Rosemary Brown and her music

[DIOGENES66]

This website has 28 minutes of the telepathically received piano music by
Rosemary Brown from a 1970 Phillips LP. Mrs. Brown's autobiography
"Unfinished Symphonies" explains how she writes these pieces, often under
test conditions. Shockwave software to enable hearing the music is
available at the site for free. You might wish to learn of Rosemary Brown
and her music in this way.

http://members.aol.com/diogenes66/

===============================================================

Rosemary Brown Piano Pieces Received Telepathically from Spirit Worlds

Peter Katin, pianist
*Rosemary Brown, pianist

PART I
Chopin: Impromptu F min 1:24
Chopin: Impromptu Eb 1:38
Chopin: Ballade* 2:03*
Commentary by Rosemary Brown 6:22
Liszt: Grübelei  3:08
(Click on logo to begin.)

PART II
Liszt: Valse Brilliant E min 1:59
Liszt: Consolation* 2:43
Schubert: Moment Musical  2:49
Grieg: Shepherd Piping*  1:43
Debussy: Danse Exotique  3:02
(Click on logo to begin.)

TT 28:00

[Matthew H. Fields]

Yes, Craig, Rosmary Brown is a moderately tolerable hack immitator of
other composers, with a really effective way to sell her works to the
gullable. It's exactly as it looks and sounds.
I'd like to see her try channeling us a J.S. Bach cantata, plus
one by Webern.

Matt

--
Matt Fields URL:http://www-personal.umich.edu/~fields

[Garby Leon]

Demo report:

Sibelius 7 MIDI/notation software &
Acorn RISC computer w StrongArm chip
_______________________________________________________________________

(Disclaimer: I don't work for Sibelius or Acorn, I have no connection
to them, and have nothing to gain by writing the following.

(This system is light years ahead of anything else I've seen in the
midi/notation arean for computers: it's astonishingly powerful, fast,
and intuitively easy to use. Even so I'll keep the raves and
exclamation points down to a minimum in what follows.

(But if you're interested in music notation programs, and the cutting
edge of expert systems as applied to MIDI and music notation in
computers, read on...)

Curious from reading the Sibelius web page, I contacted the one
and only California representative of the Sibelius 7/Acorn system -- as
it turns out, Marty Walker, professional clarinetist and one of the
leading new music players in the L.A. area (Marty had just received a
very nice mention in the LA times for a chamber concert the previous
weekend). That was heartening: the Sibelius brochure says "Written by
musicians, for musicians" -- you dream about something like that, but
don't dare hope to see it in reality. Thanks to Marty, I got to spend
several hours exploring the Sibelius 7 system, an experience that
changed the way I regard computers as potential tools for musicians,
and maybe a few other things as well.

Marty had just started representing U.K.-based Sibelius in California,
offering the system at its US debut at the NAMM show last month. His
enthusiasm was real, and contagious. A great guy (as I soon learned),
Marty offered to bring the system over to my place for a demo. That's
the kind of offer I couldn't refuse, so a few days later my bell rang,
and he brought it in.

The only bad news: the system is expensive. You have to buy the Acorn
RISC computer to run the Sibelius software. Configured with the
StrongArm chip and a midi interface, the complete system (without
monitor) totals in at about $3.5k.

But when you see what it does, no one will think it's not worth the
money.

The program is a technological marvel: programmed in machine code for
the StrongArm RISC chip by identical twin brothers in the U.K.
(composers who attended Oxford and Cambridge respectively, still in
their 20's) and developed over the past seven years, it literally runs
a thousand times faster than conventional PC's and Mac's. Screen
redraws ten times a second. Reformats a five hundred page composition
in the blink of an eye.

The interface controls the music with complete, intuitive ease. You
can start using it virtually immediately.

As its main mission, Sibelius 7 can be used to create (for printing or
midi editing) the most complex musical scores, painlessly and almost
instantly. Depending on what midi devices it's connected to, it could
come close to fulfilling the dream of a computer-based orchestra,
controlled from the graphics of a professionally formatted score on
your computer screen.

The dream setup: an EIV or two, loaded with the Miroslav Vituous
orchestral samples. On this occasion, we made do with a Roland GM box
that had the typical instrument sounds in it, some okay, some funky,
which we controlled through my Yamaha KX88. We were up and running in
minutes.

The Acorn RISC computer is small, like an old IBM PS/2 or something,
though Marty told me the case had won a prize for its design. It runs
the Acorn OS -- a fully graphical interface with the familiar icons,
etc. that also has standard applications, including a word processor
and a graphics program (these are extra, and don't come with the basic
setup). You can also add a card to run Windows applications if you
like. If you already have a PC, that won't be necessary.

The computer set up easily except for one technical glitch: it didn't
work on my monitor, a Sony 1304 HG Multiscan, a few years old but top
of the heap in PC magazine the year I bought it. Marty took note and
said he'd contact the home office in England about that. Better that
we looked at Sibelius on the 17" Sony which he brought anyway -- this
software deserves a big screen, for sure.

Then we started to play with Sibelius. Immediate manipulation of the
score pages is completely intuitive: the cursor turns into a hand, and
with it you can push the 'page' around any way you like. Or, place the
cursor on an icon that represents an open score down in the corner, and
you instantly scan to any quarter of the page, or flash pages ahead or
back in the blink of an eye. Navigating your work is effortless, and
instant.

Inputting is a complete breeze. You can set up whatever kind of score
you want in seconds, and when you start inputting, the program
intelligently maintains correct vertical alignment and spacing
for any rhythm you write (and we wrote some weird ones), or, it's
easily changeable. That by itself is amazing for anyone who's ever
tried to use other notation programs -- in Finale, for example
alignment and spacing is a huge bugaboo.

In fact, Sibelius is an awesome 'expert system' in many regards. With
the intelligent functions taking care of all the details, the interface
presents you with complete flexibility: the score on the screen is like
rubber, you can zoom in to any size, and it can be stretched any way
you want it, elongating a bar or changing the spacing between systems
with a push of the mouse, and when you insert space or time into your
piece the rest of the score reformats instantly even if it's 500
pages long. Bang. Done.

Then things started to get really interesting: from the score we'd
created, just messing around with the program, Marty then demonstrated
instant part extraction, again with engraving quality results.
The parts were beautiful, and fully professional. Again, full
flexibility: if you don't like a page turn, you can reformat any page
break you like, with the software taking care of all the details.

That really took my breath away. Copying parts... you don't want to go
there, but it's very very expensive to have done professionally. This,
of course, is where Sibelius earns its keep -- part extraction that
really works solves an enormous problem for any composer who doesn't
have access to copyists, grants, or other expensive professional
resources.

Of course Sibelius has tons of other scoring and formatting functions
that are too numerous to mentions here. I'm only hitting the high
points - what we looked at running on the system.

Then came the real tricks -- the voodoo.

This program plays back its midi tracks following the dynamics you
enter on the page. If it says 'forte' on the page, that's what you
hear. But it doesn't stop there.

MIDI playback not only follows the dynamic markings indicated in the
score, it also has an AI capability to play 'espressivo' -- with the
varying accents and the phrasing of a human performer, different every
time.

I couldn't believe it when I heard it. I suggested to Marty that in
the next version of the program, they offer a way to save and export
the 'espressivo' performance as part of a midi file, so, for example, a
midi drum loop replayed a few hundred times fwould never sound the same
way twice. He took note of the idea to send back to headquarters.

Then the real torture tests: transcription from real-time input. I sat
down at the keyboard and started to play, keeping an eye on the screen.
The notes don't appear instantly on the screen -- they're about two
notes behind you, but it keeps up and writes very very accurate
notation as fast as you can move your fingers. Rhythms are
astonishingly accurate, detailed and precise.

Then, another awesome 'expert' function: if you tell Acorn you're going
to play 'rubato' -- its metronome speeds up or slows down to match the
varying tempo that you're playing!

It's uncanny -- like playing with a really sensitive human musician
who's listening closely to you and is responding to your changing tempo
with every shift. I tortured it -- speeding way up, and slowing way
down. It following me everywhere I went. When we looked at the
results, Sibelius had indicated my downbeats accurately throughout its
transcription, despite the shifting speed of the playing.

I really never thought I'd see something like that.

Just for objectivity, a few tiny cavils, some of which may be
configurable:

-- The transcribing feature imposes a subtle quantization on your
original midi input: when played back, you hear almost exactly what you
put in, but with subtle changes to reflect values down to a 64th note
or so.

I asked Marty to look into how fine that quantization can be set, and
he promised to find out. But the advantage of this approach is that
it's really 'What you see is what you hear' -- the score accurately
reflects the sounds and rhythms you hear on playback. If one wanted to
keep a record of the completely 'natural' midi file, you could easily
record it to a separate sequencer at the same time -- maybe a good
idea.

