Help with Writing Music

[3notes]

My musical resolution has begun. For a few years now I've been wanting to get my instrumentals on paper. I'd like to add that one of the reasons for doing this is that I know someone who plays flute, really well. I feel that my acoustic playing along with the flute, in parts, will make a great combination. Any thoughts on this.??

So let me tell you where I'm at... I've never done this before and I don't read music. The flute player reads music.

I have an entire song written out on paper; A=A, A#=A sharp etc., etc. How do I get this onto paper in musical notation.?? Is the term Transcribed.??

For now, if a note holds sustain, I put a sort of long dash after the note. Get the picture.??....

Further more, I'll provide her with a recording of my playing it and we will sit together and work things out.

I'm thinking there are some great suggestions here. I'd appreciate any.
Thanks.

[Big Band Guitar]

Respectfully

1. Sign up at your nearest community college that offers music for a fundamentals class.

2. Get a notation program like Finale and learn how to use it. There is a free version. That way you can play back what you enter in real time.

3. There are no shortcuts to writing music short of paying someone to notate it for you.

I haven't tried it but Finale will convert standard notation to TAB and I think it will also do the reverse.

[3notes]

Laughing.... I knew #1 would be posted up before I could x out.... Laughing.

Thanks buddy.

Now to use a program like Finale, would I have to learn to read music.?? I'm thinking yes.??

[rick-slo]

I use PowerTabEditor. It's free.

You enter notes in tab. The program automatically adds to that the standard notation.

Samples of my PowerTab tablature on my website (Tabs link below where you can view PDFs). Works with Windows only (not Mac).

A download link is here:
http://download.cnet.com/Power-Tab-E...-10502034.html

[TBman]

https://www.musicnotes.com/blog/2014...d-sheet-music/

There's also "Music Theory For Dummies" and other books for sale. I learned how to read music while learning to play the piano. My suggestion is to get a small inexpensive keyboard and a book. Translating to guitar is easy and there is guidance available for that as well.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by 3notes

Laughing.... I knew #1 would be posted up before I could x out.... Laughing.

Thanks buddy.

Now to use a program like Finale, would I have to learn to read music.?? I'm thinking yes.??

Musescore is better. Free and opensource and lots of good people supporting it. Yes, you kinda need to know how to read music to write it, but you can learn. I took Univ of Edinburgh's fundamentals of music theory course on Coursera for free. Good luck!

[Big Band Guitar]

Originally Posted by 3notes

Laughing.... I knew #1 would be posted up before I could x out.... Laughing.

Thanks buddy.

Now to use a program like Finale, would I have to learn to read music.?? I'm thinking yes.??

Music is a language like any other, we can communicate in our own language without being able to read or write it. In order to write we need to be able to read.

After all reading music is a skill that is useful. I played music for 55 years before learning to read it. I started at our community college last September at age 65.

[Pitar]

You might consider something like this if you're serious about tabbing or scoring your music. I've scored in it and the latest iteration is pretty good. Plus, you can tab something and it automatically scores it, and vice versa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TuxGuitar

[stanron]

I'm going to second Musescore. It's free, open source and lets you hear what you input. You can learn how to notate by trying. If it sounds right it's right. If it doesn't sound right change it.

[FwL]

You've got the basics of how the notes and rhythms work. You just need to associate what you know with standard notation.

Learning the pitches is super easy... probably take you a half hour at most to have that down well enough to find your way around the staff.

Rhythms come down to fractions... one measure... half a measure... one beat... half a beat... quarter of a beat... eighth of a beat etc...


Time signatures might throw you off for a bit until you get the hang of how they work.

The rest of the stuff you wouldn't even need to worry about just to get your ideas down and get your flute player the music.


So what you need to do is find a basic primer on reading music and just do it.


.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by 3notes

My musical resolution has begun. For a few years now I've been wanting to get my instrumentals on paper. I'd like to add that one of the reasons for doing this is that I know someone who plays flute, really well. I feel that my acoustic playing along with the flute, in parts, will make a great combination. Any thoughts on this.??

So let me tell you where I'm at... I've never done this before and I don't read music. The flute player reads music.

I have an entire song written out on paper; A=A, A#=A sharp etc., etc. How do I get this onto paper in musical notation.?? Is the term Transcribed.??

For now, if a note holds sustain, I put a sort of long dash after the note. Get the picture.??....

Further more, I'll provide her with a recording of my playing it and we will sit together and work things out.

