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Messages - SEBC

2
General Discussion / Re: Finished Software?
This is one of my favourite topics! I have been using Nwc for 20 years as a composer, and my fingers quickly know how to achieve what needs to be done from the engraving standpoint. I love the workaround solutions that this community has devised! They are our many that I don’t use because of the time that it requires for me to build new neural pathways!

I do not want to take time to learn new software, because I would rather spend that time creating new music! I did have to use Sibelius for a publishing project, and it was a very frustrating and slow process that reinforced my appreciation of Noteworthy Composer.

I will say that Sibelius scores seem to be prettier, in terms of fonts, and the way the notes look on the page. Is there any way to change that? I figure the answer is no, or someone would have done so already.

It would also be cool if the program automatically told me what is not possible for an instrument to play! That would save time for me having to consult my instrumentation and orchestration textbooks. I do not know if other programs do that.

I do feel a little bit of an inferiority complex when I am around other academic composers, though. At this point, it is not enough for me to care or make a change of program.

I would welcome more discussion about composition techniques, rather than engraving, which other software music forums probably offer.

I dictated this text into my phone, and apparently I spoke in a passionate way that required a lot of exclamation marks.
3
General Discussion / Re: Merry Christmas 2023
Dear all,

I meant to send this weeks ago, but as you all know, Christmas is an incredibly busy time for church musicians, and composers! Best wishes for all in the coming year. I am always thankful for this community which is able to support my composition adventures.

I am hoping to finish my doctorate in composition in 2024! My research is finished, and my dissertation is partially complete. I need to balance that out with real world music making and conducting, but I would not have it any other way.

PS, I just had a look at the pricing of muse score, and was really shocked by the amount of money they want on a weekly basis!! They sent an email about 90% off, but it is still very expensive and I don’t want to have to pay every week for composition software!
5
General Discussion / Re: New PC, new setting, old soundfonts, new doubts
Aure, it's great to hear that you are still using NWC after all this time. I guess that is most of us here now! I don't have time, money, or inclination to switch to the other notation programs, but I am a very active composer. What do you use NWC for?
7
General Discussion / Re: NWC code
That's too bad. I'm Scottish and hate paying twice for something! But, I was getting ready to repurchase if necessary. Luckily I'm a digital hoarder, so had kept all the information I needed.

I hope that happy composing days are ahead for you now.
8
General Discussion / Re: Notes heard before play
Thank you, Warren. I have figured out that it actually has something to do with my use of Mike S.'s arpeggio markings, since when I removed them, the issue stopped.
11
General Discussion / Re: NWC code
I had to go back to my first installed CD 1.75 and reinstall then upgrade and upgrade and upgrade using info from saved emails about said upgrades. I don’t know if that helps you at all. It was complicated but I didn’t want to pay again.
12
General Discussion / Re: Bar
It’s a repeat sign. They occur in pairs. There will be one facing the opposite direction at the end of the section to be repeated. For this song I expect it near to the end or at the end, unless there is a little special ending of additional music to finish. 
14
General Discussion / No Title?
Hi all

I need to get more room on the first page, and am interested in having no title/author info at all so I can get more systems on that first page. Is this possible?

Thanks for your help.
15
General Discussion / Re: Page view
Quote from: hmmueller –
No, I do not think so.

There are actually 6 zoom levels (1/6 = full page is visible, 2/6 = about a third of the page, 3/6...6/6 = not useful except in very rare cases). Paging behaviour in 2/6 and higher is also strange as a PgDn/PgUp does not reset the position to the top/bottom of the newly opened page, but remains at the same relative location. But I can now live with it as follows:

"Going down enlarged":
  • Opening: Alt-F V + and immediately 5 up-arrows
  • Going down: down-arrow
  • Next page: PgDn and then immediately 5 up-arrows
"Going up enlarged":
  • Going up: up-arrow
  • Previous page: PgUp and then immediately 5 down-arrows

After rehearsing this like a new piano piece a few times, you do it automatically and end up about where you want  :)

H.M.


I often work with performers on compositions still in process. The inability of NWC page view to easily accommodate working this way has always been frustrating. Frantically trying to find my place in the music after a page turn  is not efficient or professional!  I usually have to create a draft pdf instead and have the program open for making edits.
16
General Discussion / Re: publication on the WWW
I occasionally create music videos in the Windows 10 video app on my computer. It requires still photos or a video to which I either add an mp3 file created from NWC (or most often a live performance of a score created with NWC). When uploaded to YouTube, it provides a clickable link to share with others. This may not be what you are looking for, but it is one way to share the composition but not the notation. It came in very handy during the pandemic!
17
General Discussion / Re: Thinking Through Flow
Thanks, Lawrie! I’ll give this a thorough read tomorrow when MY brain is fresh!

