Talk:Music engraving

Comment

I just found out that there is a redirect from music manuscript to music engraving. Is there any particular reason for this? Matthias Röder 09:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

From reading this article it seems to me that there is a confusing terminology at work here. Historically, the word "engraving" referred to drawig music on a metal plate for the purpose of reproducing it mechanically. It seems that nowadays "engraving" refers also to producing extremely neat copies of music on paper and on the computer. Are there any references for this usage? And more importantly, how should we deal with this situation? Any thoughts? Matthias Röder 13:53, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the term has changed meaning. If you want a reference for this, see for example the 'Music engraving' section of the Sibelius Reference manual (which I wrote). Ben Finn 22:56, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Copyright?

It seems to me that music engraving could be considered copyright infringement. As I am not a legal expert, I wouldn't know this for sure, but it seems to me that if, for example, and piece of music is composed, with copyright, and someone hears this music and decides to engrave it in a music notating software such as Finale, this would violate copyright laws.

Just my 1/50th of a dollar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.226.224.166 (talk) 21:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Engraving per se is just a technique (or perhaps a number of techniques) for producing high-quality scores. It, by itself, is no more a copyright violation than tape recording or digital recording. You could engrave your own composition, for example, or engrave a work in public domain, or engrave a work with the permission of the copyright holder.

I am not sure if whether someone transcribing by ear a work for his own use would be considered a copyright violation, although I'd imagine there's little chance of being prosecuted if all you did was use your self-produced score at home.Wschart (talk) 16:42, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

"Virtually all modern composers are expected to . . . ."

From the section titled "Computer music engraving" (with emphasis added):

With the advent of the personal computer since the 1980s, traditional music engraving has been in decline, as it can now be accomplished by computer software designed for this purpose. There are various such programs, known as scorewriters, designed for writing, editing, printing and playing back music, though only a few produce results of a quality comparable to high-quality traditional engraving. However, scorewriters have many advanced features, such as the ability to extract individual parts from an orchestral/band score, to transcribe music played on a MIDI keyboard, and conversely to play back notation via MIDI. Virtually all modern composers are expected to understand and be able to use this method to engrave their music.

Let's just stop and . . . savor . . . that for a moment, shall we?

Virtually all modern composers are expected to understand and be able to use this method to engrave their music.

Um . . . "Expected" by who, exactly?

And (I can never remember, please remind me) is "Virtually all" a peacock term, or weasel words? (I always get those two mixed up.)

The contributor doesn't even pretend to have a source. He doesn't even cite a flawed or biased article that fails to back up the assertion!

I say there's probably quite a few experienced, successful composers, especially but not necessarily in the rock genres, who don't see it as their job to create professional-quality scores of their music. (Considering the ridiculous mistakes I see regularly in "Piano/Vocal/Chords" books, I know they don't fact-check their sheet music. It would be nice if "virtually all" composers did their own engraving!)

Recording and mixing are different from arranging and engraving, and generally, different people do those things.

If one needs to hire an orchestra or other ensemble, and the artist composes the arrangement himself (which isn't necessarily the case, outside the classical genre), and printed scores are needed -- separate parts, parts for the damned transposing instruments, aaargh, one can delegate that to a co-producer, arranger, assistant, or other. I mean, does anybody really see, let's say, Brian Wilson, or Paul McCartney, saying, "I'd like to record today, but I just haven't learned this darn engraving software well enough!" I don't see a lot of jazz composers letting that stop them, either. (I'm just not informed enough to reel off a list of impressive names.) I wouldn't think you can even say that strictly about classical-style composers. Not without a source.

Of course, some composers really do get into the nuts and bolts. I have no doubt that many composers DO prefer to engrave themselves. But there's a damn sight of difference between "many" and "most", much less "virtually all".

I've made my point, right? It goes? Out it goes!

--Ben Culture (talk) 22:09, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

+1 (and I am a composer; and I do use computer music typesetting). But the sentence is still in there - why?

And is the term really "Computer music engraving"? I havenever heard this, "computer note setting" or "computer music typesetting" seem more common.

--User:Haraldmmueller 18:41, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

I think that, in the UK at least, everyone studying music composition at degree level has been / will be taught proficiency in a score-writing software package. Perhaps this is what is meant and how it should be amended? PhilUK (talk) 08:02, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

I have removed the "offending" sentence - it was definitely not true as stated; and rewriting it to confer any useful information will most probably yield a long-winded caveat-loaded sentence ... --User:Haraldmmueller 09:52, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Traditional engraving techniques

It looks like this section could use some sprucing up. I'll expand it over the next few days and try to find some citations for the information that's already there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Limnby (talk • contribs) 19:03, 30 October 2014 (UTC)