-- Sibelius didn't record my pedalling into the Yamaha KX88,
perhaps also configurable, though this made the 'piano' patch sound
dry, etc.

-- The afore-mentioned monitor incompatibility.

-- During realtime playback only, Sibelius kept us looking at the
top systems of the score, and didn't want to scroll down to the bottom
(this is in playback only, folks). Marty promised to look into this
too. It's not really too much of a problem, because if you want to see
how your bass part looks during playback, you can extract it instantly,
for example.

-- The only time the system took any real time to do anything was
when it imported a midi file! Then, the one and only time during my
try-out, we got the familiar hourglass where the cursor was, and had to
wait a few moments. Aw, gee whiz!

Not exactly major hassles -- and I mention them only because they were
the sole critical points I could uncover after a couple hours' of using
Sibelius and testing its various functions. That in itself is amazing.

----------------------------------------------Subjective summation:

The demo of Sibelius 7 gave me the feeling that I was seeing the first
computer program of the 21st century. The first example of the next
leap in technology, the technology of the future. What we're heading
for, if we're lucky.

A big part of the miracle is that transparent interface. It's hard to
describe how that makes you feel, exactly.

For any skeptics out there who've been disappointed in all past music
notation programs on any platform, who've banged their heads against
idiotic, labyrinthine interfaces, and who have wasted time wrestling
with the limitations of a program or an interface when they wanted to
be making
music...

This is different. Very, very different. It's the most incredible
piece of music/computer technology I've ever seen, or imagined.

$3.5k is a lot of money... and it seems extreme to buy an entire
computer system just to run a single application... But: I'm just glad
the darn thing doesn't cost a hundred grand. It looks like it should.
And it acts like it should -- the thing is unbelievably, blazingly
fast. Nothing the Sibelius 7/Acorn system does takes longer than a
flash. That's also a big part of its feeling of transparency -- the
computer is never in your way. It never stops you.

Bang. Done. Bang. Done. You never wait. It feels so creative - you
completely forget about the interface, and the technical junk whirring
around underneath. You're on the edge of your own imagination, your
own mind, rather than fighting with what the computer is doing to
you...

For any musician who can deal with music notation, it's more than a
dream come true -- it's the end of the rainbow.

Sibelius is not only a staggering new tool for musicians -- it may be
the most amazing piece of software ever designed for anything.

I'm not kidding. It's a revolution.

* * *

So: end of demo report and rave review. If you think anything I've
written above is an exaggeration, try it out for yourself....

Just to put things in perspective, Sibelius 7 has already taken over
the British music publishing industry -- as I said, it's a fully
professional tool that meets the most exacting engraving and printing
standards. The program has also received a stunning list of rave
reviews, accolades and awards. It's being used at Juilliard, and will
soon be at many other institutions -- if you can't afford it and you're
a student, you might think of talking your school into getting one.

Myself, I'm look around at what old gear I can part with to help put
this machine in my studio. Maybe it's time for that DX-7 to go... Do I
really need that extra DAT machine...

You get the idea. It's a must-have.

Regards,

garb leon

PS

Though this is a completely noncommercial message, it wouldn't be fair
to omit contact information for those who are interested. The web page
is a good place to start...

web: http://www.sibelius-software.com
email: inf...@sibelius.com

or contact

Martin Walker
Sibelius Software
PO Box 795
Lake Hughes, CA 93532

Tel: 1-888-4-SIBELIUS (1-888-474-2354) toll-free
Fax: 805-724-1439

[Jonah Barabas]

Jonah Barabas <bar...@tclock.com> wrote in article
<01bc29c4$7a52b220$ea6e...@dbryson.mindspring.com>...
> Matthew H. Fields <fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu> wrote in article
> <5fl1qe$7q2$1...@news.eecs.umich.edu>...

> > I'd like to see her try channeling us a J.S. Bach cantata, plus
> > one by Webern.

> Hmm.. I wonder what verse from the Bible someone would channel?
>
> Just wondering.
> Be well and play well,
> Jonah Barabas
> http://www.tclock.com/jbarab.htm
>
Aha, I got it -- the story of Saul seeking out the witch of Endor!
JB

[Jonah Barabas]

[Garby Leon]

In <331F61...@student.uq.edu.au> Robert Davidson
<s03...@student.uq.edu.au> writes:
>
>I completely agree with you about Sibelius software - I've used it on
>a friend's Acorn: it's unbelievable, and makes working with Finale
very
>frustrating. I just wish I could afford it. Is there any chance this

>software could be made to work on Windows or Mac anytime soon do you
>think? Or could Finale come to within a tenth of its efficiency?
It's just nowhere near that yet.

>Robert Davidson

Forget porting Sibelius -- it's written in machine code for the RISC
processor. Macs and PC's aren't nearly fast enough, and even if they
were I doubt that the RISC machine code is portable.

If you're at a school, get them to buy one.

If you're flying solo, sell a few things you don't need. Nothing can
match this tool, if music's important to you. It's a new world.

-- garb leon

-- garb leon

[Robert Davidson]

[Robert Caponi]

Reminds me of the New Yorker cartoon I saw as a kid showing Beethoven in
heaven madly scribbling out music and a passer-by saying to another "Yeah,
his 174th symphony is ok, but I still kinda like his 5th." (paraphrase, of
course.)
--
"People _love_ interesting writing."
- J. Peterman

[Courtney M Evans]

<big snip>

> Sibelius is not only a staggering new tool for musicians -- it may be
> the most amazing piece of software ever designed for anything.

Easy there, fella.

> reviews, accolades and awards. It's being used at Juilliard, and will
> soon be at many other institutions --

Yes, there is an Acorn RISC at Juilliard with Sibelius. The music
technology program at Juilliard still teaches students Finale. I think
maybe 5 people have tried the Acorn this semester. Does this count as
"being used at Juilliard?"

Sibelius is an excellent program, and I'll be trying it myself later this
month. I'm comparing it to Graphire Music Press. I have not completed my
evaluation of Graphire yet, but I think it's quite strong and has many of
the qualities you talk about re Sibelius. It's interface is transparent,
it's extremely fast, and it produces extremely high quality output. It
doesn't have some of the advanced midi features you discussed, but it has
one extremely signifcant advantage over Sibelius: it runs on Mac. No need
to buy another computer.

Courtney Evans

[Courtney M Evans]

> Forget porting Sibelius -- it's written in machine code for the RISC
> processor. Macs and PC's aren't nearly fast enough, and even if they
> were I doubt that the RISC machine code is portable.

Pentium Pro and especially PowerPC processors are equal in power to the
Acorn RISC. They are perfectly fast enough. Sibelius' speed advantage
comes from being written in assembly. If it were written in assembly for
the Mac, it would be as fast or faster than on the Acorn.

However, you are right. Assembly code is not portable.

As for your advice to Robert Davidson, if Mr. Davidson has a Mac, I'd
recommend trying Graphire Music Press before getting an Acorn.

Courtney Evans

[Garby Leon]

In <Pine.SUN.3.95L.97030...@sawasdee.cc.columbia.edu>

Courtney M Evans <cm...@columbia.edu> writes:
>
>> Forget porting Sibelius -- it's written in machine code for the RISC
>> processor. Macs and PC's aren't nearly fast enough, and even if
they were I doubt that the RISC machine code is portable.
>
>Pentium Pro and especially PowerPC processors are equal in power to
the Acorn RISC. They are perfectly fast enough. Sibelius' speed
advantage comes from being written in assembly. If it were written in
assembly for the Mac, it would be as fast or faster than on the Acorn.

The Acorn I saw was running the StrongArm chip, which is supposed to be
the second most powerful RISC processor made if my information is
correct. Was this the chip you were comparing to Pentiums and PPC's?

Taking your point, however -- I'm no expert on CPU's, so I'll forward
your point to someone who may be able to give us an accurate answer.
My understanding on the choice of Acorn was that Mac's and PC's weren't
powerful enough. We'll see.

>However, you are right. Assembly code is not portable.

Too bad for all of us!

>As for your advice to Robert Davidson, if Mr. Davidson has a Mac, I'd
>recommend trying Graphire Music Press before getting an Acorn.

Perhaps you should compare both systems before offering that advice!

-- garb leon

>Courtney Evans
>

[Garby Leon]

In <Pine.SUN.3.95L.97030...@sawasdee.cc.columbia.edu>
Courtney M
Evans <cm...@columbia.edu> writes:

><big snip>

>> Sibelius is not only a staggering new tool for musicians -- it may
be the most amazing piece of software ever designed for anything.

>Easy there, fella.

Tell us what you think after you've tried it.

Okay, that's a big statement up there. But the paradigm of an expert
system that really dissolves real-world difficulties in an arena as
arcane, complex and tradition-bound as music notation is a new one on
me. I haven't seen anything like it -- in any application, on any
platform. Maybe you can offer some counter-examples.

