Hello all, first post here I think. I am pretty much a summer-only (northern hemisphere summer, that is) composer as I teach full-time during the academic year, a grueling schedule. I just thought I would get my completed works up on the new board here: all two of them! (three counting the strings-only version of my Op. 2, a symphony whose ending has given me no end of headaches over the past 4 years. But that will be for another post.
I began this Quartet as a student in July 1975 at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor under William Albright. As the end of the summer approached, I couldn't figure out how to end it, so I gave it a throwaway ending and shelved it. After graduating in 1977 I returned to my original major, physics, and stopped composing altogether after a year or two. I knew nothing of notation software until late 2019 when I discovered MuseScore and used it to resurrect my old score and try to fix some errors and work out the ending. I quickly realised that it didn't need an ending, at least not quite yet. Instead I added an intense development section, an ultimately tender recapitulation, and a searching coda, mainly for solo viola. I made a couple of changes after abandoning MuseScore in favor of Sibelius with NotePerformer, but I consider it finished at this point.
All that to say that if you heard this piece in the last couple of years on the old board, there is no need to re-listen, I don't believe I made any changes since then. The score and rendering are from mid-July of last year. They're on Google Drive, which in my experience is an awfully unreliable playback device. I recommend downloading the MP3 and playing it back on the player of your choice. Playing time is about 16 minutes.
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by the way, now that you've seen the light and moved to Dorico, I was just wondering whether you'd yet converted your quartet? If not, I'd be happy to send you my version which might possibly save you a little time.
Hi David, unfortunately I haven't, and I'm dreading that task. The problem in making a decent rendering under Dorico is going to be the tremolos, which with NP under Dorico don't quite work, as I found out when converting Sinfonia Solenne.
I did convert my Beethoven theme & variation with little difficulty - but that little piece doesn't call for any special techniques.
Thank you for the offer, but I don't see how it would help with the basic problem. I expect I'll have to write all the tremolos out note by note, as I did in Sinfonia Solenne, and right now I don't have the time. Classes start in less than 2 weeks, and I have lots of prepping to do between now and then.
NotePerformer tremolos sound pretty mechanical but it's true they work slightly differently in Dorico. I assume you experimented with adjusting tremolo speed for instance? I don't know what the specific issue is but it's perhaps something to discuss on the Dorico forum (if you didn't already). When I play through the quartet with NP, the tremolos sound pretty well as I'd expect with that library.
In the Sinfonia, I tried everything I could think of. Even writing out the tremolos doesn't completely eliminate the problem. The issue is a sort of "pulsating" effect, with a strong attack on each note even when the notes are legato, making a smooth tremolo line impossible. I'm pretty sure I posted about this before, either here or on GMG. But, I have not yet tried it in the SQ and I guess it could be a "collective" effect of the multiple "players" all playing tremolo (NP builds up sections from their individual synthesized sounds). When you say "pretty well as expected" I assume you're referring to the timbre? Nothing like what I described?
If so, I shall try it in the next couple of days when I get a moment to breathe (errands today, pre-semester meetings both tomorrow and Friday).
Perhaps I don't understand the problem, but virtual strings usually have a tremolo on board. All you need is one note for the duration and the tremolo is being taking care off, if you use the appropriate code. About NP, I never use it. It sucks. Editing by hand always sounds better.
Hi Rowy,
I'm not sure if there is some confusion here, but I don't understand your last three sentences. If it's unclear, NP = NotePerformer, Arne Wallander's AI-based sound engine. Native NP is synthesized sound, not sampled. The problem is that under Dorico, if a note to be played by a string section is notated to be played tremolo, what you get on playback is a tremolo with a strong attack on each note, so that a smooth, "legato" tremolo line is impossible. This does NOT happen with NP under Sibelius, so it is either Dorico alone that is causing this (doubtful as it would likely have been caught and fixed already) or some interaction between NP and Dorico (most likely imho) that shows up only when using native NP, and from what David said, perhaps only with string sections of multiple "players", not solo strings as in a string quartet.
That said, I doubt if I'm going to have time to tackle converting this score to Dorico before the semester starts in earnest and makes work on this impossible for a few months. I have meetings this morning and then every day next week, and then classes start on the 26th.
I just tried a tremolo in both Sibelius and Dorico and don't hear much difference tbh -- tremolos are horrible in NotePerformer whichever way you look at it as this articulation above all needs to be sampled. All NP seems to do is to repeat a standard articulation very fast which doesn't sound remotely like a real tremolo. So the best answer is almost certainly to write out the tremolos longhand when at least you can choose the appropriate note value and articulation. In Dorico that would be done on a hidden staff crated only for the purposes of playback. Two notes tremolos, which are virtually never sampled, are often best created this way in other libraries as well.
David, I'm surprised you're not noticing a difference between Sibelius and Dorico. Are you using solo strings or a string section? With a string section the difference is very noticeable, at least on my system. I don't have time now but will try to post or link to snippets of the same passage from Sinfonia Solenne rendered under the two notation apps when I get a chance.
Is there a special name for a hidden staff that duplicates an instrument's part but is used only for playback and is not shown in the printed score? In the Dorico Operation Manual, "hiding staves" appears to be referring to hiding empty staves, which is obviously not the same thing.
Writing out the tremolos is the best solution for Sinfonia Solenne I think, though it would be nice to have the printed score show them as tremolos. But for my SQ, I dread the task since there are a LOT of tremolo passages... unless, of course, it makes no difference for solo strings.
well, I guess you can judge for yourself. As virtually all your (quartet) tremolos are double-stopped, I created a very short sample with section violins in both programmes. They're not identical but but I can't see one being dramatically better than the other? Perhaps you disagree?
tremoilo test Dorico.mp3
tremolo test Sibelius.mp3
I don't notice any difference either, but neither sounds like NP solo strings to me. Are you sure you aren't using the apps' default sound libraries (HALion and Sibelius Sounds)? If it's NP, then maybe the problem is only with sections and doesn't happen with solo strings. That's an encouraging thought!
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