it that far can I see our ever having the
ability to do kneed beams, for instance, or easily moving a note from one
staff to the other by dragging it through the gap between staves.
Repeats.
The current way we do repeats is horrible, and exportable only first/second
endings are even worse. We really need an entirely notation-based mechanism
that insulates the user from the vagaries of dicking around at the segment
level. I documented a "fold here" request which I think is a viable way to
solve the problem. In addition to what else has been suggested on that
comment thread, I think we ought to give some real thought to more than one
set of verses to a song. I hate songs, and don't write lyrics, but a million
people do, and there is no sane or reasonable way to handle this problem at
present at all.
Proper segnos, codas (part of the "fold here" idea) and such should be
implemented natively. Some of these are exportable through that schlock I
piggybacked onto the Text tool, but LilyPond directives are EVIL.
Ability to print and export groups of parts, or single parts, automatically.
Print the full score, print a subset of the score, print out individual
parts. IN INDIVIDUAL PARTS LONG STRETCHES OF REST MUST MUST MUST BE
MULTI-BAR RESTS!!!!!!!!!! That last one is a serious pain in my ass, because
everything in the world for instruments other than strings has ass loads of
multi-bar rests everywhere. When you print out the part, you don't want
three pages of whole rests, you want a damn |==54==| in one bar somewhere.
This currently has to be fixed tediously by hand in LilyPond, and I don't see
any reasonable way to export as multi-bar rests with the existing scheme of
things, or I would have done it months ago. How do I know at export time I'm
supposed to be using a multi-bar rest? I can't figure that out, and anyway,
they should exist in Rosegarden too. Display three pages of whole rests on a
multi-part view, and a multi-bar rest on a single part view. That would be
fine.
And last but not least, grace notes. Good old grace notes. They've been
broken for eternity, and I'm at a stage of playing with music where every
third thing I want to rearrange or transpose has grace notes all over the
fricking place. This is annoying me to no end. They don't work in
Rosegarden, and they don't export correctly to LilyPond.
I think that's about all it would take to make Rosegarden pretty well usable,
but I have no idea if any of it is worth even trying at this point, because
the list feels a mile high, and about all I could do myself is some of the
dialog diddling for the first time setup thing. I have no bloody idea how to
make it actually do anything, and no bloody idea how to address myriad
notation view complaints, and 40,000 year old bugs I would have fixed two
years ago if I knew enough to do it.
I'm on the fence at the moment. Finale Allegro looks mighty tempting compared
with continuing this effort (now that I have a copy of Windows again, sigh),
but it has also been somewhat inspirational to see how some of these problems
are actually solved by successful commercial packages. I guess first I need
to find out what is broken about Allegro compared with its big brother. I
think Sibelius can be written off as too damn complicated to use, and not a
good fit with Rosegarden's existing scheme of things.
It is of course important not to directly rip anything off too, and I'm not
thinking that way. I'm just thinking about implementing their ideas within
an appropriately Rosegarden framework.
notes to self:
* look at how they handle adapting to the Super Orchestra Wonder Wizard card
* look at what happens when multiple voices mix say four eights on the bottom
and 8 4 8 on top WRT beaming
--
D. Michael McIntyre
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