[Denemo-devel] A big "hello" to the list.

[N. Gey]

Hello Denemolist,

I'm still in search for my notation-editor of choice. Denemo is my 
favourite programm, but It lacks some things.  Since I read this list 
for quite a while and have made some trivial postings I want to 
participate more in testing and exploring Denemo.

A few words about my person and who I am and for what I want to use 
Denemo. My Name is Nils Gey (as in "Guy"), I am living in Cologne, 
Germany  and I study music @ "Hochschule für Musik Köln" (University of 
Music). When I'm done I will be a musician but also capable of teaching 
music in schools at a high level.

I'm mainly a singer (classical) and piano player but I like composing 
more. For example for my band "Wargsang" (http://www.wargsang.de only in 
German). We play on bagpipes and this stuff but making fast and 
progressive music for the heart and the brain.
Little example (produced in linux/ardour)

http://www.wargsang.de/media/mp3/lmmdh/%5B2008%5DWargsang.de_-_Alles_nai_macht_der_Mai_complete.mp3

Additionally I want to compose soundtracks for video games. Since I am a 
classical musician I work and think in western staff notation. I don't 
like piano-rolls and tracker so I need other programms than rosegarden 
or all these windows programms like cubase because they are lacking a 
good way of dealing with staff notation (rosegarden is a bad excuse for 
staff notation)

My main tasks are:

1)Composing full scores as well as making quick notes for various real 
ensembles and in school.

For that I need a programm which is capable of letting me easily type 
notes, edit and rearrange them like a texteditor or open office writes 
does with text (but not WYSIWYG). I know many people who compose and 
write notes on papersheets until the piece is "done" and then simply 
want a nice printout. So they just need to retype their piece on their 
computer. I think for those people is Finale and other WYSIWYG 
programms. Personally I think these programms are still for newbie in 
computerterms.

I write faster on a pc-keyboard than with my hand I write notes faster 
on my pc, too. So I don't wan't this paper-step for composing and 
arranging but I need a way of typing fast from my head to screen without 
a midikeyboard and have control over what I've done. Deleting, 
Copy&Paste, marking, moving and shifting single or group of notes and so 
on.

For that I only need simple playback and it doesn't matter how the notes 
look on my screen. When It comes to printout there is not much to say. I 
like lilypond and like Denemo's philosophy mainly to generate lilypond 
output instead of inventing the wheel anew.

Also my musicians want to get a playback file, for hearing. So its great 
Denemo is avaible for all three main OS.

2)Composing for video games or any other medium where the computer plays 
the instruments.

For me its the same as composing for humans but I need some sampler wich 
plays. Since thats already done in Linux its good and no need to talk 
about that here.  But I'm using the same "oldschool" method of 
composing, with staff notation and without much use of midihardware, to 
compose soundtracks

Perfect for this would be a DAW (like Ardour, Logic...) which is capable 
of recording and editing audio (like they all do) and displaying and 
editing midi in staff notation like Denemo does. Just not a piano roll 
but a 5-line systems "per track" where you can import midi or just write 
with your pc-keyboard or midikeyboard.
But there is not one(!) programm in the world which is capable of doing 
that.
So in windowsworld you are  done and have to live with it or make things 
like rendering all your miditracks to audio and synchronise them in your 
DAW. Luckily there is some thing like JACK transport in Linux.


So, thats me. I want to try to get away from my windows/wine 
"noteworthycomposer" now and do my regular work in denemo, so that I can 
tell you what would be cool to have or to speed up the 
composing-process. I will write a second Mail soon after this one where 
I want to ask and comment a few things about denemo.

Greetings,

Nils