Sibelius' manual is 53 pages long! Come on -- for a program
application of this complexity, do you know any other software which
would dare something like that? ...Don't think so.

We're used to thinking of computers as a hassle, to whatever degree, in
almost any application. For notation software, make that mega-hassle
with migraines and creativity-deadening focus on irrelevant trivia.

Sibelius is very different: it fully takes on and assumes the
musician's pov, the 'human' world of problems, and gives you air -- an
open, transparent interface that has anticipated everything you
might need to do, and offers the most elegant tools to accomplish that.

I didn't invent the level of accolade implied above. Sibelius 7 won
the prestigious British Computer Society Award for the best computer
program of 1996, and was nominated by Computer Shopper (UK's
widest-selling computer magazine) for "Best Software On Any Computer.
Sibelius 7's *manual* has even won two awards.

So I'm not alone in thinking this.

>> reviews, accolades and awards. It's being used at Juilliard, and
will soon be at many other institutions --

>Yes, there is an Acorn RISC at Juilliard with Sibelius. The music

>technology program at Juilliard still teaches students Finale. I think
>maybe 5 people have tried the Acorn this semester. Does this count as
>"being used at Juilliard?"

"Our students who have had experience with other systems are amazed at
the simplicity and dazzling speed of Sibelius 7; even complex modern
scores are realized with ease, and the product is unfailingly elegant."
-- Michael Czajkowski, Juilliard School.

I'd say it's a revealing comment that "The music technology program at
Juilliard still teaches students Finale." That the program 'needs' to
be taught says it all. I'll bet Sibelius 7 won't be the subject of any
special classes or seminars -- people will be too busy creating music
with it.

>Sibelius is an excellent program, and I'll be trying it myself later
this month. I'm comparing it to Graphire Music Press. I have not
completed my evaluation of Graphire yet, but I think it's quite
strong and has many of the qualities you talk about re Sibelius. It's
interface is transparent, it's extremely fast, and it produces
extremely high quality output. It doesn't have some of the advanced
midi features you discussed, but it has one extremely signifcant
advantage over Sibelius: it runs on Mac. No need to buy another
computer.

Of course, more and better music software is always welcome, and I'd be
most curious to hear the results of your comparision and evaluation,
*after* you've checked out both systems.

Not to get sidetracked here, but for many people the dying Mac platform
*is* another computer. (hold off on the gunfire please) I seriously
considered buying a Mac two years ago, but when they announced that
they were moving to the PCI bus, I realized that all the expensive,
installed Digidesign music hardware base was about to be orphaned --
while the company itself buried its head in the sand. That has now
happened. A lot of people on the Mac platform have already bought a
new computer, and more expensive digital audio hardware. The recent
scuttling of the new Mac OS, buying NeXT for its OS kernal (an earlier
and inferior version of the kernal in Windows NT), just add more
uncertainty. The handwriting has been on the wall for a long time.

Too much uncertainty when you're sinking kilobucks into a 'do-it-all'
computer system. The Acorn, yes, is another kilobuck system, but I
tend to look at Sibelius 7 / Acorn as a stand-alone application, like a
high-end sampler or synth -- an EIV turbo or a Trinity workstation.
Those units are computers too, with operating systems, drives, busses,
etc., but no one minds that they can't send email (yet!). When buying
one of those units, no one holds back because they're buying 'another'
computer, even though they are.

The other point is that Sibelius 7 works brilliantly right now (though
there will even be a new software upgrade this summer), and we can be
relatively certain that the requirements of music notation won't change
radically in the near future. I hesitate to predict anything, but we
have had the same basic notation system for a few centuries now.

Let us know what you think after evaluating both. I'll be very
interested in your reactions.

[Courtney M Evans]

> >> reviews, accolades and awards. It's being used at Juilliard, and
> will soon be at many other institutions --
>

> >Yes, there is an Acorn RISC at Juilliard with Sibelius. The music
> >technology program at Juilliard still teaches students Finale. I think
> >maybe 5 people have tried the Acorn this semester. Does this count as
> >"being used at Juilliard?"
>
> "Our students who have had experience with other systems are amazed at
> the simplicity and dazzling speed of Sibelius 7; even complex modern
> scores are realized with ease, and the product is unfailingly elegant."
> -- Michael Czajkowski, Juilliard School.

Source, please. Does this come from Sibelius or from some third party?

> I'd say it's a revealing comment that "The music technology program at
> Juilliard still teaches students Finale." That the program 'needs' to
> be taught says it all. I'll bet Sibelius 7 won't be the subject of any
> special classes or seminars -- people will be too busy creating music
> with it.

Yes, I agree that Finale is an extremely badly designed piece of software,
and I *DO* have the experience to back that up. I have used it on and off
for a long time, from doing a 15-minute piano and orchestral piece on
Finale 1.0 on a Mac Plus with 1 mb of RAM, and no HD, all the way up to
using 3.7 on a 604/132 Mac clone. Programs like Graphire and Sibelius
obviously blow Finale out of the water.

What I take issue with is the contention you make that Sibelius is 'being
used at Juilliard'. I go to Juilliard. As far as I can see, the only
person using the Acorn in our lab IS Mike Czajkowski. I think that's a
shame, and that Juilliard should abandon Finale and adopt either Graphire
or Sibelius, but your article seems to imply everyone at Juilliard doing
music notation is using Sibelius. That is not true. It is very far from
the truth.

> Not to get sidetracked here, but for many people the dying Mac platform
> *is* another computer. (hold off on the gunfire please) I seriously
> considered buying a Mac two years ago, but when they announced that
> they were moving to the PCI bus, I realized that all the expensive,
> installed Digidesign music hardware base was about to be orphaned --
> while the company itself buried its head in the sand. That has now
> happened.

You can get a stargate riser card for about 100 bucks that will let you
use 2 NuBus cards in a PCI-based Macintosh. The hardware is not orphaned.

> new computer, and more expensive digital audio hardware. The recent
> scuttling of the new Mac OS, buying NeXT for its OS kernal (an earlier
> and inferior version of the kernal in Windows NT)

Your information is incorrect and biased. The kernel of the NeXT OS is
Mach 2.5, and that kernel will be updated and integrated into the new Mac
OS. The Mach kernel is EXTREMELY robust, and I don't think it has any
relation to the kernel of Windows NT.

As for the old Mac OS, Apple hasn't 'orphaned it', in fact they are still
upgrading it and will continue to do so for a long time.

> uncertainty. The handwriting has been on the wall for a long time.

Which is why developers like Alan Talbot are continuing to develop great
products like Graphire for it. The "Apple is dying" thing is getting old.
Give it a rest.

> The other point is that Sibelius 7 works brilliantly right now (though

Inapplicable. Graphire 0.8.0 works great right now also, and is available
on a platform much more widely supported and installed than the Acorn.

> Let us know what you think after evaluating both. I'll be very
> interested in your reactions.

Who is "us"? Don't worry, I'll post the whole review here in a month or
so.

Courtney Evans

[Courtney M Evans]

> The Acorn I saw was running the StrongArm chip, which is supposed to be
> the second most powerful RISC processor made if my information is
> correct. Was this the chip you were comparing to Pentiums and PPC's?

Yes. According to the one benchmark site that I could find that had all
three, the performance of a Pentium Pro at 200 mhz was around 300 mips,
compared to about 200 mips for an ARM at the same clock speed.

The PowerPC was equal to the ARM -- at 132 mhz. At 200mhz, it's about
equal to the Pentium Pro. Perhaps the ARM used to be the fastest RISC, but
it's outperformed by both -- and the PPro isn't even a RISC chip.

> >As for your advice to Robert Davidson, if Mr. Davidson has a Mac, I'd
> >recommend trying Graphire Music Press before getting an Acorn.
>
> Perhaps you should compare both systems before offering that advice!

My advice wasn't "Buy Graphire immediately! Ignore Sibelius!" My advice
was to try Graphire. In my experience, which I don't consider complete
yet, Graphire is a very intuitive, powerful tool. If there is such a tool
for a computer that Mr. Davidson already has (I don't know what kind of
computer he does have) then I would think it would be worth considering.

Courtney Evans

[Garby Leon]

In <Pine.SUN.3.95L.97030...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu>

Courtney M Evans <cm...@columbia.edu> writes:

(snip)

GL

>> Not to get sidetracked here, but for many people the dying Mac >>
platform
>> *is* another computer. (hold off on the gunfire please) I seriously
>> considered buying a Mac two years ago, but when they announced that
>> they were moving to the PCI bus, I realized that all the expensive,
>> installed Digidesign music hardware base was about to be orphaned --
>> while the company itself buried its head in the sand. That has now
>> happened.

