Any experience with Logic Express/composing at the piano

[composer]

I'm thinking of noodeling around with composing, this time at the piano.

First question - any experience with Logic Express? How well does it work as a composition tool? I know it has some kind of sheet music capture from midi, do you have to play to a metronome?

Otherwise, how about composition styles, sit at a desk or do you go to the piano, synth or whatever?

[stuck]

I don't use logic. I've thought about trying it out, I just love ableton sooooooooooooooooooooooo much.

I try to vary my compositional style to the task, and sometimes just to get out of a rut. Things I've tried:

1. writing on paper in crude shorthand, traditional notation, extended notation, graphs, flow charts, phonetic shorthand
2. writing in a piano roll, sequencer
3. writing on an instrument
4. writing entirely by walking around and 'working it out'
5. writing with another person
6. capturing performances and refining and building
7. setting up systems to automatically compose/manipulate/co-compose
8. improvisation, mostly jazz and jam band
9. writing by electronic manipulation of pre-existing material, like chopping up an old record and playing it/reordering it via one-shot samplers and loops.

Most of those techniques are genre based. I'll go into a genre and look around and see how other people do it, and then copy their techniques. The reason I started doing 4. was because I heard that Schoenberg and Elliot Smith did it. In any case, you're really just plucking something from the aether and trying to capture it. The distance between you and the capturing can really determine the qualities of the composition, more than anything else.

5. takes a lot of forms. Sometimes it's making a beat/chord progression and having a person like it and want to develop it into a song. Other times it's sitting at the piano/guitar and harmonizing someone's melody. Melody first is a really refined method, because melodic fragments can hold most of the information of the mood/feel/chords of a song.

2. is something I learned to make teh hawt afx beatz.

[proverbs6:13]

Don't use Logic for sheet music. It is terrible. It's really aimed at either recording or mixing and it's quite good at that.

<rant>If you want to use midi-in then be prepared to be frustrated. Like most programs it can't properly capture musical rhythm, particularly not any rubato, which means a lot of odd valued notes like double dotted 1/8ths when you meant 1/4. There are ways to limit this behaviour and eventually you'll get it working to a reasonable standard. But the sheet music is useless so you end up looking at a step sequencer and messing with the zoom level so you have some idea what the overall piece looks like. I could go on about how I spent two days fixing the dynamic markings on a midi file after importing it into Logic but I won't.</rant>

As a composition tool it really depends on what you are doing. I used it for composing a track with 16 instruments and the finished product was good. However, I found it hard to see the piece like you would with sheet music, which made the contrapuntal aspects difficult to write. In the end I used a piece of manuscript to write out those pieces and just inputted them into Logic. So I wouldn't want to use it for anything particularly complex like serial or contrapuntal composition.

You can play to a metronome where you select the minimum length of note that you will play, to avoid problems mentioned earlier. Otherwise you play a selected note length directly into a step sequencer, i.e. your keyboard determines the pitch and dynamic.
If I haven't put you off then feel free to ask any other questions as I'll be using Logic Pro for most of next week.

I compose on paper mostly. I do enjoy working on programs like Sibelius or Finale, as the sheet music is actually functional, but I find I spend a lot longer messing around on those programs than writing. The same happens at the piano, I'll sit down to work out a melody and end up spending a few hours playing crap. Then forget about the melody and go do something else. So sitting down with a piece of paper means you'll have at least something by the end of it, even if you do throw away most of the sketches.

[asperger]

I compose in Sibelius then do a straight midi dump into Sonar and then use programs I've written in CAL (Cakewalk (brain-dead-lisp) Application Language) to massage the midi data with mathematical forms to get into some approximation of musicality.

I'd play it into sonar but I'm the kind of person that has to sit down to chew gum and none of my ten thumbs is on speaking terms with any of the others.

If interested you can listen to the end results of this process here (http://www.zylaphon.com/ContinuousPerformanceParameters.html)

[asperger]

4. writing entirely by walking around and 'working it out'


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[stuck]

Yes that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then that then notate then...

While I appreciate the spirit of the meta-posturing, I actually despise transcribing things I've already done- words, melodies, notes- I hate transcribing.

I like working in the opposite direction quite a bit, going from a meta-score and working down to the specific. I do that with some regularity, at least in my mind.

[asperger]

While I appreciate the spirit of the meta-posturing, I actually despise transcribing things I've already done- words, melodies, notes- I hate transcribing.
All I can say is, lucky you, truly. I find that doing the things I like doing requires me to do a lot of things I dislike doing. Nothing comes easy for me.

[stuck]

All I can say is, lucky you, truly. I find that doing the things I like doing requires me to do a lot of things I dislike doing. Nothing comes easy for me.

I identify with the bolded part. All I really like doing is sitting back and listening to something I've created, to become gradually aware of all the stuff going on in it that I hadn't expressly intended. I wouldn't really say it's 'easy' or 'difficult', but more like 'time and energy consuming' to do anything else. We're not alone in this pain, lots of composers are a bit tormented.

[JamesGold]

here (http://www.zylaphon.com/ContinuousPerformanceParameters.html)

Wow, I... really liked this. Kept me on my toes; that's for sure. Half way through I literally jumped in my seat. Is there any more?

Wish I had the knowledge to understand what the hell you guys are talking about in this thread, but it's fun to read nonetheless.

[composer]

Sibelius is nice, but I'm comfortable with LilyPond, MusiTeX etc.

I can get wrapped up in my belly button when composing at the score, thinking that just working things out at the piano might be worth a try.