Compositional tools

[Wil]

I was wondering, does anyone know of any compositional tools that allow you to click and enter notes, and drag to elongate the note duration without sticking to rigid formula (most I've used require you to set a time sig, then force you to use rigid beats per bar). I want some thing where I can click to add notes poliphonically but gives me total control over note duration just by clicking and dragging.

Any ideas?

[BottomEndian]

I'd imagine your best bet would be something like the piano-roll view in Cubase or similar. Click to add notes, and you can make them as long or short as you want, as long as you don't have "snap to grid" turned on.

As for notating it on the stave... no chance with standard notation. That said, IIRC, Finale lets you fine-tune the MIDI data separately from what's notated (to a certain extent), but I haven't used that sort of functionality in Finale for about 15 years so I'm a bit rusty on what's do-able.

[Wil]

It's the snap to grid that I hate I think (I find it hard to compose with such rigidity when the music in my head is always rubato laden), so I'll take a look at cubase, sounds like it might do the trick. Cheers fella!