CE

>You can get a stargate riser card for about 100 bucks that will let
you use 2 NuBus cards in a PCI-based Macintosh. The hardware is not
orphaned.

GL

I hope that's a practical alternative.

A current thread in rec.audio.pro strongly argues *against* Mac nubus
users 'upgrading' to PPC. My only point: the old bus standard isn't
supported on the new systems directly, like PCI/ISA on the PC. Hey,
I'm on your side here - I don't want anyone to fall between the cracks
in shifting technology. Especially musicians.

>> new computer, and more expensive digital audio hardware. The recent
>> scuttling of the new Mac OS, buying NeXT for its OS kernal (an
earlier and inferior version of the kernal in Windows NT)

CE

>Your information is incorrect and biased. The kernel of the NeXT OS is
>Mach 2.5, and that kernel will be updated and integrated into the new
Mac OS. The Mach kernel is EXTREMELY robust, and I don't think it has
any relation to the kernel of Windows NT.

GL

Bias doesn't come into it - why make it personal? This is just my
information, taken from a recent post on the PC-DAW listserv by a
contributor who's been studying this stuff (I'm certainly no expert):

"NT is a very modern operating system, using a micro-kernel
architecture after the "Mach" project at Carnegie-Mellon University
(NeXTstep was based on an earlier Mach version, before the microkernel
architecture was introduced, and NeXT never adopted the microkernel
even though it's substantially better). NT provides true "pre-emptive
multi-threading" for all application processes/threads, and also all
threads of the operating system kernel." (Chris Koenigsberg,
c...@pobox.com, <http://www.pobox.com/~ckk>)

CE

>As for the old Mac OS, Apple hasn't 'orphaned it', in fact they are
still upgrading it and will continue to do so for a long time.

GL

Mmm... but in practical terms, how much and for how long will they
continue to support an obsolete operating system? The scenario is
really even worse than that: if they go for covering NT on the PPC,
that'll mean support for three operating systems.

The current PPC OS is running a lot of the old 68x OS code in
emulation, and was never meant to be more than a temporary stopgap
anyway. But now, make that a permanent stopgap for those who don't
take the 'next' step.

Current software (or software/hardware combinations) will *indeed* be
orphaned -- they won't run on Rhapsody, because 'Rhapsody' won't be
backward compatible.

So that 'next' step, of course, then means that you'll need both a new
computer *and* new software -- provided the developers write it.

This all looks like a hell of a long shot to me.

Call me crazy.

...I didn't intend to get diverted into a side discussion on the future
of Apple -- I wanted to buy a Mac myself, until I saw what was
happening. The dust might settle, and I might consider it again.
Certainly you don't want to let 'platform prejudice' from getting you
the best tools for the job -- just as the power and elegance of the
Sibelius 7 program convinced me that the jump to another OS, etc. was
worth it.

Of course, as I said, I consider the Sibelius 7 / Acorn StrongArm combo
to be analogous to other high-end stand-alone units, like an Emulator
EIVTurbo, Korg Trinity or Akai MPC3000 -- and those are all computers
on different platforms too.

[Mark Starr]

From Acorn computers, little nuts grow.

Sibelius on Acorns may be fast, but that is its only advantage. Those
cars that crash into the spectators at the Indy 500 are also fast. And
what do you do when Acorn eventually folds?

As far as I have seen, there are only two music typesetting systems
designed for professional musicians: one is SCORE for MS-DOS and soon
Win 95, and the other is Berlioz (which you cannot buy or lease) for the
Mac. Now that Grapphire has lowered its price, it is a possibility for
self-publishing.

Regards,
Mark Starr

[Matthew H. Fields]

When you're comparing processors here, I assume you're talking desktop
systems. There's plenty of processors faster than any PPC, Pentium,
StrongArm...
If the demo print-out has illegibility errors in it, that's reason
enough for me to skip the demo.

[Matthew H. Fields]

>>As for your advice to Robert Davidson, if Mr. Davidson has a Mac, I'd
>>recommend trying Graphire Music Press before getting an Acorn.
>
>
>Perhaps you should compare both systems before offering that advice!
>

BTDT. The sample page of music at the Sibelius site had illegibillity
errors. The samples at the Graphire site were all single systems of
music, but at least there were no colliding symbols. If the person
creating the advert can't take the time to present an error-free page
of music notation, I have no confidence that they even know what one
is. The folks at Coda aren't any closer to knowing what one is than
the folks at Sibelius.

[Garby Leon]

In <5ft3jj$m5k$1...@news.eecs.umich.edu> fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu
(Matthew H. Fields) writes:

(snip)

> If the demo print-out has illegibility errors in it, that's reason
>enough for me to skip the demo.

This 'demo illegibility' canard is taking on the proportions of a piece
of internet folklore, without the real information needed to check its
accuracy, or the source of any problem that might exist. (and I notice
you haven't checked those downloads either!). Before we accept an
untested critical statement as uncontestable fact, it might be
worthwhile to look more closely. Frankly, I doubt that any problem
there is due to the program's malfunction.

When I last checked the Sibelius website, they had over a dozen
printout samples which one can download in a variety of formats, EPS,
Postscript, Corel, Acorn, etc., in both compressed and uncompressed
formats. Given all that variation, I'd guess that any printing
problems encountered will probably be traced to some glitch in the
technology of compression, file format transfers, or something else
outside of Sibelius 7 itself.

If anyone has had a problem with one of those samples, perhaps they
could post which one it is (it's a long job to download each and every
one), and what they used to do the printing, in terms of software, etc.

Like any software publisher, it's impractical for Sibelius to test each
and every combination of driver, printer, compression software, which
might cause any problem. And, of course, such problems should be
documented clearly -- which hasn't been done here.

Let's get to the bottom of this before rendering an easy, dismissive
judgment which may be utterly inaccurate.

Certainly the sample pages I've received (not over the internet) are
stunning, including a page of Debussy's 'Jeux' which is immaculately
reproduced and certainly the equal of the original edition.

Since major British music publishers have adopted Sibelius,
professionally, I have to believe the program works at the highest
professional standard. That's money on the line, not internet myth, so
for the moment the burden of proof is on anyone who says the program
doesn't work correctly. From what I've seen, it certainly does, though
I don't blame anyone for being cynical about computer notation software
in general. Up to now it's been pretty bad, but if Sibelius has come
up with a powerful solution to composers' problems in putting notation
into a computer, they shouldn't be penalized for the inferiority of
earlier programs.

I.e., give Sibelius a fair shake, and if there's a problem, let's look
into it. I haven't seen any serious shortcomings in the software so
far.

-- garb leon

[Garby Leon]

In <5fqjor$etj$1...@news.eecs.umich.edu> fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu
(Matthew H. Fields) writes:
>
>
>I asked Alan Belkin, who has used just about ever music notation
>system there is, including Sibelius. He said it was "clunky" and that
>it did in fact not "Take the musician's point of view" about the
>relationship of parts to score (write me in e-mail if you don't
>understand the difference between part, staff, and voice).

Pardon my ignorance, but who is Alan Belkin? And what version of
Sibelius was he using? Sibelius 7, as I understand it, was just
premiered at the Jan. 1997 NAMM show.

If there's anything 'clunky' about the Sibelius interface, I'd like to
know what it is. I'm fairly cognizant of the "difference between part,
staff, and voice" but the comment above is too vague for discussion.

Perhaps you could be more specific.

> I also downloaded the demo PostScript document and found beams and
>ties both disappearing into staff lines.

Which document did you download, and how did you print it? I'll wager
the problem is not with Sibelius 7, but with the transfer and/or
printing technology.

It's important that you tell us precisely which document caused the
problem, since there are over a dozen download samples on the website
in different formats, and I'll check it out.

Expert schmexbert, Leland
>Smith had a working solution to those problems in working FORTRAN IV
>spaghetti code in 1985 at the latest.

Great! Where's the program that we can use? Or are you suggesting
that we might all migrate to a FORTRAN IV platform? Is this what
you're using?

> C'mon, the ad at the web site is the creator's chance to put their
>best effort forward, and I see no reason to trouble myself based on
>that stuff.

I don't know how much 'trouble' you have had with other, earlier
notation software, but the availability of a solution to those troubles
might in fact be well worth investigating. Yes, everyone who sells
something puts their best foot forward, and no, it's never the whole
story. And as I said elsewhere, cynicism regarding notation software
is understandable given the record of such programs in the past. I do
think this is a different case, however, and not deserving of a vague,
blanket dismissal.

<That's the same reason I never bothered with Music
>Printer Plus, despite the incredible glowing praise for it I used
>to constantly get in the mail: the sample page in the advert was full
>of errors that made the music illegible.

