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Messages - Ole Baekgaard

1
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
No hear, no see, no go!

NoteWorthy Composer 2 Viewer Limited!

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to all of you - Thirty Niners and Freebies alike! Yours, Ole Baekgaard
2
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
Earlier this year, I communicated directly with NWC centre by email, as advised, and received a courteous enough recommendation to plan the coming season of rehearsal in my choir on the basis of the existing NWC Viewer capacities. I have therefore decided to shift to another supplier who is more sensitive to all segments of his market, including choir members and musicians who just want to use his product for rehearsal. Good bye to all who have taken the trouble to read this thread, and in particular to those of you who have considered the issue and taken the trouble to comment upon  it, pro or con. I admire your patience, not only with me, but with NWC too.

Yours departing Ole Baekgaard

P.S. My wife, who has more sense in her little finger than I have got in my 'noodle' (Amadeus), says not to be silly considering that I am quite happy with NWC otherwise. So now I am in a quandary!
3
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
Back from two weeks with Haydn's Missa Solemnis No. 13 in B and 55 other straining choristers, I am absolutely convinced: - We need an improved NWC Viewer (free repeat positioning, and free adjustment of tempo), and we need it soon!

Would someone close to NWC Inc. please try and worm out what are his/their intentions and let this forum know.

Yours absolutely, Ole Baekgaard
4
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
Musical people are so sympathetic, generous, and warm-hearted that usually they make poor politicians. This is obviously true also of the majority of the contributors to this thread who do their level best to help me overcome ”my” problems with the NWC Viewer, as if I were an old ninny which in fact I may be, but that is not the issue. Gentlemen (why are there no women around?), I suggest that our object should be to change the Viewer, not my ways! Rather than tell NWC Inc. that the complaints are not really serious and can easily be circumvented, why don't you, like good troopers, shoot in the same direction?!

I guess it is because you are people with more talent for music than for politics or soldiering, and thank God for that! Then never mind the d..... Viewer!

Now I better shut up, definitively! Yours ever, Ole
5
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
Thank you, Peter, for your comment (#53). I wish that a lot other people, particularly fellow choristers, would come out in support of the improvements requested.

Allow me just one brief additional argument re the use of the full or evaluation versions of NWC – then I shall really clam up!

It is hard to grasp for young people who have been raised with a computer mouse in their mouths (!?), and probably also for older people who have been able to take command of the computer technology, including the adepts of NWC, how confusing and alienating computers still are to the majority of lay people : Eyes flicker, minds go blank, all normal faculties defect, panic ensues, and sweat pours. It takes patient and kind instruction right from the very basics to make normal people use even quite simple computer functions. This is why the pure simplicity of the NWC Viewer is a distinct quality, one more reason why I don't like the Eval workaround, and also the reason why I have requested only the two absolutely vital improvements, viz. free return and adjustment of speed capabilities.

No more from here – have a nice day and be good! Ole
6
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
Att.: Lawrie Pardy
G'day to you too, Sir.
When end of March Bill Denholm introduced the idea of using the Evaluation version I turned it down perhaps a bit too categorically, partly because I had not discovered that NWC2 could export files in 1.75 format – and you very kindly put me right on that one straight away. However, in the next contributions  you and Bill seemed to agree that nevertheless the Viewer ought to be improved, and I liked that better. Yet I downloaded the Eval version just in case, tried it out - and got confirmed my original stand. Why?

First, I have to-day abt. 380 choir-practice-files, of which about 40% are active and another 40% are potentially for re-use. They are the outcome of hundreds of hours of learning by trial and error, especially the latter. Many have been revised over and over again, only to have some fellow chorister come over and say: - You know, that 'd' in measure 63 should have been an 'e'. In short, I am not going to convert the lot into anything. I dont' find it in myself.

Secondly, let me quote the first text that meets the eye when you open the Eval version: ”I understand that this product is provided for the sole purpose of evaluating its capabilities, and that any other use requires the purchase of a license. Buy it now / I accept / Quit!” I did in fact buy a license for myself, and I take it you would not have me break my contract with NWC Inc. – would you!

Thank you, anyway, for your concern.

Att.: David Palmquist
Salamu aleikum!
Our local choir currently counts 46 members, and for the next couple of weeks my wife and I join another group of similar numbers in a Folk High Scool to work with Haydn's Missa Solemnis No 13 using, i.a., NWC practice-files notated and adapted by me. So that is of course not anyway near the ”thousands of choristers” that roused you to mild irony.

Have you noted, however, that among the people who joined in this discussion there are four more who use NWC for chorus training? At a modest average of 50 members per choir that makes 250.

In  my country (Denmark) we have about 700 amateur choirs. When fishing around on the net, I easily catch 10 – 12 choirs that already use NWC for training purposes, and I'll bet you that we would soon double that number with a well-functioning Viewer. However, not to exaggerate I shall include only 10 and the same average: that's 500 - or a total of 750.

Denmark, however, is a very small country. Together our neighbouring countries, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany have several  thousand amateur choirs, and mind you: I need only an additional 26 choirs of 50 members to pass the 2000 mark. And I have not even crossed the Alps, or the North Sea, or the Channel, or the Atlantic!

So, even if I speak on behalf of but a tiny fraction of choristers in this world, I have really been understating my case – let me adjust and ask you to imagine tens of thousand choristers singing your praise!

Yours, Ole
7
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
Oh, I am sorry – too much logic, too little harumph! I see now: - It is the freebie that stings. Well, the logical – umphh, there I go again! - psychological solution would be to charge a price for an improved version of the viewer, say half the price of the full programme for a single license with rebate for multiple ones. Perhaps not the smartest of marketing strategies, but it might set the misgivings of the 39-buck-spenders at rest.