I'm thinking there are some great suggestions here. I'd appreciate any.
Thanks.

This should explain notation to you:
https://www.musictheory.net/lessons
Go through each topic one by one from the beginning. Notice each page has a forward arrow at the bottom - use that to step through each stage. There are are sounds too, when required.

Look at some professionally published sheet music (or any sheet music you can find online) to see how it looks overall. It might also help to ask your friend to play you a simple tune from sheet music, so you can see how her sounds look on paper (or screen).

Try out just one or two short excerpts of your music - on handwritten manuscript paper, musescore, finale, whatever - and check with your friend that it's working. She will no doubt help and correct you where necessary, especially if you also play the excerpts to her.

It may help to remember that the range of a standard flute runs from middle C to nearly 3 octaves above that.
Middle C is written on the ledger line (short extra line) below the stave, and is played on guitar on fret 1 of the B (2nd) string. (On guitar music that note is written on the 3rd space up). So the range of flute goes all the way up the first string - and beyond! But no lower than middle C.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by JonPR

This should explain notation to you:
https://www.musictheory.net/lessons
Go through each topic one by one from the beginning. Notice each page has a forward arrow at the bottom - use that to step through each stage. There are are sounds too, when required.

Look at some professionally published sheet music (or any sheet music you can find online) to see how it looks overall. It might also help to ask your friend to play you a simple tune from sheet music, so you can see how her sounds look on paper (or screen).

Try out just one or two short excerpts of your music - on handwritten manuscript paper, musescore, finale, whatever - and check with your friend that it's working. She will no doubt help and correct you where necessary, especially if you also play the excerpts to her.

It may help to remember that the range of a standard flute runs from middle C to nearly 3 octaves above that.
Middle C is written on the ledger line (short extra line) below the stave, and is played on guitar on fret 1 of the B (2nd) string. (On guitar music that note is written on the 3rd space up). So the range of flute goes all the way up the first string - and beyond! But no lower than middle C.

Middle C on the guitar is the 3rd fret of the A string (5th string)

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by TBman

Middle C on the guitar is the 3rd fret of the A string (5th string)

Sorry but it's not. What you mean is the C written below the stave on guitar music is played on 3rd fret A string.
That note would be middle C on concert treble clef, but guitar music is transposed by an octave.

"Middle C" means the C in the centre of the piano, a pitch of 261 Hz, and that note is also in the middle of the range of guitar. On piano music it's written in the middle (of double stave), and on guitar is also appears roughly in the middle: 3rd space up.

The C on 3rd fret of the A string is not "middle C" in any sense (it's not in the middle of anything!).

The reason I mentioned middle C is that, when writing for flute, it's good to know that it can't go any lower than the C on your B string (unless it's an alto flute). And in the music for the flute, that C will indeed be written on the ledger line below the staff, because flute is written in concert.

Of course, you can compose a tune on guitar and write it in notation as you would read it for guitar. When you give it to the flute player, they will play it an octave higher, which probably doesn't matter. It's just good to be aware that that will happen. You definitely shouldn't write anything below that C on the ledger line below.

[vindibona1]

Originally Posted by TBman

https://www.musicnotes.com/blog/2014...d-sheet-music/

There's also "Music Theory For Dummies" and other books for sale. I learned how to read music while learning to play the piano. My suggestion is to get a small inexpensive keyboard and a book. Translating to guitar is easy and there is guidance available for that as well.

I would agree completely. Music isn't hard. It's just different because you music notation uses both and X and Y plane. The Y plane is linear. Higher notes are written higher, lower notes lower on the axis. The X plane is time. It's a bit more difficult because it requires understanding time signatures and "subdivision" (dividing time over each measure). As Barry said, get a cheap keyboard and beginning piano book so all the notes are in front of you. Or, alternately, get a beginning flute book. You'll be able to move quickly through it as you already (should) have some technique down. You can pick and choose the new elements of the music reading. You should be able to learn the essentials of printed music pretty quickly (unless you're old and slow learning new things, like me).

I think one of the great shames (as well as benefits) of guitar is that it can allow you to escape learning the essentials of music while it still allows you to learn to play. JMO

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by vindibona1

I I think one of the great shames (as well as benefits) of guitar is that it can allow you to escape learning the essentials of music while it still allows you to learn to play. JMO

That is true with any instrument though with many instruments you would be more likely to be playing along with other people in a more formal setting.