MPP had very serious limitations, and was/is a DOS program that's many
years old now. Maybe it could be useful for marching band arrangers,
but not serious composers. But the larger issue is that, to me at
least, it's not an apt comparison -- Sibelius 7 is in an entirely
different league, in fact I'd contend, in a league by itself.
Penalizing Sibelius for shortcomings in MPP is irrelevant.

> We've heard far too many of these things. Expert system new to you,
>then you're new to the field. Computer Music Journal is full of
>expert systems, some applied to notation.

No, expert systems are not 'new' to me, and I read Computer Music
Journal just like you do. What I posted originally was that no program
unleashes an expert system on notation with a transparent, powerful
interface the way Sibelius does -- a program that's practical and
functions brilliantly right now, in the real world.

If you're using an 'expert system' notation program discussed in CMJ,
perhaps you could tell us what it is.

[Garby Leon]

In <3321D1...@inow.com> Mark Starr <st...@inow.com> writes:
>
>From Acorn computers, little nuts grow.
>
>Sibelius on Acorns may be fast, but that is its only advantage. Those
>cars that crash into the spectators at the Indy 500 are also fast.
And what do you do when Acorn eventually folds?

Keep composing music on Sibelius 7! Anyway, Acorn's going to be around
for a long time.

>As far as I have seen, there are only two music typesetting systems
>designed for professional musicians: one is SCORE for MS-DOS and soon
>Win 95, and the other is Berlioz (which you cannot buy or lease) for
the Mac. Now that Grapphire has lowered its price, it is a possibility
for self-publishing.

The 'typesetting' approach is what makes most notation programs
unusable from the start -- for musicians, anyway. Finale was
originally designed by an engraver, and you can see the results.

Of the three alternatives you suggest, one is a DOS program, one is
unavailable, and the third, while promising, hasn't been reported on by
anyone on this group yet, or elsewhere that I've seen. I hope Graphire
is a great program, but let's see an evaluation and compare! I posted
my evaluation of Sibelius 7 in the hopes that it would lead to just
this kind of dialogue.

-- garb leon

>Regards,
>Mark Starr

[Mark Starr]

Matt Fields wrote:

> Expert schmexbert, Leland
> Smith had a working solution to those problems in working FORTRAN IV
> spaghetti code in 1985 at the latest.

The Garby Leon wrote:

> Great! Where's the program that we can use? Or are you suggesting
> that we might all migrate to a FORTRAN IV platform? Is this what
> you're using?

I respond:

L. Smith wrote SCORE. And if you hold the slightest hope of having your
typeset scores accepted for re-publication by virtually any of the
world's major publishers of serious music, then you will submit your
scores to them typeset with SCORE.

Regards,
Mark Starr

P.S. And don't bother responding with Coda's PR about Warner Bros.
officially endorsing Finale. While Warner Bros. will look at a score
typeset with Finale, many (most?) of their publications are still
typeset with SCORE.

[Matthew H. Fields]

In article <5fuuvl$f...@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com>,
Garby Leon <ga...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>In <5ft3jj$m5k$1...@news.eecs.umich.edu> fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu

>(Matthew H. Fields) writes:
>
>
>(snip)
>
>> If the demo print-out has illegibility errors in it, that's reason
>>enough for me to skip the demo.
>
>
>This 'demo illegibility' canard is taking on the proportions of a piece
>of internet folklore, without the real information needed to check its
>accuracy, or the source of any problem that might exist. (and I notice
>you haven't checked those downloads either!). Before we accept an
>untested critical statement as uncontestable fact, it might be

Look, dummy, HTTP is well known, and I ran the Postscript on Adobe's
own Postscript firmware in a Lexmark Optra at 1200 dpi, like I told
you in e-mail.
When the midpoint of a tie and 70% of the tie coincide with a staff
line, this is called "illegible". Standard printing calls for keeping
the midpoint of the tie in a space. The demo postscripts at the
Sibelius site don't do that. That's not their only error, but that's
just a start.
I keep trying to give *you* a fair shake by taking this to e-mail and
you keep dumping adverts to the newsgroup. Prior to this I've never
heard of you here--do you compose music, or is selling Sibelius your
only gig?

[Alexander Bisset]

------------138C68881D5D2
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Garby Leon wrote:
>
> In <5fqjor$etj$1...@news.eecs.umich.edu> fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu

> (Matthew H. Fields) writes:
> >
> >
> >I asked Alan Belkin, who has used just about ever music notation
> >system there is, including Sibelius. He said it was "clunky" and
that
> >it did in fact not "Take the musician's point of view" about the
> >relationship of parts to score (write me in e-mail if you don't
> >understand the difference between part, staff, and voice).
>
> Pardon my ignorance, but who is Alan Belkin? And what version of
> Sibelius was he using? Sibelius 7, as I understand it, was just
> premiered at the Jan. 1997 NAMM show.

Nope, Sibelius 7 was launched in 1995, in the UK. As an ex-Acorn RiscPC
owner I can testify to this.

Regards,
--
Alexander Bisset
Email : alex...@bisset.demon.co.uk (home)
or a-bi...@aberdeen-harbour.co.uk (work)
Web : http://www.bisset.demon.co.uk/index.html

------------138C68881D5D2
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<HTML><BODY>

<DT>Garby Leon wrote:<BR>
&gt;&nbsp;<BR>
&gt; In &lt;5fqjor$etj$1...@news.eecs.umich.edu&gt; fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu<BR>
&gt; (Matthew H. Fields) writes:<BR>
&gt; &gt;<BR>
&gt; &gt;<BR>
&gt; &gt;I asked Alan Belkin, who has used just about ever music notation<BR>
&gt; &gt;system there is, including Sibelius.&nbsp; He said it was &quot;clunky&quot;
and that<BR>
&gt; &gt;it did in fact not &quot;Take the musician's point of view&quot;
about the<BR>
&gt; &gt;relationship of parts to score (write me in e-mail if you don't<BR>
&gt; &gt;understand the difference between part, staff, and voice).<BR>
&gt;&nbsp;<BR>
&gt; Pardon my ignorance, but who is Alan Belkin?&nbsp; And what version
of<BR>
&gt; Sibelius was he using?&nbsp; Sibelius 7, as I understand it, was just<BR>
&gt; premiered at the Jan. 1997 NAMM show.<BR>
<BR></DT>

<DT>Nope, Sibelius 7 was launched in 1995, in the UK. As an ex-Acorn RiscPC
owner I can testify to this.</DT>

<DT>&nbsp;</DT>

<DT>Regards,<BR>
--&nbsp;<BR>
Alexander Bisset<BR>
Email : alex...@bisset.demon.co.uk&nbsp; (home)<BR>
or&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; a-bi...@aberdeen-harbour.co.uk (work)<BR>
Web&nbsp;&nbsp; : http://www.bisset.demon.co.uk/index.html<BR>
&nbsp;</DT>

</BODY>
</HTML>
------------138C68881D5D2--

[Peter Kerr]

> >As far as I have seen, there are only two music typesetting systems
> >designed for professional musicians: one is SCORE for MS-DOS and soon
> >Win 95, and the other is Berlioz (which you cannot buy or lease) for
> the Mac. Now that Grapphire has lowered its price, it is a possibility
> for self-publishing.

Berlioz??

Sorry my Notation FAQ is out of date and the servers are all having a day off

--
Peter Kerr bodger
School of Music chandler
University of Auckland NZ neo-Luddite

[2QT2BSTR8]

Alexander Bisset (Alex...@bisset.demon.co.uk) wrote:

: Nope, Sibelius 7 was launched in 1995, in the UK. As an ex-Acorn RiscPC

: owner I can testify to this.

Are you sure about this? I've heard about Sibelius 7 since the summer of
'90, though that was from someone who knew the brothers that developed the
application. I received promotional packages about it round about fall 93,
so the 1995 date strikes me as incorrect.

Best,

David Horne

** Harvard University Music Department **
******** tel/fax (617-354-6340) *********
** mailto://im1...@virgil.harvard.edu **
*** http://mario.harvard.edu/im1ru12/ ***

[Garby Leon]

In <5g0t9g$qbj$1...@news.eecs.umich.edu> fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu

(Matthew H. Fields) writes:
>
>In article <5fuuvl$f...@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com>,
>Garby Leon <ga...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>>In <5ft3jj$m5k$1...@news.eecs.umich.edu> fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu

>>(Matthew H. Fields) writes:
>>
>>
>>(snip)
>>
>>> If the demo print-out has illegibility errors in it, that's reason
>>>enough for me to skip the demo.
>>
>>
>>This 'demo illegibility' canard is taking on the proportions of a
piece of internet folklore, without the real information needed to
check its accuracy, or the source of any problem that might exist. (and
I notice you haven't checked those downloads either!). Before we
accept an untested critical statement as uncontestable fact, it might
be

MF

>Look, dummy,

GL

Ooo. Name-calling. Always a sign of intellectual integrity and
self-confidence!

