Score Preparation

[pete whitfield]

It's not composing, it's not recording, it's not even performing. It's a thing in between!

Most of my work involves arranging and recording strings. But some orchestration and score preparation comes my way too. It's an enormously satisfying part of the music making business, not least when I
get to attend and help out at the orchestral sessions which have taken
me to studios all over Europe.

I had a go at a YouTube vid about score prep a long while back, and it was, frankly, naff. So here is my updated version.

My biggest challenge (apart from trying my hardest to make the subject interesting!) is that the typical video dimensions on the web are too small for screen shots of sequencing and notation - things that
normally fill a screen. Looking forward to something that resolves
that!

This video shows my approach and, of course, it's not the only way to crack the nut!

[Sylvester Wager]

Really interesting presentation. But I suddenly feel old... I've never paid much attention to raw MIDI data. peace

[Gary Randall]

I've been putting off converting some of my recorded stuff to notation for ages. This will be a great help.

[Bob Morabito]

GREAT job Pete:)

Bob Morabito

[pete whitfield]

Thanks for checking it out Chris! Pretty well all the composers I've done score prep / arrangements / orchestration for work like this. There must be others that do it differently but this works for me! I know it's terribly oversimplified but I tried not to waffle too much! There was a great Monty Python sketch - How To Do it!

[Chris Alpiar]

This is totally how I work but yea I think this is a great explanation of the concepts regardless of going from live sounding sequence > live performance or score to making samples sound live. Great job Pete!

[pete whitfield]

Ta for comment Ray. Yes, indeed, going t'other way is a more common challenge, but I'd say it's worth considering that the language of notation is very different from the language of music (as we hear it), unfortunately!