Drawing app recommendations please.

[ambient]

I want to create graphic music scores like those in the photos attached.

 

I’m in the final weeks of a composition PhD. I’ve composed a solo cello with electronics piece that I’d like to present as a graphic score interspersed with bits of standard notation. 
 

I've got some very scruffy hand drawn sketches that I want to redo.

 

I’ve got Musescore, that doesn’t do what I want. 
 

Any recommendations would be most welcome.

 

Must be Mac based.

 

Thank you.

[SamIAm]

Lilypond is a very capable music engraving app that runs on MacOS, I’ve found it more capable than MuseScore … but the output in your sketches seems to go way beyond any music notation I’ve ever seen.

A more general purpose graphics app like InkScape may be better suited, perhaps generating score snippets as image files using lilypond and assembling them and adding extra notation in InkScape?

 

S’manth x

[ambient]

15 minutes ago, Smanth said:

Lilypond is a very capable music engraving app that runs on MacOS, I’ve found it more capable than MuseScore … but the output in your sketches seems to go way beyond any music notation I’ve ever seen.

A more general purpose graphics app like InkScape may be better suited, perhaps generating score snippets as image files using lilypond and assembling them and adding extra notation in InkScape?

 

S’manth x

Thank you. A friend just recommended Inkscape too. I’ll give it a try in the morning.

[Cosmo Valdemar]

15 hours ago, ambient said:

I want to create graphic music scores like those in the photos attached.

 

I’m in the final weeks of a composition PhD. I’ve composed a solo cello with electronics piece that I’d like to present as a graphic score interspersed with bits of standard notation. 
 

I've got some very scruffy hand drawn sketches that I want to redo.

 

I’ve got Musescore, that doesn’t do what I want. 
 

Any recommendations would be most welcome.

 

Must be Mac based.

 

Thank you.

That looks like a recurring nightmare I used to have.

[Paul S]

1 minute ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

That looks like a recurring nightmare I used to have.

 

Too much HP Lovecraft, I'd say.  

[lidl e]

I dont know what this is, but it looks cool

[BigRedX]

Any standard notation application that supports Postscript or EPS output and then edit/assemble the results in the desired manner using Adobe Illustrator or any other vector graphic program.

 

Technically on a Mac it should be possible with any notation app using the "Print To PDF" function, but I suspect that some will produce a flat composite bitmap image rather than editable vector graphics.

 

IIRC you already use Logic. Have you check what sort of output you get when you print to PDF from the notation window?

[Nicko]

Seems to me that you need to use a music scoring program, then create a collage from the score using a different piece of software.  I'm a MS user but would create the score, PDF it, then take snapshots of the bits you want and drop them into a graphics program that allows you to rotate, stretch and add text.

[Woodinblack]

On 28/12/2022 at 09:38, BigRedX said:

Technically on a Mac it should be possible with any notation app using the "Print To PDF" function, but I suspect that some will produce a flat composite bitmap image rather than editable vector graphics.

 

MuseScore output PDF contains all the individual items separated, so quite easy to modify, just that it doesn't always link to the right font. Good starting point though.

 

45 minutes ago, Nicko said:

I'm a MS user but would create the score, PDF it, then take snapshots of the bits you want and drop them into a graphics program that allows you to rotate, stretch and add text.

 

The PDF is a native image type on the mac so you don't need to snapshot it.

[steve-bbb]

Inkscape or affinity designer . BUT if you have no experience of either (or similar eg illustrator) then you will most likely end up getting extremely frustrated trying to faithfully reproduce what you have in the images

 

i would go further to add that something like the tragic one act opera is imho begging to be rendered manually as an artistic calligraphy piece in preference to digital artwork

[BigRedX]

@ambient Out of interest how would the second third and fourth examples you posted be read by a musician playing one of them?

[Dad3353]

1 minute ago, BigRedX said:

@ambient Out of interest how would the second third and fourth examples you posted be read by a musician playing one of them?

 

Badly. 

 

..

 

 

[Woodwind]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

@ambient Out of interest how would the second third and fourth examples you posted be read by a musician playing one of them?

 

I did a recording session where we'd been issued with graphic scores.

I'd agreed to the project as, money aside, I was looking forward to the interpretative aspect within a chamber group.

 

The composer kept halting proceedings to then tell us why we weren't playing it right and what we should be playing.

They had such a clear concept of what they wanted I don't know why they hadn't just notated it straight and exactingly.

 

In the end everyone left that session deflated.

[Greg Edwards69]

If it were me and I had to create the samples you’ve shared, I’d dive straight into illustrator and use a notation font for the various symbols such as the free google font “Noto Music”. The glyphs palette will let you choose which symbols you require. Then just copy, paste and manipulate as necessary.
https://fonts.google.com/noto/specimen/Noto+Music

 

It won’t be a quick process. You’re creating art, not just sheet music.

[itu]

Years ago I used Finale that was capable of most of those. Is Sibelius today the one, I am not sure? My needs are fulfilled with MuseScore, as I am not connected to modern music scene anymore.

[Ralf1e]

I think you are asking too much but try Gimp massive amounts of stuff hidden in there

[ambient]

20 hours ago, Woodwind said:

 

I did a recording session where we'd been issued with graphic scores.

I'd agreed to the project as, money aside, I was looking forward to the interpretative aspect within a chamber group.

 

The composer kept halting proceedings to then tell us why we weren't playing it right and what we should be playing.

They had such a clear concept of what they wanted I don't know why they hadn't just notated it straight and exactingly.

 

In the end everyone left that session deflated.

That’s really weird. Like you say, the whole point of graphic score is that each person will have their own interpretation of them.

[ambient]

20 hours ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

If it were me and I had to create the samples you’ve shared, I’d dive straight into illustrator and use a notation font for the various symbols such as the free google font “Noto Music”. The glyphs palette will let you choose which symbols you require. Then just copy, paste and manipulate as necessary.
https://fonts.google.com/noto/specimen/Noto+Music

 

It won’t be a quick process. You’re creating art, not just sheet music.

Thank you. I’ll try that.

[Woodwind]

2 hours ago, ambient said:

That’s really weird. Like you say, the whole point of graphic score is that each person will have their own interpretation of them.

 

 

exactly!!!

[ambient]

On 29/12/2022 at 18:58, BigRedX said:

@ambient Out of interest how would the second third and fourth examples you posted be read by a musician playing one of them?

 

It's down to the individual's interpretation really. There might be a starting point, sometimes it might be left to the musicians to decide where to start playing from. Sometimes there are bits that the composer wants played, but it might down to the performer to decide when - or it might not