Do you write sheet music still? Or ever?

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

Hey friends,

Any of you ever, or at some point, use traditional sheet notes for jotting down ideas or complete works? I used to be a heavy sheeter, then dropped it and went all hardware sequencers, but then I picked it up again on a notion as I saw those Moleskine notebooks had an edition for sheet music.

So I carry it with me now and write down ideas for songs and melodies when they pop into my head, and then I bring them to my instrument and try to make something of it.

Do you do something similar, or something other? If you’re not a sheet musician, what’s your equivalent of working stuff done on paper before you get to work? If at all?

6 Likes
#2

All my ideas comes when i walk in the street, or in public transport (train essentially) so i have a Portable Recorders, every time with me i use it either for record sounds i may find interesting… as well as every melody, bass, sequence ideas… as it’s usually ideas i keep looping in my head there’s chance that’s good idea at the end… and loop in other head as well…

If ideas comes in chill or quite moment i would choose instead sheet music, but ideas always coming on the move so… :confused:

#3

Interesting andreasroman… I am not used to write music on the traditional sense, but my songs that have a bassline get written in a notebook I have, I write mostly just chord progressions, sometimes I also tab interludes that I know I might forget. Most of the time though I reference those only when I spend a long time without playing that certain track… I recognize the importance of having your own music written somewhere, I am self taught so I write in a way I understand :slight_smile:
But if it is just synth/midi music, I just write the chord progressions and make sure my backups are always updated with their respective sounds, and midi sequences (organized by gear)…

1 Like
#4

You are lucky that you can do this.

I am used to read and play using sheet music. But I would be totally lost, if I had to write down an idea starting with a blank sheet of paper. I need to hear what I do. At least I have to play an idea several times until I can write it down. But TBH … most of the time I play on midi-capable instruments and have always a midi-sequencer ready to go :wink: … also outdoors … thanks to Mr. Steve Jobs :wink:

1 Like
#5

Very cool. Different things happen to your ideas when you work with them in different ways. Pen and paper, and your hands using these, will trigger other ideas in other ways, just as a step sequencer on a hardware machine will trigger something that Ableton can’t - and vice versa, of course.

2 Likes
#6

I never do for synth ideas. But, I jot down my saxophone riffs all the time in a little notation notebook. Mostly just for reference. I especially do this if I’m working on some session stuff for someone else before heading to the studio.

#7

Great topic!

Sadly, my classical training in music and music theory was put on hold when I discovered techno.
I can still read music, but sheet music feels like a language I only spoke in the first half of my life and without practice, is difficult to retain in full.

We did daily sight reading drills in school. I should get back to that. Thanks for the reminder, Andreas.

These days, my reminders for hooks and melodies is more my iPhone voice recorder, or the notes app to remember “the concept” I have in mind.

3 Likes
#8

I have been playing piano for about one year. I still find reading (sight reading) the hardest part and sometimes struggle to name a note quickly. Yesterday I bought a blank manuscript to transcribe different pieces. I think my brain needs to physically write things down to remember them. Who knows, maybe I will be writing down my melodies in time :slight_smile:

1 Like
#9

Never been able to read music! Well, not with out the old "Every Good Boy Deserves Food or whatever it was to remember!

I should really get into some sort of habit of at least jotting down chords/key used as I’ve got a treasure trove of half baked ideas/projects that take forever to remember how to play. I need to load them up into Ableton then painstakingly check through the midi roll to work it all out! Nightmare!

I’m just a lazy shit really.

2 Likes
#10

I cannot read or write music notation so no.

#11

I’ve been reading notation for 90% of my life, and I still cannot name notes quickly. What I CAN do, is land the key or fingering of a note without any ounce of thought or effort. The tone and key/fingering is locked in my brain WAAAAY more easily than verbalizing the name of the note.

1 Like
#12

I’m diving back into it. For most of my music making it just seemed like pretentious nonsense- “I prefer to just FEEL IT MAN”

Now, the tendency to merely jam/experiment/explore is becoming less sufficient of an output, and somewhere in my mind the concept of music notation just makes sense. Right now, all I’ve got under my belt is having transposed the song “In Heaven” from Eraserhead into Musescore2-but damn, when I finished it it felt quite satisfying.

I’m looking forward to making my own “properly” composed works!

#13

Well, one of the advantages of knowing some of that stuff, is that you can actually build on an idea by simply knowing what can usually follow next, by knowing what came before. So okay, I just put down a C#, I know for a fact that any other #-note will sound good now, though if I stray into the white A’s or G’s, I better know what I’m doing to make it sound interesting (for example).

So you’ve got a bunch of options when you know these things, but I’ve also found that you’re sometimes locked by them. Knowing what goes with what, is oddly limiting in that you need to push yourself to think outside the theory you’ve learned.

And when I say you, I really mean me. That’s my blocker, that I tend to stick with the harmonies I’ve been taught, and struggling somewhat whenever I stray from the traditional paths.

2 Likes
#14

I think this jam–>exploring workflow is a very good source of creativity. For me the only important point is to recognise that I just had an idea, stop jamming, recording midi and/or audio, and getting back to it later to craft a track from it. It might sound very silly, but I have the impressen that sometimes a rough 8-bar idea can be sufficiant, to create a track of five minutes length.

1 Like
#15

This kind of blocker can also be rooted in playing one kind of music style or instrument again and again. It’s just to be used of it and comfortable with it. How often have I been disappointed, when my wife rightly told me that my new idea was a typical “me” again :frowning2:

That’s the reason, why I try different approaches from time to time … and … it works :smiley:

#16

Rules were made to be broken. I just need to learn them. Thanks for the advice!

1 Like
#17

I had piano lessons as a kid and am comfortable with musical notation, but I can honestly say it’s never had any place in anything I’ve ever done creatively in 25+ years of electronic music.

#18

I would like to thank you @andreasroman to give few very interesting post and fresh air to Elektronauts, i tried to follow you this way and will suggest more participative threads (interesting on medium or long term) for the next week to come…

1 Like
#19

I remember one of the first things I learned the hard way, when I was starting out in doing what I do. I was all like “I’m not gonna do the cliché thing, my stories are gonna be all about stuff you can’t see coming, endings where everybody dies, no one gets the girl, the hero bites it, all that stuff.”

And one of the seniors said to me: “That sounds great, Andreas. Why don’t you show me one of your stories you’ve written, where you show that you’re already great at writing these so-called happy ending clichés where the cop catches the killer or the boy gets the girl? Just so I know for sure that you know why those stories work, before you decide to break them and make something better.”

Well, he certainly told me.

And I’m glad he did.

One of the thing that bothers me with all this Game of Thrones praise - it deserves it, but there’s one thing I just don’t buy - is the whole “You never know who’s safe! Anyone can die on this show!”

Nope. It’s pretty clear who’s safe, since they’re setting it up so that a lot of characters aren’t, tricking you into thinking that some of the protagonists might die, or not. But that’s just not the case. You don’t kill the hero until the end, if ever. Game of Thrones is like Hamlet. The protagonist(s) might bite the bullet, but not until the end. You just gotta see who they are.

Or you don’t, really. In fact, that’s why it’s so great. You don’t see it and you shouldn’t try, either. Cause that’d ruin the fun.

Man, the movies and shows I’ve wrecked for my friends just by holding my sermons on story for them.

2 Likes
#20

Writing music is a great thing to do, if the technique is already understood. It exposes the fact that there are building blocks and elements.

Lines and curvature appear from the blank page, a landscape emerges and beckons to adventure, intellectually and emotionally.

Haven’t written much sheet music for a while, although in previous decades, occasionally would do so.

1 Like