Exploring Adaptable Art

...I almost forgot, yes in all this process I had another Learning Experience (No, not one of those!) I have only a little experience arranging music for other players.

..There was this one time in college with a jazz combo where we had a gig that I needed to draft some parts for some players--but it was a long time ago & I had the benefit of a pre-written arrangement to work from.

In any case, I wound up learning about range (what a real trumpet player would expect versus what a no-brain VST can handle), transposition & frankly using Cubase to pound out an acceptable-looking trumpet part.

For the uninitiated, scoring in Cubase goes a little like this.

1. Composers plays part into Cubase.
2. Composer looks at Cubase's score view of the part.
3. Composer scratches his/her head & asks WTF?

Well, as my composition instructor points out, what you see may play back the notes accurately, but a DAW will write everything with precise, metrical correctness. That means if you're off the beat, it will write things that way in the score.

But wait, there's Quantization to the rescue! My comp teacher, Hugh is an expert at this, but basically you've gotta tell Cubase what beat division to use to display what you've played, then you need to basically take some steps in the software to force Cubase to display what you've played so that a normal human musician can read it.

..The end result was a score that was usable. Please note that it took 4 tries in all to get something that worked. Here's what it finally looked like: