How I produce the notation

I've got several letter from people that would like to know how I've produced the notation for my compositions.

This how I usually do:

The notation

When I've got some ideas for a new tune I try to find a piece of paper to write down the notation. I usually don't do a recording since then I have to find a tape, check what's on the tape, rewind etc.
I'm usually out of proper notation paper so I take whatever I have and draw the five lines on them. I write down the notes, key signatures, chords etc:

I play the tune a couple of times, add/change notes, add repeat signs etc until the tune is finished.
I take the notation that is "just readable" and put it into Music Time for Windows. When doing this I usually find a lot of errors in the original notation - wrong note values and lengths etc. The notation program is able to play the notes and I could check that it sounds right. It can't play the chords though. Music Time for Windows is like a word processor for music:

I print out the notation from "Music Time for Windows" and play the tune on my accordion. Some chords may be wrong and I may want to change some notes slightly. I put the result into the notation program again.

The GIF images, the Postscript files

I use the "Prt Sc" key to do a screen dump from the notation program.
I start the Lview Pro graphics editing program and paste the screen dump.
I cut out the notation, reduce the colour depth to two bitplanes (B&W) and save it as a GIF:

I use my Logitech Pagescan Color scanner to scan a paper print-out from the notation program. I use the 300 DPI resolution.
I edit the scanned image in Lview Pro. I enhance the contrast, reduce the colour depth to 4 bitplanes (16 colours), delete any "dust spots", reduce the size (cut out the interesting part of the image) and then save it as a (300 DPI) GIF. I've done a lot of experimenting to find a way to use less bitplanes in order to reduce the files but I've never found a method for doing this. This is the result:

I change the printer to a Postscript printer (I don't have a Postscript printer). I then print to a (EPS) file from the notation program, using the Postscript printer driver.

Back to Hans Palm's Accordion Page: main page