I suspect that the instructions would likely change for a printed score to be performed by live musicians? That’s the case for me but I also like to make listening tracks, too.
18
General Discussion / Thinking Through Flow
Hello everyone

I'm working on a new instrumental arrangement and considering my options for flow. How you  would choose to lay it out with flow instructions?

Sax solo chorus
Sax and piano chorus
Sax and piano verse
Piano chorus
Sax and piano verse
Sax and piano chorus
Sax solo chorus last phrase

Thanks for your ideas!
19
General Discussion / Bagpipes?
Good morning

 I have been checking out bagpipes sounds. If anyone has advice on writing for bagpipes, it is welcome. There is not too much information in the forum.
21
General Discussion / Re: Merry Christma
Merry Christmas to all, and thank you to those who have helped me over the years with my NWC questions and conundrums. I just learned today how to add sleighbell MIDI to a score, and am thankful for the forum (although I often have trouble locating the answer that I need due to the immense amount of information that it contains  :)) )

It has been a very busy musical Christmas season for me, with multiple performances each week since the beginning of Advent (last week of November). I am blessed to have had many of my compositions in use this season. Thank you to those who are keeping NWC user-friendly and able to accommodate most of my needs.

I hope you are well, enjoying the season, and looking forward to 2023!

Edited to add: I know many of you are all specialists in your own areas, and I would like more time to learn from your experience!



22
General Discussion / Re: flow question re: choruses, repeats, endings question
Thank you so much. I do need the score to look as I sent, so have made the invisible changes, which did fix the flow issues.

One thing that you omitted was a hidden master repeat at the end of Special ending 2.

I am going to screen record the playback for the choristers, so they can practice with a video, so I won't be able to use the print preview, so those lyrics in ending 2 and 3 and stuck at the lower level.
24
General Discussion / flow question re: choruses, repeats, endings question
Hello all

I am trying to achieve correct flow direction in the following case:

Chorus has three iterations.
I use a segno at the beginning and master repeat with ending 1, ending 2 has a DS al coda but it takes me back to chorus 1 instead of 3. How do I fix that? Ending two just has a double bar line.

26
General Discussion / Re: Back up question amid heartbreak
Thank you Bill and Harald for sharing your work flow process. I need to rethink how I have been doing things so that I never ever face the situation of potentially losing so much work through carelessness.

Harald, I tried to download the print configuration object, but was told "attachment not found". I had missed your post on it earlier this year. I'm in the middle of a PhD so don't get to read the forum posts as often as I would like.
27
General Discussion / Re: Back up question amid heartbreak
Hello composer comrades

Thank you for engaging with me on this topic. It was indeed an OUCH, caused by rushing to finish the parts before a rehearsal.

I am happy to report that a less panicked search of the back up did find the full score, and it has been re-saved to the appropriate folder. I would like to give thanks to the developer who had the idea of having a back up folder. I have not often had to use it in my 20 years of NWC use, but when I do, it is a really appreciated feature!!!!!! (That reminds me that I should go looking for a different missing score one more time...)

Now, as to the work flow issue, I have tried just using one file, but I find that when I create parts, I often want to make them a little bigger than what I am happy to work with as the conductor and/or accompanist. I like less pages to turn. This means that there is a lot of fiddling back and forth if I just work from the full score and hide staves. Also, making the endings align well isn't always the same for each part.

How do you handle those items (font size changes and spacer inserts for endings)?
28
General Discussion / Back up question amid heartbreak
Where might back up files be?

Back in May, I moved my Noteworthy Composer files onto an external drive to save room on my computer which was running slowly. I have a lot of MP3s and videos along with my  compositions. It appears that the backup folder is no longer syncing. I made a terrible mistake today and finished a score Then started to create the parts, and I mistakenly saved the part under the full score name, losing the full score in the process. I was hoping there might be a back up  version but it looks like the back up folder stopped getting back ups in May. I am really hoping that there might be some other folder that I don’t know about that might have the finished score in it.
29
General Discussion / Re: Fixing Flow
Thanks Lawrie, Bart, and David for weighing in on this. Lawrie's solution has fixed the issue. Where I had ending 2 and 3, he changed to ending 2.

Of course, musician clarity is HUGELY important. I will be conducting so can give instructions, but I don't want to break any norms, either. I have created a version where verse 1 stands alone and the repeats and endings apply to verse 2 and 3. I think this will be more clear for the singers. It also has the nice bonus of enabling me to do something a little different on verse 1 with the accompaniment.

