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Topic: Conflicting Objectives of NWC (Read 5766 times) previous topic - next topic

Conflicting Objectives of NWC

There is a conflict of purpose inherent in NWC.

It will produce very attractive scores and it offers aural playback, but the playback requirement overrules elegant part production.

There is a lack of available options for producing fully articulated instrumental parts. Trills and other ornaments have to be fudged, for example.

The most serious I have yet discovered is losing the bar count when introducing extended tacit bars.

Better options should be provided for Titling, and a short title should be printed as a Header on subsequent pages. Not all of us use American foolscap and there should be a page size option.

Overall there is a need for two distinct versions. One for part production and a second for MIDI playback

Best regards

Leonard Rosten

Re: Conflicting Objectives of NWC

Reply #1 –
Leonard has addressed some good key issues here. Admittedly, they are ones that we've covered before, and to be frank (and possibly unfair) I'm a little disappointed that they haven't hey been addressed. But read on:

<<<There is a conflict of purpose inherent in NWC.>>>

I believe that NWC was created to address that exact issue. I also believe that it hasn't got there yet, for the same reasons you give below.

<<<It will produce very attractive scores and it offers aural playback, but the playback requirement overrules elegant part production.>>>

This is true for the embellishments that we ALL keep harping on about, but as Jan and Gordon point out, it is brilliant as long as we keep it simple.

I hope fervently that Eric is addressing the "twiddles" problem (see below), as I know there are a lot of us out here that want to be able to score twiddles easily, AND have them play back accurately. (All in all, a big ask that I imagine - not sure - that only expensive things like Cubase pro can deal with at the moment).

<<<There is a lack of available options for producing fully articulated instrumental parts. Trills and other ornaments have to be fudged, for example. The most serious I have yet discovered is losing the bar count when introducing extended tacit bars.>>>

Can you detail this (I _think_ I know what you mean) and send it to Eric. Sounds like an easy one to fix.

Fudging of trills can also be improved, printwise, by having an extra stave which implements the sound of the trills, but doesn't print out. I know, this doesn't always work.

<<<Better options should be provided for Titling, and a short title should be printed as a Header on subsequent pages. >>>

Or footer.

<<<Not all of us use American foolscap and there should be a page size option. >>>

Hmm. I thought it took page size off the printer defaults.

<<<Overall there is a need for two distinct versions. One for part production and a second for MIDI playback >>>

No no no no no no please no! We are so close here to a REALLY good integrated product. We all just need Eric to sleep less and program more! :-)

Regards,

Andrew

Re: Conflicting Objectives of NWC

Reply #2 –
I seem to have a foot in each camp. I, too, am not a musician. I can read a score at a piano, but not in "real time". However, the stuff I have been trying to enter is sometimes rife with trills, arppegios and mordents, and sometimes symbols that I can't identify! It also may contain polyphonic voices in the piano scores, some of which can be delt with by odd uses of rests (see my question and associated postings, below--I forget the subject), but others, such as "double-stem" notes, often of differing values, can only be entered by splitting the piano score into three, four, and sometimes more staffs. For listening, this is okay, although a bit harder for me to follow. If I get to printing these out, though, it is not good at all.

So: I would like to be able to watch the score I cribed from go by as I listen. I guess I'm asking for more notation support, but a split isn't obviously the answer for me.

Cyril N. Alberga

Re: Conflicting Objectives of NWC

Reply #3 –
No conflict exists as far as I am concerned. I am not a musician, nor a composer, I can´t play any instrument, I can´t read a score in realtime and play any instrument from it. Maybe you wonder why I use the program at all? I´ll tell you. I use Noteworthy because it is the only possible way for me to get in personal contact with music. It is very easy to use, there is no stress as I don´t have to record the music via a sequenser and get a sloppy result in the score - like Music-Time or Cakewalk. I can get an excellent output on an ordinary laserprinter if I need it. Let me give you an example: A friend of mine got married this midsummer. I wanted to give her something special as a weding gift. I found a march by Schumann, and old score. I typed it in to NWC and listened. The piece was beatiful, and perfect to use as a weddingmarch. I shortened it, changed the tempo and corrected an obvious typo from the original score and printed it. I gave it to the girl a week before the wedding and the organist in the church could play the piece from the score I had produced. And the best of all - it sounded as I had thought it would when I sat in front of the computer. A program that can do such marvellous things, I wouldn´t have it split in two different programs.

Please excuse me if I have been at bit verbose in this comment, but NWC is a matter of the heart for me as it has openend a hitherto closed world for me...

Jan Hjelm

Re: Conflicting Objectives of NWC

Reply #4 –
I must vote with Jan. I have no musical talent; only an abiding love of music. I find old songbooks and notate them into NWC. I'm working through a treasury of Stephen Foster now. When a song's all done, I assign the tempo and voices I want and play them for the enjoyment of me and my wife. This enables us to hear old songs we would never again have the opportunity to listen to. I have tried MusicTime Deluxe, Cakewalk, Finale, and Midi Workshop, and for my purposes, NWC is perfect!Gordon

Re: Conflicting Objectives of NWC

Reply #5 –
I agree with some of the points mentioned in the discussion, but unfortunately I think Andrew is right about what you want is a much more expensive program like for example Cubase. I am a musicteacher and I use NWC as a complement to a sequenser like Cakewalk. I record in realtime and then import the music and the VERY basic notation to NMC via midi and fix it up as good as NWC is capable of. Of course there are things like thrills and mordent and other stuff that I would like NWC to handle better, but Eric must know by now what the users are wishing for. All in all I think NWC is OK. Keep the discsuusion going since I think it´s good for all of us to hear different aspects on different problems. Regards Christian

Re: Conflicting Objectives of NWC

Reply #6 –
I think we have forgotten something here. The difference between $50 and $1500. I know what I would prefer, and it's on my computer now, doing a perfect job.

Re: Conflicting Objectives of NWC

Reply #7 –
This is going to be a teaching tool "toy" especially for my girls.

They will write stuff and produce scores and we will play it

We will use the transposition element to produce Bflat accompaniments

The $700 Finale packages are more capable but too complicated for
educational use at this (middle school) level.

Still we need to see some basic embellishments, esp. crescendos,
and the other markings the girls are seeing (in Suzuki Piano).

Little by little we'll get there. I evaluated this package a year
and a half ago and it wasn't good enough...today it's far
advanced and I bought it! I am looking forward to its
development.