Perhaps I should come to the Forum more often - I learned of Tina's passing in the Newsgroup with great sadness. I now post here what I said then in response to Richard's announcement, in order to add a little to the tributes that others have already posted here.
Perhaps however the greatest tribute any of us can make to Tina is to listen to her work and in her own word "Enjoy".
***************************************************** Tina, gone from us? Richard, I can scarcely bring myself to believe your words.
Her ability to produce high quality scores was first class A* would have been too low a grade for her. It was not just the ability to get the notes onto e-paper but her surpassing ability to then turn those notes into music for which she well earned her penname - Tinability.
Her work on Beethoven, that she succeeded with the Planets and Rachmaninoff is great evidence of this. Perhaps only one thing stretched her too far, and having seen her work here I can understand it but it was not so much a limitation on her part but the limitations of midi and NWC that held back her work on The Rite of Spring!
And then, who can forget the occasions when someone posted a request for something and Tina would respond: "You mean [something like] this?" And then her work on the mpc manual, her use of softfonts, her appreciation of the new features introduced in NWC2 - GlobalMod! and the like - what a debt we owe to her.
How hard her increasingly failing sight must have been for her, but how valiantly in spite of this she pressed on. I am so sorry to hear of her passing. And that we knew nothing of it for a year. God grant comfort to John. And Richard, thank you for looking to include more of her work in the Scriptorium.
Stuart ***************************************************** PS Richard has put a copy of Tina's website, Keyboard Creations http://nwc-scriptorium.org/kc_index.html, into the Scriptorium for us.
Oh dear! Such discussion over such a for some obvious bug but for others a delightful feature of NWC which allows you to do what you really want to do....I am not convinced by the argument from the way we write things down. Any self respecting sackbut player would understand the attached, even without the accidentals. It was created in 1.75c, and looks slightly better (but confusing) in 2.25.
I agree that the change is an improvement, for the old behaviour did give rise to some errors in notation, but if the first note in the chord is say a Bb, by reason of the key signature, then when a Bnat is added to it, the Bb should not be changed into a Bnat simply to agree with the newly entered note. NWC should show both a flat and a natural against the note. The conflict may be intentional as in the attached.
So if further work is to be done in this area, will you consider this point, Eric?
David P notified the newsgroup participants of the existence of this review. A number of reposnses have been made, and for the benefit of any one else who may wish to write to the reviewers suggested we place a copy of what we have said here. I am not sure that I add anything that has not already been said, but if it helps anyone to frame their own reply in an effort to have the review corrected, here is what I wrote.
Please, don't use any of it word for word, if any at all, or we won't be taken seriously but if anyone wants to use the points in it again in their own words, please do so. I hope I didn't get anything wrong (apart from spelling and as I see now the odd grammatical slip), and I have probably also missed some important points as well!
Vive le roi! ie NWC.
Stuart Moffatt Appendix:
Gentlemen
Your review of the Noteworthy Composer (NWC) software has been brought to my attention.
It is important, if your reviews are to be respected and taken seriously, that they should in all respects be accurate and reliable. I am sure that you would agree with this. Your reputation as a reviewer depends upon this.
I have been a user of the NWC products for over ten years, as well as others such as come from Cakewalk, Roland, Myriad as well as a number of wav to midi converters, mp3 and wav producers and a variety of synthesisers using soft fonts etc. I am sorry to say that, whilst there are limitations in NWC, I think your review is inaccurate in a number of points.
As matters of fact:
1 Your final statement says 'for half the price' but the products to which you refer cost more than twice the price of NWC if the information on the pages to which you link are correct.
