[Denemo-devel] music samples

[Richard Shann]

I have had a Good Idea. We can easily store fragments of music (as we do
when we push the Denemo Clipboard), and then insert these wherever
needed in a composition.
For my work I would want to do this when entering the rhythm of a piece
- some quite complicated rhythmic patterns (involving grace notes,
tuplets, slurs, ties and articulations) are often repeated, and take a
fair amount of mental effort to create. By storing them and just
recalling them at the points needed I think I will get a faster input.
(Astute followers of Denemo will feel they heard this before: correct,
the rhythm pattern toolbar allows you to store a rhythm and then follow
it as you play in notes; this goes further, as the whole of the music is
stored, not just the rhythm).

 I suspect some composers will also find it useful to be able to
repeatedly paste motifs into their scores. There is also the possibility
(later) of making these stored motifs persist (ie get stored with the
music) and by giving them a reference count achieve the holy grail of
computer-aided composition: riffs/motifs/samples etc which are created
once and re-used by reference, so that changing the riff changes all the
occurrences of it in the music.

Here are my notes on how this could be done (it is virtually trivial):

music samples - clipboards stored as/with rhythm patterns
When you hit Create Pattern (=> New) it pushes the clipboard then d-Copy
and then PopOffClipboard which takes the top most clipboard and attaches
it to the rhythm pattern.
So the rhythm pattern acts as an icon for the stored snippet of music,
and it can be clicked on to paste. These icons will appear on what is
currently called the rhythm toolbar, it will need to be re-named music
samples; it will still function as a follower for entering notes
following its rhythm.
So you can paste the music sample (clipboard) anywhere at any stage.
Needed: ability to fix this toolbar so that it does not vanish with the
Line View (where all menus etc are hidden), since you would need it for
entering music.

Also, MIDI default should be to play non-printing notes using percussion
channel. A command to remove the pitches from a piece would give a way
of preparing music exercises: remove the pitches and the user creates
(by playing) a new melody for the given rhythm.
Well, that is two Good Ideas:)

Richard