194 lines
9.1 KiB
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194 lines
9.1 KiB
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
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<TITLE>Review: Music Publisher LG #28</TITLE>
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<center>
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<H1><font color="maroon">Product Review: Music Publisher</font></H1>
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<H4>By <a href="mailto:bvdpoel@kootenay.com">Bob van der Poel</a></H4>
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</center>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<P>If you are a musician, you can only cry about the lack of music programs
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which run under Linux. Yes, there are many CD players, sound editors, etc.
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But, when it comes to notation programs your choices are severely limited.
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My search for notation editors (a program which will produce printed sheet
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music) has turned up three choices: </P>
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<OL>
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<LI>The graphical program Rosegarden (http://www.bath.ac.uk/~masjpf/rose.html).
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This is a very interesting program which tries its best to be all things.
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It has a notation editor which handles most of the normal editing functions,
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a midi sequencer which will play music from the notation editor as well
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as record data from a midi keyboard, and the ability to import midi files
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and convert them to notation. Sounds wonderful...but, unfortunately, Rosegarden
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is a work in progress and simply doesn't do all it is supposed to, or does
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them awkwardly. I have been unable to get the sequencer to work using my
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Gravis Ultra soundcard; and I find that the notation editor is tedious
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to use since there are no keyboard accelerators for entering note data.
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In addition there is no easy way to print music. Rosegarden does have a
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option to export files in MusicTex, OpusTex and PMX (a preprocessor for
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MusiXTex). I tired some of the combinations, but was not really all that
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impressed by the output. However, the biggest problem I have with Rosegarden
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(and a lot of other music editors) is that they work on the music as if
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it were a long string. This means changes to the start of the music work
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there way to the end of the chart. For example, if in bar one of a piece
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you have four quarter notes and you wish to change to the first quarter
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to two eights, you first change the first quarter to an eighth, then insert
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an eighth. When the first change is done, everything to the right of the
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edit point is reformatted with the result that none of the music is now
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in the correct measure. Of course, inserting the second eighth fixes this.
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But, if you have several staves of music and you do a few edits, it is
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really easy to mess the entire piece up.<BR>
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<BR>
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</LI>
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<LI>The various TeX music systems. I must admit that I did not spend a
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lot of time with any of the variants. I can handle LaTeX for word processing,
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but the music variants seemed to be pretty complicated to use, all in a
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state of beta, and none seem to produce what looks like a finished work.
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<BR>
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<BR>
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</LI>
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<LI>MUP. This, at first look, would probably be the last program to pick.
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But after a fair bit of testing I have decided to use it. So far, I'm happy
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with my choice. </LI>
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</OL>
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<P>Quoting from the user's manual: "The music publisher program called
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'Mup' takes a text file describing music as input, and generates PostScript
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output for printing that music. The input file can be created using your
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favorite text editor, or generated from any other source, such as another
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program. The input must be written in a special language designed especially
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for describing music."</P>
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<P>Unlike Rosegarden (and the Windows offerings) MUP does not operate in
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a WYSIWYG environment. As a matter of fact, the MUP distribution doesn't
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even have a means of editing music. MUP uses plain text files which look
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much like source code for a program as its input. Use vi, emacs or whatever
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your flavor of editor is. Then, process the file with MUP to create postscript;
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and finally print the postscript file. If you don't have a postscript printer
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you'll need ghostscript to print things out. And ghostview is handy for
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screen previews. MUP uses lines of text to describe a piece of music. </P>
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<P>For example, here are the first few bars of Bye Bye Blackbird: </P>
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<UL>
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<LI>1: 8g;c+;e+;g+;g;b&;c#+;g+; </LI>
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<LI>bar </LI>
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<LI>1: 8g;b;d+;f+;4g+;g+;</LI>
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<LI>bar </LI>
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<LI>1: 8g;c+;e+;g+;g;b&;c#+;e+; </LI>
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<LI>bar </LI>
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<LI>1: 4g+;b;c+;c#+; </LI>
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<LI>bar</LI>
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<LI>1: 4d+;c+;a;f;</LI>
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<LI>bar</LI>
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</UL>
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<P>The "1:" at the start of each line is the staff/voice indicator
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(in this example it refers to staff 1 and, since there is no additional
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argument, voice 1). Following the staff/voice are the notes for the measure.
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The first measure has an eighth note g, eight note c, etc. The next measure
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has several eight notes as well as two quarter notes. At first this might
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seem to be a bit difficult to follow, but in no time at all it does make
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sense. </P>
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<P>A MUP score can contain up to 32 staves of music, each with two voices.
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Each voice can have multiple notes (or chords)...so complex arrangements
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are quite possible. In addition to the actual staves, you can also include
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lyrics, musical symbols, etc. </P>
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<P>I started to use MUP when I started to play saxophone in a small combo.
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We all play from fake-type music (chords, lyrics and the melody line).
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But I'm not the greatest sax player in the world and find it pretty hard
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to transpose from C to B flat while sight reading. So, I started to rewrite
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the C charts in to B flat by hand. I find anything which needs a pen to
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be tedious, which is what led me to try MUP. After a few practice charts,
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I can enter a page of one line music with lyrics in about an hour. And
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since MUP can produce MIDI files as well as doing transpositions, it really
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works well for what I needed. I can print the music in different keys for
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everyone in the combo, and I can create a midi file in the right key for
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practicing at home. </P>
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<P>I have included the actual mup file I created for <A HREF="blackbird.mup">Bye
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Bye Blackbird</A> and a <A HREF="./gx/poel/blackbird.jpg">printed music</A> image.</P>
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<P>Flushed with the success of doing these simple charts, I decided to
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try a more complex task. I also play in a fifteen piece dance band. Most
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of the music we play is arranged by our leader, but recently some of the
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members have doing them as well. So, I decided to give it a try. My first
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arrangement of the old standard <A HREF="fever.mup">Fever</A> took the
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better part of two days to complete. It is arranged for 11 voices on 6
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staves. We played it the other night and I was pleased--not only was everyone
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impressed by the appearance of the charts, it didn't sound to bad either.
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I have printed out the first page of the <A HREF="./gx/poel/fever.jpg">conductor's
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score</A> .</P>
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<P>If you would like to see some of my other arrangements, I have posted
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them along with a copy of this review from <A HREF="http://www.kootenay.com/~bvdpoel">http://www.kootenay.com/~bvdpoel</A>.</P>
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<P>I certainly don't have room in this short review to cover all the features
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of a complex program like MUP. Just a few of the more useful items I've
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been using are if/else statements to produce charts for different instruments,
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file includes to read in my own "boiler plate", and macros to
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make my input files easier to create, read and revise. </P>
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<P>MUP comes complete with well written, 99 page users manual in postscript
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(you'll have to print it out), as well as the the same information in HTML
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format. Equally impressive is the customer support available via email.
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I've sent a number of queries to the authors and have received courteous,
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timely replies to each and every one. </P>
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<P>MUP is not free. You can download a working copy of the program, the
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source code if you want it, and the manual from <A HREF="http://www.Arkkra.com/">http://www.Arkkra.com</A>.
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The program is a complete working copy--however it prints a "this
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is an unregistered copy" watermark on all pages of the score. MUP
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registration is only $29.00, after which you get a license which turns
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off the marks. This is a pretty low price to pay for such a well thought
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out program. </P>
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1998, Bob van der Poel <BR>
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Published in Issue 28 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, May 1998</H5></center>
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