![]() Some dreams might be too big to chase right now and we have to lay low for a while, work on what we can, and gather the resources over time to make them eventually come true. Other times, life delays the completion of a project and we have to pick up the ( maybe literal) pieces from where we left off and figure out how to bring everything together again. Something happens that has nothing to do with us and suddenly the thing we wanted to accomplish is no longer possible. Sometimes, failure to achieve a dream is due to something completely out of our control. ![]() It's immensely useful to me when I edit photos and especially when I edit video, so when Caitlin made the suggestion I knew right away what a great idea it was (she's pretty awesome like that, coming up with good ideas all the time). The ShuttlePRO is a hardware controller that features a shuttle wheel, jog dial, and 15 programmable buttons. Thankfully, Caitlin had a brilliant idea which eased the pain of Finale NotePad's limitation significantly: she suggested I use my ShuttlePRO v2 to facilitate note entry. So, if you have the eighth note selected everything you play comes in as an eighth note, and so on. It simply takes the pitch (MIDI note number) and inserts it on the selected staff at the specified duration. It does not analyze note duration, song tempo (either through MIDI clock or inferred from your playing style), or other data such as pitch bend. To my disappointment but not to my surprise, Finale NotePad (free software) is pretty limited in how it accepts and interprets MIDI data. It was a momentous (if undramatic) experience. I opened a blank document in Finale NotePad and when I pressed a key the note appeared before my eyes. ![]() When I opened Finale NotePad, it recognized the UM-ONE and set it as the default MIDI IN device. Getting everything hooked up was a simple enough affair - I simply opened up the Roland USB/MIDI interface, installed the driver from the included CD, and then plugged the MIDI ends into the PSR-6300 keyboard and the USB end into my computer. As I near completion of a first draft, I'd like to record a demo of it, and preparing the arrangement in Studio One now will save me a lot of time later. With a better idea of how the song needs to progress, I discarded the initial arrangement and have begun composing the song in PreSonus Studio One which allows me to approach it a little differently and offers more tonal variety. In addition, I developed a better chord progression for the chorus that incorporated a descending bassline as the musical peak of the song is reached. It went much more smoothly, and I found a couple of spots where the chords I had written didn't flow as well as I would have liked so I swapped them out for different ones. With the song (or part of a song anyway) transcribed into a more comfortable key, I sat down at our piano and played through what I had done so far. I took the chord chart I had written up and transposed the chords over. Because of this I decided to move up a fourth, from the key of G major to the key of C major. I could sing an octave up but found that it was at the upper edge of my comfortable, non-falsetto range. I was able to hum the part quietly while working out the melody because it was in the lower portion of my range, but when it came time to sing out, the notes were difficult to project. When I got home from work today I tried to play and sing the song for the first time, and I found that it was not in a great key for me. However, as I started to sketch out ideas in Finale NotePad, the initial idea came back to me and I developed it into perhaps 2/3 of a song. For all my trying, though, I still forgot most of it by the time I got to work. A basic verse and concept for a chorus came to me so I did my best to remember them until I could write them down somehow. This morning in the shower I realized I ought to (and would like to) write a worship song for Easter.
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