I can definitely believe it, I just didn't see it before you explained it. It makes sense.
Not that I think we should abandon the old way by any means, but maybe there ought to be a notation 2.0, completely reworked to be an easy learning curve for those who already know the old notation, but make more sense to coding. I wonder if that's even possible. You know, I say that I'm completely new to composing on a computer, but that's not *quite* true. In the days of DOS, I remember creating a BASIC file that would play some notes using computer beeps, lol. I remember doing Slayer's "War Ensemble" that way and it was hilarious. Just a random thought. On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 8:19 AM, D. Michael McIntyre <rosegarden.trumpe...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 04/07/2016 07:04 PM, Silas Mortimer wrote: > >> If I might ask, because I've been wondering about this, what makes >> doing notation so difficult? > > I think the root of it is because notation is a very analog, > infinitely-variable kind of thing that is difficult to represent and > manipulate in an orderly digital world. > > I have probably over 1,000 pages of commercially published sheet music > for various instruments sitting around in my house, and it probably > wouldn't take me 30 seconds to find a score that Rosegarden can't be > used to reproduce. It would probably take me more on the order of 30 > minutes to find a score that Rosegarden CAN reproduce exactly like the > original, with no compromises. I would probably have to pull that out > of some basic band method book too. > > Notation is difficult, because of the amount of effort that would be > required to address any random one of a hundred different scenarios I > could come up with that Rosegarden doesn't know how to handle. > > Kneed beams. How the hell would we ever make kneed beams work without > seriously rethinking everything from the ground up? I have utterly no idea. > > Anacrusis is something I've banged on off and on for years, and we still > can't really handle it probably, or get it exported to LilyPond > properly. Close, but not really a cigar. I have a trumpet method book > with 1,000 pages of stuff Rosegarden can't handle. It's basic, common > stuff that's hard to work out how to achieve in a notation editor > grafted onto a MIDI sequencer. > > After 15 years of this, I could go on for days, Silas. Doing notation > on top of a sequencer is borderline insanity, but it's a crazy kind of > fun to challenge the limits of what is possible, even if it isn't smart > or practical. > > The true notation editors like MusE Score and Finale (they work directly > with notes and lines and staffs instead of MIDI) have an easier time > with a great many of these problems, but they face their own nightmares. > Those things are especially weak when it comes to rendering imperfect > human performances on a page. I've seen absolutely nothing on any > platform in close to 30 years of computer music that could produce a > playable sheet of music without a considerable amount of fiddling around > to tweak all the glitches. > > I'm pretty sure if that magic button could be written, it would be on > the market by now, and would probably cost $10,000 a copy. > > -- > D. Michael McIntyre > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > Rosegarden-user mailing list > Rosegarden-user@lists.sourceforge.net - use the link below to unsubscribe > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rosegarden-user ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Rosegarden-user mailing list Rosegarden-user@lists.sourceforge.net - use the link below to unsubscribe https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rosegarden-user