MF

HTTP is well known, and I ran the Postscript on Adobe's
>own Postscript firmware in a Lexmark Optra at 1200 dpi, like I told
>you in e-mail.

GL

'Like' you *didn't* tell me in email. None of that at all.

How old is your 'firmware' btw?

Nor were you able to tell me which file it was that you downloaded --
apparently because it was 'too big', you said -- signalling that some
part of your technology wasn't working correctly.

Did you wonder why that firmware wasn't working for you -- making that
page 'too big' to read the title?

Probably not, so of course your hypothesis remains conveniently
untestable -- because your scientific method didn't include making a
note of what file you're talking about. Hmm.

MF

>When the midpoint of a tie and 70% of the tie coincide with a staff
>line, this is called "illegible". Standard printing calls for keeping
>the midpoint of the tie in a space. The demo postscripts at the
>Sibelius site don't do that. That's not their only error, but that's
>just a start.

GL

That would be fine if you were printing the page correctly. Since you
don't know what page that was, we'll never find out if you were right
or wrong.

And of course, this continues a series of completely self-contradictory
statements you've accumulated. Here's the most blatent example: first,
you whine that the Sibelius web site is a hype that only tells the
'good' side of the story and so can't be believed, while second, you
take the opposite tack and would have us believe that Sibelius is
stupid enough to post an inaccurate example of their own output.

Gee, they must be pretty dumb to do that. Good thing you smoked them
out!

MF

> I keep trying to give *you* a fair shake by taking this to e-mail and
>you keep dumping adverts to the newsgroup.

GL

I'm responding to your own personal piece of 'dump' posted right here.
Apparently you reserve posting privileges only for yourself, is that
it?

And sorry pal -- I don't need any kind of 'shake' from you, fair or
not, so you can keep your condescending 'shakes' to yourself. I can
handle myself just fine without any help from you.

It's revealing that, so far, not one statement you've made has held any
water.

-- You misrepresented Alan Belkin as saying that the Sibelius interface
was 'clunky' -- though when I made an inquiry to him, quoting you, he
did not corroborate what you said.

-- You made some kind of super-obscure comment about 'data structures'
which you couldn't even explain and obviously have no grasp of,
probably parroting something you heard second-hand. (it finally came
clear to me that you were referring to the inclusion of parts in a
file, no big deal at all and not relevant to the point you were
fumbling at the time)

-- Plus, it seems that you alone have found some mysterious glitch on a
Sibelius demo file, but you've conveniently forgotten which one it is!
Or, you never knew. Or, you 'couldn't read the name' because your
firmware couldn't print the complete page.

Anything wrong with this picture?

I guess you're just having a bad day. Or week, whatever.

MF

>Prior to this I've never heard of you here--do you compose music, or
is selling Sibelius your only gig?

GL

Well guess what, pal? Surprise! Prior to this you haven't heard of a
lot of things. That may be a new concept for you.

No, I don't sell Sibelius, as I explicitly stated on my original
article, and have no connection with either the software or Acorn
computers. In fact, I'd never even seen one before. I posted a report
on a demo I had on the Sibelius 7 software, soliciting others'
comments, and I received a few very interesting replies which largely
supported my own first impressions, while others raised a query or a
critical issue or two.

Your articles, btw, don't echo even one of the significant issues
raised by any other respondse. It seems that your problems are yours
alone.

Your comments, however, also stand out because A) they have no content
whatsoever that I could verify, and B) they are obviously nothing more
than an exercise in sour grapes.

Take a bromo, and

Enjoy your lunch,

--gl

[Garby Leon]

In <3324AA...@bisset.demon.co.uk> Alexander Bisset

<Alex...@bisset.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
>
>------------138C68881D5D2
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>
>Garby Leon wrote:
>>

>> In <5fqjor$etj$1...@news.eecs.umich.edu> fie...@zip.eecs.umich.edu

>> (Matthew H. Fields) writes:
>> >
>> >
>> >I asked Alan Belkin, who has used just about ever music notation
>> >system there is, including Sibelius. He said it was "clunky" and
>that
>> >it did in fact not "Take the musician's point of view" about the
>> >relationship of parts to score (write me in e-mail if you don't
>> >understand the difference between part, staff, and voice).
>>
>> Pardon my ignorance, but who is Alan Belkin? And what version of
>> Sibelius was he using? Sibelius 7, as I understand it, was just
>> premiered at the Jan. 1997 NAMM show.
>

>Nope, Sibelius 7 was launched in 1995, in the UK. As an ex-Acorn
RiscPC owner I can testify to this.

>Regards,

>--
>Alexander Bisset
>Email : alex...@bisset.demon.co.uk (home)
>or a-bi...@aberdeen-harbour.co.uk (work)
>Web : http://www.bisset.demon.co.uk/index.html

If it wasn't clear from the context, I meant to say 'premiered in the
US' at the Jan. 1997 NAMM show, which is when and where it was, in
fact, premiered in the US.

Which was also where, apparently, Belkin got his 'demo' of the program,
though that's hard to imagine if you've ever been to a NAMM show.

I would be curious, however, why you're a 'former' Acorn RISC PC user.

Thanks -

gl

[Garby Leon]

In <5g2p5o$un7$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu> im1...@peter.harvard.edu
(2QT2BSTR8) writes:
>
>Alexander Bisset (Alex...@bisset.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>
>: Nope, Sibelius 7 was launched in 1995, in the UK. As an ex-Acorn

RiscPC >: owner I can testify to this.
>

>Are you sure about this? I've heard about Sibelius 7 since the summer
of '90, though that was from someone who knew the brothers that
developed the application. I received promotional packages about it
round about fall 93, so the 1995 date strikes me as incorrect.

Simple clarification: there were earlier versions of Sibelius before
'7' -- someone posted something about 'Sibelius 6' e.g.

I think the original program was written around 1990, and the company
was formed around '93, agreeing with what you posted.

- garb leon

[Matthew H. Fields]

Garby Leon (ga...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:

: If it wasn't clear from the context, I meant to say 'premiered in the

: US' at the Jan. 1997 NAMM show, which is when and where it was, in
: fact, premiered in the US.
:
: Which was also where, apparently, Belkin got his 'demo' of the program,
: though that's hard to imagine if you've ever been to a NAMM show.

Belkin's not a Stateser last I heard.

[Mark Starr]

Garby Leon wrote:

> you (Matt Field) take the opposite tack and would have us

> believe that Sibelius is
> stupid enough to post an inaccurate example of their own output.
> Gee, they must be pretty dumb to do that. Good thing you smoked them
> out!

I respond:

I've already said what I think of Sibelius, the program. But Mr. Leon's
remark to Matt Field, quoted above, reminds me of a wonderful story that
once happened to me--and has nothing to do with Sibelius.

About 3-4 years ago, I received a letter from a group trying to
establish a new software company, asking me to invest in its new music
notation program. (Neither the proposed software company nor the
notation program ever got off the ground. I wonder why.) Together with
the letter, they included an expensively-printed sample (on glossy
stock, obviously by a high-resolution photo-typesetter) of their
program's handiwork: Beethoven's Minuet in G, for piano. Like many
music programs, their program had default settings--and the default
setting for meter must have been 4/4. Evidently, the inputter had not
bothered to change this default or even proof-read his/her work. In my
hand, I held a printed copy of Beethoven's Minuet in G, notated and
barred from the first measure to the end, in 4/4 meter. If you want a
good laugh, try singing Beethoven's Minuet in G while beating it in
four.

Regards,
Mark Starr

[Peter Kerr]

Jee, this thread's getting heavy ;-)

I have used Sibelius. I have had problems getting it to print to HP4MV
postscript and had to save .ps files for printing from a Mac. The output
was much more WYSIWYG than Finale, but IMHO the ease of shuffling things
around in Sibelius means you must believe what you see on the screen. Once
used to this concept it is easier for the composer/computer operator to
produce clean copy.

The .ps files were largish, but then so are Finale's. I didn't pull them
apart to look inside because the printed output was what I had seen on
screen. Having not seen the screen for these Web samples I won't comment
further on that aspect.

Our sales person offered some DTP software as an inducement to buy the
Acorn system, but I was less than impressed. In our case the decision went
against Acorn/Sibelius mainly on the difficulty of integrating it into our
existing labs/network/printers.

[Sandy Nicholson]

I'd just like to add a few comments of my own, for what it's worth, regarding
the continuing discussion on Sibelius 7. Matthew Fields (for whom I have a
degree of respect, on the basis of a number of his contributions on music
theory as well as some private communication) asserts that Sibelius 7 cannot
be a worthy contender for his favourite software, Finale, as the demonstration
printout which he downloaded is `flawed' in more than one respect.

