How often are you notating or working on paper?

[Jeff Hayat]

Paper - what's that?

Oh yeah -


SAVE THE TREES!

[Moe Evans]

Not as large of a scale as you but I always need a chord chart in front of me. Must be a holdover from my marching band days.

[drBill]

Sometimes, but pretty rare these days. I can stay more "organized" in my orchestration on paper, but it puts an additional step between me and finishing, so I usually forgo it.

[soundslikejoe]

I don't mean writing EVERYTHING out long hand. More like taking notes, sketching chord progressions, writing out melodic themes, etc.

I've found that if I don't do that, my scores tend to be a bit disconnected from cue to cue. On projects where I take notes with notation, I get more mileage out of themes and better variations on those themes.

The piece I'm working on now is classic thriller/sci-fi and the main theme is based loosely on a tone row. With it written down and matrixed, I can just look at the page and find all my themes and chords without ever having to go back and listen to other cues or try to remember.

Just curious if others did the same.... guess the answer is some do and some dont.

[alexvdbroek]

Although I'm not technically a film composer. (Just a composer) I am dedicated to paper and pencil. I notate my final version on Sibelius for neatness. It has proven itself over and over and over to be the best way for me.

I actually have gone against the trend on this one. I learned to use Sibelius very efficiently in my early studies, but over time have shunned it for paper.

A.

[alwilts]

I often write skeleton scores out. If I've got harmonic movement I'll generally write out the chords, but if I've got melodies I'll often notate the bare bones before I start arranging it in a DAW.

I find that I often get bogged down in the arrangement if I jump straight into the DAW and often the music suffers.

[AwwDeOhh]

I have my own version of 'shorthand' that i use occasionally when i've got an idea in my head, but no where to flesh it out. But generally only 'write things out' when absolutely necessary for the odd session guy or what-have-you.

[JonManness]

Like soundslikejoe, I have manuscript to sketch or transcribe if I'm arranging. As soon as it makes sense on paper, though, it gets put into the DAW since the mockup is often the master recording.