Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Engraving music yourself?

So I found a Czerny sheet music on IMSLP that I was interested in, but it's barely legible (like fax quality). As it's only 2 pages and not very complicated ... I ended up typesetting my own version on Sibelius 😇 The notation style is not exactly the same but I'd say it's pretty decent. Another bonus is that you can put in your own fingerings (the ones in the original don't quite work for me).

Has anyone ever done this? In this case I think it's worth doing considering the legibility problem, but it may not be feasible for longer works. And there is always a risk of introducing errors in the copying process, although the piece is easy enough to proofread.

Years ago. I had just taken a "music calligraphy" course through passed on notes, where the prof was a stickler about spacing, and I couldn't stand the spacing of the sheet I'd been handed from some unknown source. So I stopped practising and wrote it out:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u9m9c26cak9l7m7/tid2-myMedit.jpg?dl=0

This was the original:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vnabm8bcuqoomeh/tid3-theirMedit.jpg?dl=0

For example, in the first measure with notes, the half note takes up half the time in that measure but is squished into a quarter of the space. The prof suggested that proportions also give the musician reading the score a feel for timing, and this did seem to have an effect. Though my teacher at the time said that experienced musicians would not be that affected and besides, had to deal with some cr*ppy scores in their working lives.

When, I stop being lazy. I plan to rewrite all of Bach Inventions on another sheet.

I remember doing it when I was learning Prelude in C and it actually helped me understand the rhythm or the patterns much better in the piece, when you have to focus and write it down note for note there is definitely something there

This is also the same thing Bach did to Vivaldi concertos to learn how to compose.

Don't know why I don't see this recommended more, but I think it's a great exercise. I haven't tried it myself yet, but, I plan on doing it very soon.

Yes, I did that with Sibelius and I can turn a two pages in a three pages sheet music to help my eyesight.

In a fit of demented megalomania and overreaching I used PrintMusic years ago to translate Scriabin's Op. 42 No. 5 into something I could actually read.

Went from 6 pages in the Dover edition I used as a source to 7 in my PDF. That, plus entering my fingerings, made it a lot easier to read. (Still impossible to *play* though... sigh...)

I done that with Mozart's 23rd, the intro which isn't written for solo piano. There is probably a good reason why, but I enjoyed doing it anyway to the best o' my capabilities on "Flat" internet notation.
Thing is, now I know it, I no longer need the music . . .

I used original scores for checking as well as re-copying. Once my music group featured a piano solo doing the Bach Keyboard Concerto #1 BWV 1056. My violin part had a few typos so I got hold of the Bach original (in his hand writing) for comparison. Bach's handwriting isn't bad compare to many doctor's handwriting.

The next is an orchestral piece by the French Composer Joseph Bologne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges) the opera overture "l'Amour Anonyme" in his hand writing. A recent piece I re-entered the notes into the computer was the violin parts for Vivaldi Concerto XI. I got a copy based on an old copy that was handwritten. Not easy to read and when you get to the end of the page, you have half a bar at the bottom of the page and the other half of a bar on top of the next page so the bar # gets a bit confusing.

Isn't hard to check for mistakes. You compare the total # bars to make sure you end up with the same total. I'd break the lines exactly the same as on the original so that it's easier to check for mistakes before adjusting the # bars on each line if necessary. And always do a playback a few times and compare with a sound recording online when available. Some of the time I would find mistakes in the original score than the other way around. I'd put a note on my copy stating that a mistake was found and corrected.

In my school days the computer software option wasn't available my music teacher made students copy music by hand (pen & paper).

I do this all the time. Literally. I use Musescore, and it is possible to let them convert a pdf into a musescore file, even though the results of that process range from almost perfect to useless.
I am very particular in how I want my score to look, and I always change the fingering. I don't know though what I'll do once I start playing much longer pieces. I wish I knew somebody who does this as well, so we could exchange scores...

I can understand this involved process for illegible scores, but I’m having a hard time seeing how it should be used on every score. The question I have is one of time versus benefit: yes, it may make the rhythm notation clearer, but don’t you give up the ability to pick up an unaltered score and just play it with the notation provided?

If you’re not in the habit of altering all scores, you can recognize how many beats a dotted quarter note takes and when the next note should be played even if the alignment is not perfect.

Maybe I’m misinterpreting this process or don’t recognize the value, since I just play the music ‘as is’.

The musical repertoire is so great that it would be difficult to find someone who would want to exchange scores— as your choices in music would just seldom overlap.

I hope someone will discuss with a little more detail.