First of all, let me suggest that the downloadable file might, for some reason,
have become corrupted, accounting for the gross Postscript errors observed. I
downloaded these demos a few months ago and successfully displayed them using
Ghostscript; there were certainly no gaping holes in the score at that time.
It does seem very unlikely indeed that a company of the calibre of Sibelius
would be content to leave poor demonstrations of their products on the Web for
all to see. I therefore suggest that, if anyone does have problems with these
files, they should contact the site webmaster in question.

Secondly, I'd like to defend Sibelius 7 as a professional music typesetting
system, whilst addressing Dr Fields' concern about ties. I have actually used
Sibelius 7 to typeset a fair amount of choral and piano/vocal music in the
couple of years which I have been using it (and it didn't take more than a
week or two to get to grips with the system, incidentally). I never had any
problems printing to Postscript printers (including HP LaserJet 4Si for most
proofs and Linotronic for commercial publication). (Regarding fonts, I suspect
that Sibelius may have drawn all the symbols individually within the demo
Postscript so as to avoid giving away their commercially valuable music fonts!)

Dr Fields contends that Sibelius 7's positioning of ties makes music illegible
as they coincide in some cases with the stave lines. I would concur that this
is generally bad practice and, for all I know, Finale may assiduously avoid it.
However, it is possible to tidy such things up in Sibelius 7 by hand (and very
quick and easy too, I might add). Dr Fields posted a piece of music for solo
flute to me a couple of years back, typeset using Finale, and I have to say
that, while the music may have been legible, it didn't look very professional.
Ironically, it was the overarched, short ties and slurs which stood out for me
as the ugliest feature of Finale's typesetting. I think that the problems of
automatically positioning ties etc. are far more involved than most of us are
aware and that Finale and Sibelius simply have slightly different priorities
in this area (though presumably both are capable of fully professional results
in the right hands). My very brief first-hand experience of Finale suggests to
me that making the requisite alterations by hand will be substantially quicker
using Sibelius 7. Indeed, the whole system is orders of magnitude quicker in
use. (I'm not even comparing like with like. My Acorn system is around five
years old - about two and a half generations behind the latest hardware, while
Finale was running on an almost new Pentium PC!)

Finally, a brief (and perhaps telling) comment on the companies themselves.
A short while back, I decided I ought to keep abreast of developments in
music typesetting technology and contacted the makers of Sibelius 7, Finale
and Graphire Music Press, asking for information on these products together
with a variety of sample printouts. The Sibelius and Graphire printouts were
both exemplary, being both legible and aesthetically pleasing. It would be
hard to make a decision between them based on the end result. However, though
I received a brochure detailing the virtues of Finale, they did not see fit
to include a single example of the kind of output which could be expected.
Perhaps they have something to hide?

--
Sandy Nicholson (S.Nic...@edinburgh.ac.uk)
http://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~anich

[Tom Ginsberg]

In article <5g6lrr$7...@scotsman.ed.ac.uk>, S.Nic...@edinburgh.ac.uk wrote:

>However, though
>I received a brochure detailing the virtues of Finale, they did not see fit
>to include a single example of the kind of output which could be expected.
>Perhaps they have something to hide?
>

Can't hide something that doesn't exist !!

I recommend anyone who's doing copy or engraving work check out Graphire
Music Press - you won't be sorry - and it runs native on the Power PC -

--
Tom Ginsberg
tom...@clark.net

[2QT2BSTR8]

Sandy Nicholson (an...@holyrood.edinburgh.ac.uk) wrote:
: I'd just like to add a few comments of my own, for what it's worth, regarding

: the continuing discussion on Sibelius 7. Matthew Fields (for whom I have a
: degree of respect, on the basis of a number of his contributions on music
: theory as well as some private communication) asserts that Sibelius 7 cannot
: be a worthy contender for his favourite software, Finale, as the demonstration
: printout which he downloaded is `flawed' in more than one respect.

I don't think that Matthew Fields likes Finale any more than Sibelius 7.
Then again, it's my guess (though I may be wrong) that he isn't familiar
with the newer versions of Finale.

I was recently told by the publishing wing of Boosey and Hawkes UK that
Sibelius 7 was certainly the "way to go" in the UK. That, and other
accounts of Sibelius 7 I've heard from individuals whom I respect actually
makes me think that Sibelius 7 _must_ be pretty serious stuff.

I viewed the Sibelius 7 website on a NeXT, and converted the .ps file
using ImageViewer. The image was viewable, certainly- just not very
impressive. I'm frankly surprised that they didn't have more examples of
output, given the amount they had on some hard copy promotional material I
received a few years ago.

I really find it hard to believe that Sibelius 7 can make much of a dent
in the US market given that it requires the purchase of a new computer
system, and a somewhat alienated one at that. Perhaps if they can more
effectively market it here, but even then I think it would be a long shot.

: However, though

: I received a brochure detailing the virtues of Finale, they did not see fit
: to include a single example of the kind of output which could be expected.
: Perhaps they have something to hide?

Perhaps, but don't you see that this is probably what some people are
questioning wrt the Sibelius 7 website? I'm a little bit perplexed by the
vitriol involved when discussing the merits (or lack thereof) of various
software programs. If you like the results of the software program you
use, then go for it, and more power to you. (For the record though, I may
as well add that I'm very happy with Finale, which has cost me about $350
to date after upgrades.)

[Matthew H. Fields, A.Mus.D.]

Sandy Nicholson wrote:
>
> I'd just like to add a few comments of my own, for what it's worth, regarding
> the continuing discussion on Sibelius 7. Matthew Fields (for whom I have a
> degree of respect, on the basis of a number of his contributions on music
> theory as well as some private communication) asserts that Sibelius 7 cannot
> be a worthy contender for his favourite software, Finale, as the demonstration
> printout which he downloaded is `flawed' in more than one respect.

Whoa. Before you say that, allow me to point out that Finale is *not*
my
favorite software. It's an overpriced piece of junk as I've stated
early
and often.

> First of all, let me suggest that the downloadable file might, for some reason,
> have become corrupted, accounting for the gross Postscript errors observed. I
> downloaded these demos a few months ago and successfully displayed them using
> Ghostscript; there were certainly no gaping holes in the score at that time.
> It does seem very unlikely indeed that a company of the calibre of Sibelius
> would be content to leave poor demonstrations of their products on the Web for
> all to see. I therefore suggest that, if anyone does have problems with these
> files, they should contact the site webmaster in question.

I've downloaded them several times in the last year with exactly the
same results.
I've also e-mailed my responses to the pages to the webmasters a couple
of
times in the last year. I've also exchanged PostScript with folks in
London
with no hitches, so I consider the hitch to be the content of the
PostScript
document, not the download path.

> Dr Fields contends that Sibelius 7's positioning of ties makes music illegible
> as they coincide in some cases with the stave lines. I would concur that this
> is generally bad practice and, for all I know, Finale may assiduously avoid it.

Finale is equally weak in this area. Score does it right every time, at
the
expense of the UI from hell. Since Score can do it by following rules
out of
Ted Ross, it seems to me the rules are there.

[moot comparisons to Finale deleted]

[Peter Kerr]

In article <5g6lrr$7...@scotsman.ed.ac.uk>, S.Nic...@edinburgh.ac.uk wrote:

> Dr Fields contends that Sibelius 7's positioning of ties makes music illegible
> as they coincide in some cases with the stave lines. I would concur that this
> is generally bad practice and, for all I know, Finale may assiduously
avoid it.

Nope, it's as bad as all the others.

The problem with most of these notation software applications for desk top
computers is that it is easier to embrace the DTP paradigm leaving the
user to mess it up if they want, than to develop algorithms which can
emulate the craftsmen engravers of 100 years ago.

Today's instant music printers don't have publishing house styles
developed over many years of feedback from the performers and conductors
who choose to use their scores. The constraints of LaserPrinters and
photocopiers that won't take 9 x 12 inch paper tempts one to put too much
on a line. And there is also a school of thought that says because this is
new music it doesn't need to slavishly follow the classical fashions.

Perhaps we need some latter day pre-Raphaelites who can marry cybernetic
speed and efficiency to classical grace and beauty...

[Jeff Harrington]

Tom Ginsberg (tom...@clark.net) wrote:

: In article <5g6lrr$7...@scotsman.ed.ac.uk>, S.Nic...@edinburgh.ac.uk wrote:

: >However, though
: >I received a brochure detailing the virtues of Finale, they did not see fit
: >to include a single example of the kind of output which could be expected.
: >Perhaps they have something to hide?

: >
: Can't hide something that doesn't exist !!

: I recommend anyone who's doing copy or engraving work check out Graphire
: Music Press - you won't be sorry - and it runs native on the Power PC -

I concur... GMP is an amazing piece of software. It's actually got me
thinking of buying a Mac. Now with the price reduction, the only
competitor to Score, for the same price as Score. It's slurs have Score
users droolin'....