I appreciate the help provided here, and a chance to work out the issues both musically and technologically.
31
General Discussion / Re: Fixing Flow
Hi Bart

I'm not seeing any lyric line in the attached file.

What I have is a piece with: introduction, first verse, second verse, chorus with one ending, third verse, chorus with new ending (key change), verse four, chorus, ending.
The verses are the same notation, the choruses are the same except for the endings (two measures are different). It is all good until the end of verse 3. I can't get it to jump to the new ending, and then into the key change on verse four and onward. Using special endings doesn't work.

That might not be any clearer, but thanks for trying to help.
32
General Discussion / Re: Fixing Flow
Thanks Lawrie,

Not quite there yet. I need vs 2 and 3 to repeat, and chorus 2 and 3 have different endings. See attached score with written descriptions.
33
General Discussion / Fixing Flow
Good morning

I can't get the last section to play. It jumps back to the first repeat sign. What should I insert to fixt this? NWC flow always messes me up!

Code: (nwc) [Select · Download]
!NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single)
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0
|Bar|Style:MasterRepeatOpen
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0
|Bar|Style:Double
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0
|Ending|Endings:1
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0
|Bar|Style:MasterRepeatClose
|Ending|Endings:2,3
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0
|Bar|Style:MasterRepeatClose
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:1
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:1
!NoteWorthyComposerClip-End
35
General Discussion / Recent experience with Sibelius
Hi all
Hope the Spring is being kind to you in your part of the world.

I was recently invited to contribute to a publication of musical settings of the Psalms, but the editor asked for Finale or Sibelius scores, even though I had used NWC to create my score. I downloaded a trial version of Sibelius because I have a friend composer who has Sibelius, and thought she could help me with any issues that I was likely to encounter. It was the right decision because we ended up spending lots of time together and through email trying to get the score ready. I used the xml converter online to get a file that could be imported into Sibelius, but there were a lot of fixes needed as a result.

If you have watched this funny, but true (and therefore not funny in my context) critique of Sibelius https://youtu.be/dKx1wnXClcI
you will understand why I was screaming in frustration at times at the difficulty of doing what should have been very easy tasks, like assigning tempo markings.

I thought I might be tempted to switch, but I am not. The finished score does look a little nicer than the NWC score, but not enough for me to want to change and use a very non-intuitive engraving program that took massive amounts of time to figure out.

Bill Ashworth commented about needing something different than NWC for the appearance of his works, and I thought I would just weigh in here with my fresh and stressful experience. Here is that former thread https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=10132.msg72865#msg72865
37
General Discussion / Re: Formatting a Song With Verses, Chorus, Bridge, etc.
I am having a similar issue. I am fine until the To Coda section (It doesn't go to the Coda. ) I don't have any special endings or repeat signs. My layout is like this:

Code: (nwc) [Select · Download]
!NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single)
|User|CueHeads.ms|Pos:-3|Class:StaffSig
|Clef|Type:Treble
|Key|Signature:F#,C#|Tonic:D
|TimeSig|Signature:4/4
|Text|Text:"INTRO"|Font:StaffItalic|Pos:6
|Rest|Dur:Whole
|Bar|Style:Double
|Flow|Style:Segno|Pos:7|Wide:Y
|Text|Text:"SECTION 1"|Font:StaffItalic|Pos:6
|Rest|Dur:Whole
|Bar
|Flow|Style:ToCoda|Pos:8|Wide:Y
|Rest|Dur:Whole
|Bar|Style:Double
|Text|Text:"SECTION 2"|Font:StaffItalic|Pos:6
|Rest|Dur:Whole
|Flow|Style:DSalCoda|Pos:8|Wide:Y
|Bar
|Flow|Style:Coda|Pos:7|Wide:Y
|Rest|Dur:Whole
!NoteWorthyComposerClip-End

Thanks!
38
User Tools / Re: Change Clef
Hi Opagust

I have been trying out your change clef tool, but I am having difficulty with getting the octave up command to work. If I try, it immediately gives me an error message.
39
General Discussion / Re: User tool organization
Thank you, Lawrie, for your reply. I think I get the difference now between plug in and object, so thanks for that simple clarification.

While I think of it, there is an object in my list that I could probably delete, but I will check here first: "newObject.test". Also under the list that is generated when I click "Manage objects" is on by the name of "p" at the very top. It says it was used once but is not installed. So I have no idea what that is.

Re: how things ended up in the folders that I have, I do recall having some issues with downloading objects/plug ins from the website and losing them, or not knowing where I had downloaded them to, or where they were supposed to go...so that might account for the CopyPaste plug in ending up in the automatic group.

