How do you folks write for a symphony or film orchestra?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Good points. Most often I either answer to a conductor/music director who is skilled at reading orchestral scores and can "listen past" mockups, or the event/DVD producer leaves all artistic decisions concerning music to me and don't even want to hear the the score until it's premiered or recorded.

These are restored silent films so the directors are all dead. So much easier to work with dead directors than living ones. Ha! Lucky, I know.

[bdr]

I'd love to work with some dead directors.

[Prime Mover]

I keep thinking that I will learn to compose in DP but I'm so comfortable working with notation first.

I was like that for YEARS. I would write up ALL my parts in Finale (later Sibelius), output them to a DAW and then tweak from there. Even rock tracks. Heck, I practically used Finale as a MIDI sequencer for quite a few years. Then somewhere along the way that all changed, not sure when, and kind of without my knowing it. I'll never go back. It takes me a fraction of the time that it used to, I get much more realistic mockups.

The problem is that traditional score notation is great for communicating music to musicians who will interpret it in context, but it's terrible for telling a computer exactly what to do. It's especially impossible for piano, which typically has overlapping notes that begin and end in different places... music notation is not designed for that.

Ease yourself into the transition, it is a process, but I think you'll find it a breath of fresh air once you find yourself fully switched over to DAW and piano roll composing.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

And I did the exact opposite. Sequenced for years (onboard Ensoniq stuff, followed by Atari software, followed by Mac software) and rarely working in notation until I got my first full orchestra scoring gig. I had to convert a DAW score from a MIDI sequence (25 minutes, non stop) and reorchestrate it into notation for real players. A few other projects were done by sequencing first and notation by SMF porting and quantizing, etc.

In 2006 I got a project for 3 such scores. I did one from SMF files. Took FOREVER! Another I used DP and ported over (carefully setting everything up in DP for good playback) but again, it took forever. The third score I did entirely in Finale and it took a fraction of the time. Not only that, but it was much better written in terms of instrumentation. I could see any defects (notes, instrumentation) immediately and read the score as the conductor would from the start. It was about 2/3 faster (66% faster) than the other methods.

Again, now printed scores get done in the notation program. Period. MIDI/VI scores get done in DP. Exclamation mark!

That's my method and I'm sticking with it.

[Prime Mover]

It's a good method, MLC, easier than having to port one to the other. TBH, my notion is a bit rusty, I use DP so much, I'm not as fast notating things as I used to be.

[Prime Mover]

It's a good method, MLC, easier than having to port one to the other. TBH, my notion is a bit rusty, I use DP so much, I'm not as fast notating things as I used to be. I also never got used to Sibelius's note entry system. Sometimes I wish that I hadn't switched, but Finale was dragging their heals for so many years into OS X, that I finally gave in and went with Siby. You know my griping about both, I find Finale clunkier, but I hate Siby more.

[zuul-studios]

This thread has been very informative. I sincerely appreciate the time and willingness, by all answering the question(s) in this thread, in sharing your experience and expertise. Thank you.

Although not to the degree that most here do, I've been sequencing band to orchestra-like music since the mid-1980s, around the time when MIDI was developing and becoming popular. Still, I need to put the old "pencil to blank manuscript paper" when composing most works, especially orchestral music. I've owned various versions of Finale since around 1998, and I STILL find using that really, really, really old-school "pencil to blank manuscript paper" to be a better tool compositional-wise. It helps me to develop an orchestral-type composition of length. (However, I find Finale to be EXCELLENT in creating blank manuscript paper! I also use Finale as a tool to figure out inversions, retrograde and other variations to a thematic melody.)

To be clear, I am not a "Pro". (Actually, I'm an ICU/CCU nurse who also love to compose music during my spare time.) So, I have no dreaded dead-lines to meet. And since I'm an average middle-class person, financially speaking, I can't afford to hire an orchestra to play my music. (Although, to hire an orchestral to play a few of my compositions is a "bucket-list" dream for me!) Reading how all you professional composers/film-scorers manage your time and use the tools of the trade (DP 8, Finale, etc.) is both interesting and an eye-opener for me. I need to ask this, though. Does any of the pros here still put the old "pencil to blank manuscript paper" as you develop a composition?

I've developed a lot of "short-hand" writing throughout the years. I even use a condensed-condensed orchestral score which does help speed things along.

Is manually writing out scores, even "just" condensed scores, a total thing of the past?

[doodles]

exporting MIDI into Sibelius (which you'll need to do for printing out parts, adding dynamics, etc - or another programme) is frustrating, to say the least, FYI!

Make sure you quantize all durations on all your MIDI parts first, otherwise when you go to import your MIDI into sibelius, it's gonna end up with a lot of gobbledigook!

In DP, I have a template, and do articulations on different parts (e.g. stacc strings EW wil be on one channel, Stacc strings LASS will be on another, Stacc Symphobia on another, etc. You don't want to always be using the same combo, or it'll sound the same. But it depends whether you're mocking up or doing a finished product...

good luck!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I still write score by hand every so often, but not large scale works.