Newbie composer question - MuseScore not for composing?
Hi, I apologise if this is the wrong place; I just wanted to check that I understand this right.
I have messed about with music for years but have limited formal training - I know the basics just about. But I've always been able to write a tune, and I consider myself to have a good sense of music. Now I'm looking to move beyond messing about with a DAW and attempt a bit of choral and chamber orchestra-level composing.
Playing with MuseScore (love version 4), I quickly understand that the tool is not a composing tool but a scoring tool. As I don't currently think in notation, starting somewhere else (like Logic) appears to make sense. (Side thought: Perhaps alongside MuseScore and Audacity, there should be a free Daw. )
So is this a common mindset thing for others - composing elsewhere and then moving to MuseScore to formalise the music? It appears it's where you come once you've worked most things out and want to capture better the music for performance (including dynamics etc.). Do others do this?
Thanks
Stew
Comments
I did give it a shot to use it for songwriting when MS4 was released, because it would be nice to have VSTs available already at the composing stage. I also came to the conclusion that I am probably not the target audience for this software and went back to Guitar Pro. I prefer to write with notation and tabs rather than directly in a DAW, and the input methods in GP seem more suitable for experimentation than the ones in MS.
I think it depends on your goal. If you are writing to produce music to hand to real players, then there is nothing wrong with writing first in your DAW. Then transfer it to notation software to print out. If you are just interested in audio files, then I don't see much need for notation software.
A common workflow is to write in notation, transfer to a DAW to see what it might sound like, make adjustments, then back to notation to print out parts.
Personally, I can't wrap my poor old tired brain around a DAW. But in any event MuseScore is definitely a composing tool for me.
Hi,
You wrote: "Perhaps alongside MuseScore and Audacity, there should be a free Daw."
There actually are a few free DAWS out there, the best of which may be "Studio One Prime" by Presonus. It comes with a 1.5 GB collection of royalty-free sounds (however, you can’t load third-party VST plugins). Depending on your needs it might be adequate, as you try to develop a workflow that works for you.
You mentioned: "Playing with MuseScore (love version 4), I quickly understand that the tool is not a composing tool but a scoring tool." Actually, I do use it as a composing tool, in tandem with my DAW. I'm beginning to use Musescore 4 (MS4) more and more, to sometimes quickly sketch things out (checking my voice leading is particularly useful in MS4).
The benefit is that I don't have to futz around with the MIDI programming that is often required in a DAW. Since I'm not a keyboard player, input into a DAW can be time consuming and tedious, often sapping my creative flow. With orchestrally based music, I spend more time actually 'composing' in MS4 and less time 'programming' in a DAW.
I don't understand what it would mean for a scoring tool to not be a composing tool. If the end result of your composing process is a score, then yes, a scoring tool is a composing tool. To me a DAW tool isn't a composing tool, it's a playback-tweaking tool. I compose using music notation, not waveforms. But for someone who composes uses waveforms rather than with notation, indeed a DAW could be a useful composing tool as well. To me that would be like trying to use an image editor as a writing tool, rather than using a word processor. Possible, but super awkward. I couldn't imagine trying to compose in a DAW.
There are, of course, multiple free DAW's out there, including Ardour, LMMS, Reaper, MusE, etc. Even online platforms like BandLab.