And please be nice about my choristers: – They sing very well, yet struggle to improve all the time. Moreover, in our choir we pay more than 100$ annually per member to cover conductor's fee and cost of note sheets etc., so comments on our money and mouths are misplaced. We did not and do not insist that the NWC viewer should be free, but would rather have an easy-to-handle, low-tech, truly  effective, and - all right - low-cost tool.

Still yours faithfully, Ole
8
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
Sir, I appreciate your use of the term ”workaround” because it indicates that you (1) recognize there is a problem; (2) consider your solution a temporary measure; (3) realise the importance of implementing a proper solution. For all this, I thank you heartily.

Having tested your workaround with an open mind and noted that the majority of our chorus members consider it rather a meager substitute for the real thing (and some of them do fumble around a lot, I am sorry to report), I have come to wonder what are the measures that you would give higher priority than the improvements to the viewer suggested.

If they are absolutely vital, why were they not solved in the recent update? If they are sophisticated refinement of details in an otherwise excellent programme like the present NWC2, they are bound to please fewer users than the thousands of choristers who would sing your praise in loud hosannas if you were to put your weight behind our modest request for making the viewer a useful tool.

With kind regards, Ole Baekgaard
9
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
Having seen the present thread on the limitations of the NWC Viewer flounder into ”bla,bla,bla”, I set out to analyse the course of the discussion.

Among those that I dare to term supportive to my proposals I count 5 voices. A group in the middle, which I term ”Neutral and generally helpful”, comprises 7 voices. Distinctly adversary to my modest proposals about the Viewer one voice stands out - at times passionately and even indignantly - eventually supported by a prominent member of the neutral group who perhaps only now shows his true colors.

I have counted four contributions definitely constructive and helpful, even if I do consider their proposals second to my own: (1) Free repeat, and (2) Adjustment of speed of replay in the NWC Viewer.

All of this is quite entertaining, but also a bit frustrating by the fact that at no stage the NWC Inc. has let its own voice been heard. Why not? Are you not people? Don't you have a language to explain your views and priorities so that we, your clients and customers, understand and concur?

In conclusion to my own engagement in this discussion, I would remind NWC that you do have my email-address for a feed-back to my request on the wish-list, but I believe there would be more economy in sending a message here to an audience that have produced more that 1700 readings.

Kind regards, Ole
11
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
So, that was that, the stir dies down and nothing changes. NWC-centre does not even comment. Rather odd, really, if ignoring customers is a general business policy.
Well, well, perhaps there is something out there that better meets my requirements. Methinks I'll start looking. To all who took an interest - thanks and kind regards,

Ole Baekgaard
12
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
A few weeks ago, I pointed out a problem concerning the NWC Viewer. Contrary to my expectations it became the topic of the month with 13 participants, 30 contributions, and close to a thousand readings so far. Thus encouraged, a week ago, I placed a proposal in the ”Wish List” for an improvement of the Viewer to include a free repeat and free adjustment of the replay speed and respectfully asked for a feed-back, but silence has reigned to this day!

I guess that we may be quite a few users who would like to know if NWC is going to do something about the Viewer.

Hopefully yours, Ole Baekgaard
13
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
Dear NWC – Would someone in a relevant and competent position, who has taken note of, and become inspired by, the urgent discussion in this thread, come forward and say: - Enough of the talking, folks! Don't worry, we are going to do it! We'll have an improved version of the Viewer ready for you in about four weeks!

That would earn you the admiration and undying gratitude of at least one of your friends and clients: Yours ever, Ole
14
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
Using the evaluation version as a viewer may be fine for 1.75 users. But I have put all my chips on the Beta 2 version and consequently would have to convert all my production into NWC-generated midi-files before it could be read by eval-users. That would have several negative effects on the final scores, confuse the majority of my friends in the choir, and be like marching two steps forward and three backwards. Besides, being so old that every minute counts I am not going to do it!

I'd rather hope that someone in the creative departments of the NWC community recognizes the good sense in supplying the few priority services required to make the Viewer useful. Is it really that complicated, I wonder!

Kind regards, Ole Baekgaard
15
General Discussion / Re: NWC Viewer limitation
I thank all who have read my note and offered their views on the issue. From some of the responses, I gather that a little clarification might help keep the discussion to the point: I bought my NWC 1.75 August 2005 and became NWC 2 Tester at the first opportunity. I have converted midi-files from various sources, or recorded from afresh, some 55 works in the repertoire of the choir of which I am a member, plus three full-blown masses (Dvorak, Puccini, and Haydn). The material has been produced for SATB in NWC-format and pdf-printerformat, with each voice accentuated, to cover the requirements of wife and myself, as well as the requirements of our fellow-choristers who also appeared to need a way of practising between our live sessions.

However, only 1/3 of our friends are skilled with a computer – the majority would not know what to to with the composer programme. They just need the 'NWC Composer 2 Viewer' with TWO additional features (1) free repeat positioning, (2) free adjustment of tempo. If the NWC-team could provide that, it would create no end of good-will for the programme, not only with us, I guess, but with choirs all over the world.

Personally, I think of the NWC as a tool not only for composers, but for everybody active in music. Moreover, it would be in the spirit of an open-source programme to place much required facilities at the disposal of both the labouring masses and of servants of the Higher Arts - don't you agree!

Kind regards, Ole Baekgaard
16
General Discussion / NWC Viewer limitation
It is a strange and severe limitation of the viewer that it is not possible to stop and resume playing at any point of one's own choosing. It leaves the chorister with the only choice of starting a particularly difficult passage right from the beginning of the track, and that is a torture, particularly if he/she is rehearsing a movement of, say, 200 bars and the passage in question is at bar 180. Could something be done, please!