Can we just forget about Sibelius? Who the hell cares about software that
only runs on computers that ain't even sold in 99% of the world. I can't
believe I'm still hearing about it. THeir 15 minutes of fame is well
over...

Jeff Harrington [ "Art does not make peace...that is not its business...]
je...@parnasse.com [ Art is peace." --Robert Lowell]
http://www.parnasse.com/jeff.htm --------->>[[ My Music ]]<<--------------]
http://www.parnasse.com/vrml.shtml ------->>[[ My Worlds ]]<<-------------]

[Garby Leon]

I forwarded an article or two from this newsgroup containing questions
and/or criticisms about the Sibelius 7 software to Sibelius co-inventor
and co-owner Ben Finn in the U.K., with an offer to post his answers
here. He was kind enough to take the time to respond, and I thought
his answers would be of interest to members of the group. In the
following post Ben responds to an article by Matt Fields.

regards,

-- garb leon

Message: 312
To: Garby Leon <ga...@ix.netcom.com>
From: "B Finn, Sibelius Software" <bf...@sibelius-software.com>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Sibelius 7 / Acorn RISC midi/notation system demo
report (!!!)
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 11:28:52 -0800 (PST)
Garby

>I asked Alan Belkin, who has used just about ever music notation
>system there is, including Sibelius. He said it was "clunky" and that
>it did in fact not "Take the musician's point of view" about the
>relationship of parts to score (write me in e-mail if you don't
>understand the difference between part, staff, and voice).

When Sibelius extracts parts it includes all relevant markings (e.g.
tempo marks, titles, rehearsal marks, bar numbers), transposes if
necessary, respaces all the notes, collects bar rests together into
multirests, splits them where necessary (e.g. at key changes) and
reformats all the pages onto any desired page-size. This part
extraction currently takes less than 1 second and requires hardly any
'tidying up' by the user afterwards.

I'm not quite sure what 'taking the musician's point of view about the
relationship of parts to score' means, but if what Sibelius does as
described above is insufficient I'd like to hear in what way!

>I also downloaded the demo PostScript document and found beams and

>ties both disappearing into staff lines. Expert schmexbert, Leland

>Smith had a working solution to those problems in working FORTRAN IV
>spaghetti code in 1985 at the latest.

'Beams disappearing into staff lines' - by this I take it you mean
touching staff lines without extending beyond. Although there are
differences between different publishers, in standard engraving
practice beams may touch staff-lines or lie squarely on top of them,
depending on the pitch and the context. The only thing beams should NOT
normally do is sit halfway between two staff-lines (though it is
unavoidable for some cases involving, say, 64th notes). For more
details see e.g. The Art of Music Engraving and Processing by Ted Ross.

The beam-positioning rules (which end up being very complex if you want
to deal with all cases) are fully implemented by Sibelius 7 and so are
dealt with entirely automatically (unlike, I think, any other program),
though they can be overridden by the user if you like.

'Ties disappearing into staff lines' - there are no universal rules
about tie-positioning. Some publishers like them to sit on top of
staff-lines, some prefer them falling in between; with multiple ties
between thick chords the engraver often has little choice about where
they go. Sibelius 7 lets you put them where you like, though it does
have an auto-tie button which puts them in a reasonably standard place.

> C'mon, the ad at the web site is the creator's chance to put their
>best effort forward, and I see no reason to trouble myself based on

>that stuff. That's the same reason I never bothered with Music

>Printer Plus, despite the incredible glowing praise for it I used
>to constantly get in the mail: the sample page in the advert was full
>of errors that made the music illegible.

I can't speak for MPP's advert, but in any case I can't see any
comparison with MPP! Sibelius 7 is used to print scores for Peters
Edition, Oxford University Press, Boosey & Hawkes, Faber Music,
Schott's etc. all of whom have exceptionally high engraving standards.
But it's unlikely that ANY publisher would accept MPP output. So what's
the comparison?

Regards

Ben

____________________________________________________________________
For general enquiries contact: in...@sibelius-software.com
WWW pages: http://www.acorn.co.uk/developers/sibelius/
Sibelius Software, 75 Burleigh St, CAMBRIDGE CB1 1DJ, Great Britain
Tel: 01223 302765 (+44 1223 302765)
Fax: 01223 351947 (+44 1223 351947)

[Garby Leon]

In <5g9347$2na$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu> im1...@peter.harvard.edu
(2QT2BSTR8) writes:

(snip)

>I was recently told by the publishing wing of Boosey and Hawkes UK
that Sibelius 7 was certainly the "way to go" in the UK. That, and
other >accounts of Sibelius 7 I've heard from individuals whom I
respect actually makes me think that Sibelius 7 _must_ be pretty
serious stuff.

Serious stuff indeed, and, if I can offer a view, it's very very good
news for composers who use notation and computers. As far as I can
tell, there's nothing close to this system, in several respects.

I think it helps to not get hung up on the whole
socio/politico/religious/quasi-mystical question of platform. It seems
to me that a good deal of the weird 'heat' this thread is generating is
coming from mac users who feel, for some reason, bothered by the fact
that Sibelius 7 runs on an Acorn computer. That's just my surmise, but
there seems to be a consistency to it.

Let's clear the deck, and the air, and just consider the Sibelius/Acorn
system on its own merits.

Personally, I view the Sibelius/Acorn setup as I would any other
stand-alone music computer. No one criticizes an EIV turbo, a Yamaha
VL1 or an Akai MPC3000 because they're computers that don't use the Mac
or PC platform. People buy them and use them because they are
excellent at carrying out their design functions.

I see Sibelius the same way. I'm not thrilled that it's expensive, but
quality usually is. I'm not thrilled that an EIV is expensive either,
but people who need them find a way to get their hands on them -- the
world has adjusted to the cost of a high-end computer/sampling
workstation.

Should the complex and up to now intractable arena of music notation be
any different?

I am not trying to win converts or proselytize and I have no stake in
Acorn or Sibelius. But after using various notation programs for over
ten years, this system seemed extraordinay and I wanted to share
information about its capabilities to others who may be interested.

I respect anyone's choice of tools, and I'm not out to change anyone's
mind. But for those who are interested, the Sibelius 7 software, for
its musicianly design, transparent interface, superb output,
intelligent midi functions, blinding speed, etc. etc. deserves your
attention.

That's all. Just a bit of information which may be useful to some
people.

regards,

-- garb leon

[Tom Ginsberg]

In article <5gaoqf$p...@sjx-ixn8.ix.netcom.com>, ga...@ix.netcom.com(Garby
Leon) wrote:

>I can't speak for MPP's advert, but in any case I can't see any
>comparison with MPP! Sibelius 7 is used to print scores for Peters
>Edition, Oxford University Press, Boosey & Hawkes, Faber Music,
>Schott's etc. all of whom have exceptionally high engraving standards.
>But it's unlikely that ANY publisher would accept MPP output. So what's
>the comparison?

No you can't - and furthermore publishers DO accept Music Press output

tom

--
Tom Ginsberg
tom...@clark.net

[Craig Weston]

Peter Kerr wrote:
>
> In article <5g6lrr$7...@scotsman.ed.ac.uk>, S.Nic...@edinburgh.ac.uk wrote:

> > Dr Fields contends that Sibelius 7's positioning of ties makes music illegible
> > as they coincide in some cases with the stave lines. I would concur that this
> > is generally bad practice and, for all I know, Finale may assiduously
> avoid it.
>
> Nope, it's as bad as all the others.
>
> The problem with most of these notation software applications for desk top
> computers is that it is easier to embrace the DTP paradigm leaving the
> user to mess it up if they want, than to develop algorithms which can
> emulate the craftsmen engravers of 100 years ago.

Hmm... Peter, I must have missed something along the way, because I'm
not sure what the DTP paradigm is... But leaving the user to mess it up
if they want is a virtue, not a fault!

I think thew biggest problem with every notation program I know (with
the possible exception of Keith Hamel's NoteWriter) is that they seem to
be designed with a goal that you shouldn't have to know anything about
proper and/or effective notation in order to produce it.

I and most everyone else here am a vast database of relavent knowledge
on the subject--I want a program that allows that resource to be
tapped! Intelligent defaults are nice, sure, but the ability to make it
look the way I want it to (without jumping through flaming hoops) is the
number one issue, to me. No amount of bells and whistles will change
that.

Has anyone ever used a word-processor whose spelling and grammar checks
assure quality prose? Why do we expect that of music notation programs?
--
__________________________________________________________________
|Craig Weston--Assistant Professor of Music Theory, Composition, |
| & Electronic/Computer Music, Iowa State University|
| |
| cwe...@iastate.edu |
| http://www.music.iastate.edu/theory/weston/ |
|________________________________________________________________|