I have successfully created an "Often Used" group, so thanks for that advice!



40
General Discussion / User tool organization
Hello everyone, hope you are all well.

I have questions about the "Group" designations under user tools. First, I would like to express appreciation to the hardworking and innovative NWC users who have thought of ways to make this program fit a lot of needs that the original software does not. Thank you! You have saved me from having to switch to one of the other programs. I would rather write music than learn a computer program.

Questions remain, however. It might become very clear that I have no background understanding or knowledge of how computers and software and coding work. (I don't want to know how the sausage is made, I just want to enjoy the finished product. )

First of all, there are certain tools that I use frequently, such as Parts (adp), which is listed under .starter tools.

I use these .Plugins regularly: arpeggio and ottavamatic.

Under .Automatic, I use CopyPasteMeasures.og

I have a lot of others that I don't use, probably because I'm not sure what they do, and I have my own workflow. Also, I rarely remember which group the ones I do use are in, so I find myself hunting on a regular basis, except for the ones that I can just press "J" and pull up the Object box. (and I don't really get the difference between an object and a plug in, so maybe that has nothing to do with the group question which I will now pose).

Could I combine all the ones that I do use frequently into one group? Why or why not? Could I dump all of the others into another group? Why do I need 6 different groups?
43
General Discussion / Re: Favourite/preferred Soundfont(s)
So many great questions. When you say editor, do you mean NWC 2 where I do my composing?

Dynamics are the same as the piano.
My editor uses the Windows computer standard sound font. It sounds fine in the editor. Trombone is its own channel. The muting does not  happen on playback in the NCW Viewer as well. I’m not sure how to check what sound font the Viewer is using. The difference appears constant with the three fonts I have loaded (unison 2 , FluidR3, and Titanic)
44
General Discussion / Re: Favourite/preferred Soundfont(s)
I often use Unison2. I can’t remember why I chose it, but I did listen to several before making the choice.

I have been having an issue with the trombone though. I’m currently composing for trombone and piano. When I use the “play to” feature in NWC2 viewer to create an MP3, the trombone is quite a bit softer than the piano. I have to reduce the piano channel volume to around 60 to balance it out. That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m using Cool Soft VirtualMidiSynth 2.9.3.

Any ideas what the issue is?
45
General Discussion / Re: Force a Page Break?
Thanks for your help. You didn’t mention it but this only works on the top staff, for future reference.

I have been using the program for 20 years and am still learning new procedures!
46
General Discussion / Force a Page Break?
Hello everyone

I am looking at a part score, and seeing that it would be really nice for the performers if I put page two after a couple of rest bars. The problem is that there is a line of music after the rests on page 1. Any tips to achieve a page break?
47
General Discussion / Re: "Scoring Notes" article on the history of notation programs
It is so interesting to see the NWC and Sibelius scores side by side. Thank you, William and Harald, for making that possible! I haven't had a chance to do a comparison in this way before. I see what you are saying about the readability of the Sibelius score. The notes seem a little chubbier to me, and is the DPI higher for the Sibelius output? It looks crisper, and the background looks whiter on my screen.

Edit to add: William, I really appreciate when you tell us about your experiences! It is something that I have considered, but I just don't have the time right now with my PhD studies to learn a new program. I am always holding out hope that some user adjustments might solve the problems with NWC!

Second edit: Thanks for sharing that article, too, on the history of music notation. It looks like a good read.
48
General Discussion / Re: 2022 starts
As usual, I'm late to the party! Wishing you all a musical and safe 2022! My teaching/doctoral studies are starting up online again instead of in person, our gyms, restaurants, and schools are currently closed, I've just suspended congregational singing in my church, and ordered a case of N95 masks for myself...it's a rough start, but there is hopefully some light at the end of the tunnel for us all!
49
General Discussion / Re: Import troubles
I usually just let the Import Wizard do its thing when importing MIDI because I don't know what the alternate approach would be.  Are there some "best practices" that I should think about next time?
50
General Discussion / Re: Season's greetings, merry Christmas, all the best!
Quote from: hmmueller –

This is the second year we had to cancel our choir's advent concert - we had rehearsed a longer composition "Weihnacht" I had written - with NWC, of course - which would have been nice to sing and, hopefully, listen to. So, next try next year!

I'm sorry to hear that, Harald. It is so disappointing for composers, choral directors, and choir members how this pandemic keeps rearing its ugly, non-singing head! I composed and presented lots of solo music instead this past Advent season, but can't wait till we can sing in ensembles once more. I did a graduate composition course that focused on choral music last year...of course, I haven't been able to hear any of the pieces I produced sung yet!