I agree with dogperson. It's like learning to read different handwritings. Not everything is always going to be perfect. You should be able to read even badly notated music.

If you have a lot of time on your hands and have nothing better to do (like practising your scales & arpeggios ), then re-writing perfectly legible printed music (I recommend by hand, like JSB) to suit yourself is fine. Personally, I'd spend the time writing my own original music - by hand, on manuscript paper, the way it's been done since time immemorial. As I can read what I write (though most people can't - it's on a par with Beethoven's in terms of legibility ), I don't need electronic means.

Actually, I don't have any electronic means of writing music, which is probably why all my music is perfectly playable (if you have the requisite technique), unlike some so-called composers who - because it's so quick & easy - chuck notes onto their computer screen which look impressive but are impossible to play or simply sound awful. But if they can't play themselves, it doesn't matter.......

Here's one I did. The original is from 1850, I added a missing measure and a few notes to make it more interesting.

Everything we do, it depends how, why, and to what purpose we do it. Anything can be a tool. Conversely, even a "good instruction" can become an empty ritual. So in terms of writing out music, random ideas:

- The time I wrote out the Meditation score that I linked, the act of doing so in the way I did it strengthened my awareness of time, meter, note value etc. A principle in pedagogy (I'm also a trained teacher), involving more senses strengthens learning. I'd come into formal learning after a lifetime of nothing but instinct, so things like timing were not well disciplined or precise. In the course I took, you tried to reflect the note value ratio in a measure. In 4/4 time, a half note took up half the space of the measure. A 5-tuplet lasting one beat, took up the space of 1/4 of the measure; two eighth notes took up the same space. A single whole note, in common sense, has a smaller measure rather than a wide space with one eensy circle in the middle. I found that after I did this exercise, my counting and timing in real time practice was stronger.

- Writing out passages might help you in one or the other way. If you have gained benefits, and benefits that are not a crutch, then you use it. In the classroom, people write notes. When we teach, we get students to do "reinforcing activities" and "learning activities" which should be part of any formal lesson plan. (esp. if during probation you are asked to produce one).

Writing out music because "you're supposed to", or "because Czerny asked the remote student to do so, therefore it's magic, is a dumb reason to do it.

- Personally, because of the way my musicking evolved, i.e. decades without a teacher and nothing taught in school, there are gaps and strange holes that I need to bridge. I can read music, but reading also evolved strangely. Sometimes when I play, I make sure to memorize part of the music, and then I stop mid-playing, look at my hands, and picture that note in the score, including register (my weak area). I may have a scribble-pad with me, and write out part of a passage, and also picturing the piano keys while doing so. It's my unique situation that got me to invent this. It would be stupid for someone else to do it, just because I do.

Whatever you do: why are you doing it, and what results is it giving you?

I engraved an Alkan nocturne in Finale, some years ago. The main reason was to get it onto four pages instead of six, so I could spread out the whole piece on my piano's music rack. I also engraved a Tagliapietra study, because the score I had was poor quality and too hard to read, and it had a typo or two that distracted me. I've engraved a few other things, for various reasons. Engraving is an interesting exercise, but can be time consuming. One thing it taught me is that there is a good deal in a score that I usually process fairly unconsciously, but engraving forces every little detail to be conscious.

Here the difference between an old photocopy of an original copy and the redone version is night & day. You can still read the notes off the old copy but the new one looks much cleaner and the notes stand out more.

If the old copy is in Vivaldi's handwriting, it is very neat but the new one is still more readable.

Do you guys not have jobs? Kids? Lives?
You have way too much free time

Do you practice piano? Yes? Don't you have jobs? Kids? Lives?
😆

Learning to play the piano as an older adult is hard enough as it is. When reading from a neat sheet of music with notes that are not too close nor too wide apart, fingering that is not crossed over and changed, makes it easier, then why not make it easier?


Why? I am not a professional, I just play for my own pleasure. And a tremendous pleasure it is!

If you like doing it then do as you please. I like to read large amounts of music for fun and don't think it would be worth the effort to go through this process just to play a piece once or twice.

Also as you pointed out yourself when you start playing longer works it no longer becomes practical to reformat everything. Fortunately, for the more serious works like Mozart and Beethoven sonatas there are many high quality prints available.

About fingering, it's easy to cross out and change it with a pencil. Don't you ever do that? If you just want to change the fingering then I don't think it's worth the effort.

I do short studies, and no, I would never copy the music to musescore if I only play a piece only for a couple of days!


No, I don't print my scores, I use an iPad.


Plus, many of those works are freely downloadable from Musescore, and then I can easily copy the notes into my preferred format.