2 On the summary page a you say that NWC is not supported under NT and Vista. I have happily used NWC on more than one NT configuration without any limitation in its functionality. I have not yet set up Vista, but am aware that others users of NWC are moving to Vista. The problems they have faced related to lack of drivers for sounds cards etc, not with NWC itself. Did you actually try to run NWC on either of these systems? As a matter of subjectivity the fact that NWC does not run on Mac OS is one very significant reason why I have not switched to using an Apple, preferring to put up with the MS system for the benefit of being able to use NWC.
b patches and updates are all available for download from the NWC site - indeed the software will offer to check for updates from time to time.
c it is possible to use the computer keyboard to directly enter notes (and chords) of any value and pitch with or without accidentals, rests at any location and of any value, and bar lines. The locations, values etc may be modified by simple keyboard shortcuts eg + to double the lenght of a note, or to modify stem direction. This is a very fast way to transcribe and write music. Play back as you type is optional. Indeed all things may be done using the computer keyboard, though it is necessary for somethings to use the menus or properties dialogues for the selected item.
3 It surprises me that direct input from a midi keyboard did not work for you. That suggests that you did not set up your midi inputs correctly - I appreciate the problem, how often have I switched from one music scoring programme to another and forgotten that the limitations of midi require me to set up the other to receive midi input from the appropriate active port.
4 Bar lines do not need to be entered as you go, and you correctly say NWC does not prevent you from entering as many notes as you want into a single bar. I see this as no problem. Indeed it irritates me that some programmes prevent me from putting 5 crotchets into a bar when the time signature is 4/4. I often do not want to put time signatures in as I go- it interrupts the creative flow! - I can come back and deal with that afterwards. If when you have finished notating, and you have not changed the time signature then you may ask NWC to audit the bar lines and it will insert them for you appropriately. This will also bring to light those points where you have failed, eg to put four crotchtes in you 4/4 bars! Alternatively a simple key stroke will add them wherever you require them.
5 The audit facility extends to accidentals, note stems and enharmonic spelling. The force accidentals and audit accidental options are exceedingly useful when after entering your music you wish to enter key signatures. Force accidentals will mark all notes as they are allowing you to enter appropriate key signatures. Auditing accidental will then remove all suprflouous accidentals from the score.
6 The absence of a mixer does not hinder balance instruments. NWC responds to dynamic entries and adjusts dynamics appropriately in response to cresc. dim marks. It is also possible to independently adjust the volume and velocity of each staff and if required each note on any staff. .
7 For help and support there are active public and private forums (one hosted by NWC another at Yahoo) and a private newsgroup hosted by NWC for registered users. Those who participate in these are always willing to help others who pose questions. The moderator is also active in the newsgroup. I have always found the internal help system to be adequate. Help is available from the menu, also from dialogues (the help button is context sensitive), and context sensitive pop up help is available on F1.
8 You did not mention layering of staves which allows users to superimpose one or more staves on another. This is ideal for choral part work, and other instances in orchestral music where first and second will share one staff.
9 A variety of additional fonts are available to provide items eg mordents, appregiation marks etc which are not available in the standard font.
Other subjective issues:
For ease of use, I have found nothing that comes close to NWC for the ease of input of music. If there were a system that could take input directly in real time from my midi keyboard and accurately determine that I meant a crotchet or quaver, distinguishing between a pentuplet run and two crotchets followed by a triplet, recognising that I have slowed down (for that difficult bit) - even though I have not changed the tick speed - and still notate a crotchet as a crotchet and not as a crotchet + a few hemidemisemiquavers, that would automatically enter the change of tempo in a tempo staff at each beat, then I would consider using it before NWC for data entry! There are other systems that I may use for specialist items, eg voice reproduction, mixing of midi input with audio input, but the source file would always, almost without exception, be an NWC file.
The lack of a mixer, drum tabulation, import from or export to wav or mp3 has never been a problem for me. NWC2 which is available to beta testers has provided full orchestral percussion notation. It also contains wonderful find and replace, merge staff etc features.
I trust that you will see that I am trying to be fair. There are limitations in NWC, as a user I am aware of them, but they do not get in the way of what it is a music notation package. I shall be grateful if you will reconsider the conclusions in your review and correct the inaccuracies in the report.
