Sigh. A long and hard day of tedious note-by-note scoring of the music from Music Of Poetic Objects. These tunes were generally MIDI recordings of strangely timed piano (I never use or would want to use a metronome, the point of playing is emotional expression, not quantised death). Those recordings were then augmented with string layers and other instruments. This way of working makes these difficult to score. Some more recent scores can use a Prometheus feature that lines up the beats/bars with the notes, even when the timing is expressionistic, but these old sequences never did that.
For 'Dreams if a Fly in Amber' the tune is relatively simple (not all over the place like the 'Rat Rock' tune), but even so the timing is far from regular, so I must start by approximately lining up the notes, exporting that as a MIDI file, then tidying up the notes as a MIDI sequence, exporting again, then importing into MuseScore, then going through the tune with every other instrument, one by one, and adding the notes manually. Here there are hand bells (well, one), three layers of strings (violin/violin/viola), cello/bass, brass (a horn in a somewhat high register), and a bass drum. This covers all of the instruments used, making it a detailed score.
This has taken at least 6 solid hours today. As with many of the scores, some aspects are not notated. The dynamics are often not done, or merely hinted on (I've made an effort). Strings don't include the strokes, no pedalling and few expression clues on the piano. Yet, that can be done later when needed, and done by anyone. People manage to play Bach without such markings. This first step is the crucial one.
I started to notate 'The Rat Rock' too, but the piano there is crazy. The tune is swung and it took me some time to realise that some notes are triplets, my first notated use of such things. To actually record the tune I just improvised it all; instant and easy, but nightmarish to copy exactly. This one is recorded in correct time, that is where the bars and beats match the sheet music, so most of the instruments are easy to extract, but the piano notes need entering manually - and for 'Rat Rock', these can be a staggering explosion of notes, all over the place.
I've tackled the first, easy verse. That (and simple variations thereof) was all I played for the actual live performance in Stockport. Even with the two-and-a-third scores done so far, there is more to do, more markings and enhancements. Well, I knew this album would be hard work, and without reward apart from a sense of completeness, the life affirmation of the job of tidying which all living things aspire to.
As with all of my scoring, it is all perhaps a complete waste of time; but who can say. Last night I read Kafka's diaries from 1911, in which he writes a lot and complains about how he has no time to write, no space; yet, here I am, over a century later, reading his little diary which he would have been amazed to know is published, sold, read, and enjoyed across the world. I have few such hopes of my music ever being played, but a necessary first step is to write it out. Perhaps one day, perhaps even soon, AI could transcribe this by electronic 'ear'; but it can't now. Could an AI ever be fed a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and produce something that looked like the actual score?
