Sibelius has an “idea manager” - Creative workflow
Studio One has a “Sketchpad” - Creative workflow
Digital Performer’s has “chunks” - Creative / Film Cue
Each are brilliant ideas in their own right. Sibelius was great for motif, orchestration, the whole 9 yards of “writing”. But DP’s unique sequences per cue is absolutely right for film cues. Studio One has a more limited “ability” than either, but it’s still relevant to the same concept and it’s easy to use, so I add it to the list.
Workflow isn’t just inputting & editing notes. There is micro-detail workflow and there is the managing of ideas and structure of music at an eagle eye view. For engraving that may be less important. But for creative folks it’s a must. And if it serves creative needs as well as film cues, it’s hitting the nail on the head.
So my question is, are you guys conscious of this as well? I’m not asking for feature promises… yet. But I do want to highlight these applications and ask you to consider adding a useful feature to Dorico at some point. Robust + simple requires elegant work and planning. So I’m doubtful this is a v1 feature. But I just want to voice that for this one user at least, it’s important.
My user goals:
1 - Put things into the system so I don’t have to remember them or manage them in the piece manually. Motifs, orchestrations, entire segments, etc.
2 - Manage film cues. I want one “project” open where I can switch from one cue in one part of the film to another without reloading everything. I use VEP already. But I want to quickly jump to the end of the film and copy a phrase and paste it into the opening of the film. I want multiple “sequences” the way DP does it, except that it’s with notation.
Those may lead to two very different features if considered. But I hope that at least helps.
I’m pretty sure the “Flows” in Dorico will be able to handle that. I’ve talked to Daniel about it in the past, and DP’s chunks were certainly a reference point used in describing their possible functions.
Great to hear! I’m less concerned with specifics because I understand that a lot of people’s input has to be taken into account. I really just want to make sure user goals and existing solutions are known so that things remain forward thinking.
Love this question and it’s close to my heart: it’s not just about writing a piece starting at bar one and finishing at bar n. It can be a tortured process requiring scraps of disparate ideas that need building, changing, combining and maybe trashing - how can you possibly know it all in advance?
I found Sibelius’s Ideas inadequate because there was no way to create a new one from scratch (that had no relationship with the present material in the score) and you couldn’t change or create system objects like metronome marks etc - for me fatal limitations and I stopped using it. (there were other more serious drawbacks with Ideas involving the loss of data which still need addressing but what’s the point of raising this issue with Avid at the helm?)
So in Sibelius I still have either 1: to create a messy score with all my jottings littered all over it at various locations, and, if those ideas contain new instruments the vertical size of the score becomes thoroughly unwieldy, even impossible to deal with, or 2: create a plethora of discrete files with no hint as to their content except, perhaps, for the desktop icon. Which then means leaving the programme and going on a search for something you knew you had somewhere but can’t remember where, or what you called it. Then I have to create a proper score out of all this mess.
Dorico’s Flows looks extremely promising but there’s nothing like getting your hands on something to see what it can do for you. I can’t wait.
As I’m just now getting my feet wet into Dorico I’ve been making templates, setting up VE Pro and expression/percussion maps, etc. I’m at the point now where I’m excited to create and the first thing I looked for is an idea manager of the Sibelius sort. Even Folders in Cubase makes idea management amazing because I can always just mute, hide, duplicate and edit to my hearts content without worrying about losing anything or being overwhelmed with clutter. I just tried to use flows for that, but without the ability to organize or at least hide a flow I can already see how my workspace will get too cluttered too quickly. Hopefully this gets implemented soon. In the mean time, I’d love to hear other’s workarounds.
You can easily hide a flow. Simply create a layout that doesn’t include that flow, and work on that. If you want to get back to that flow, switch to the ‘full score’ layout. You can even create a layout that includes those ‘draft’ flows, and another that only includes the ‘actual’ piece. That way it’s almost like having folders. I’ve found flows incredibly useful as places to dump themes, snippets, ideas, etc.
Yes, I agree with what vilnai is saying. And I love using this technique in galley view as it seems similar to Sibelius’ ideas - streams or ribbons of musical ideas (no not that ribbon!). [Daniel - personally I enjoyed using the ribbon in Sib. but was equally adept at going to those memorized menu locations].
I would love, however to see some kind of vertical stacking ability of flows that would give the user the ability to have several alternate ideas in the same time space. Sort of like different takes stacked vertically in a video editor. The current implementation of flows (to me at least), seems to be more helpful as a way to deal with different movements within the same project, or the fantastic way of iterating any section of music for worksheets or footnotes, etc. As a composing idea catcher, it would be more robust if a dual role emerged for flows whereby different chunks of music as in the Digital Performer realm could be pinned to the various places in a score perhaps using flags and the enabled flag would be the music one hears and sees (and prints). I hope this makes sense.
This could be very, very powerful!!!
Anyone have other ideas as to how they are currently using flows, or ideas about future wishes for flows?
A very cool topic. I am sure that Daniel and team are perfectly aware of all of the above.
Personally, I wouldn’t put too much effort into developing “ideas”. There are so many resources out there - and free - youtube videos, free scores, tutorials, etc. Tinkling away at your piano, plucking the guitar, playing with 1,000,000 soft synths. If at this point you still need Dorico … seriously?!
However, I do think that there’s a great future for an integrated playback / notation program, and I hope that that is where Dorico is heading.
Flows! Great tool for exactly this. Especially as they can be opened in separate windows, separate monitors, copy and paste between, export them, import them the list goes on.
But I do want to highlight these applications and ask you to consider adding a useful feature to Dorico at some point. Robust + simple requires elegant work and planning. So I’m doubtful this is a v1 feature. But I just want to voice that for this one user at least, it’s important.