Violin sound.

[Retired]

Hi,

This morning didn't go as planned what a surprise. We arrived at the hospital on time and usually this hospital is nice and quiet as I wait allowing me to read my magazine "The Strad" however there were electrical contractors installing very heavy mains supply cables complete with big control panels; this of course not to complain about; there's a long corridor and a lady in hard soled shoes walked up and down this corridor many times making more noise than the electricians; I closed the mag and just waited.

I'm struggling trying to enlarge "Somewhere my love" music score removing unwanted parts but enlarging wanted parts;



I'd like to increase height of each section seen making it easier to see but so far all I've done is waste half a day; I've tried using Gimp; Irfanview; Microsoft snip and even Emachine shop CAD. Here's what an original page looks like;



I can't yet read music and the two books still haven't arrived so I've been trying to get ready for when they do arrive; with a normal score on my desk music stand I have problems with the print size so I thought it wouldn't be a problem to cut out parts and increase the height of the parts I want to keep but here I go again on another steep learning curve. The full sheet seen at the bottom printed badly at first until I set the printer to 600dpi from 300dpi making it much clearer.

I have an A4 sized scannner which I used to scan the score onto my computer then I can print or edit.

For many years I've used "Microsoft snip" which is incredibly useful but even this is being phased out for an updateed version; I can copy any file type by opening Snip then using Snip to frame it using the rectangular tool and when saved it can then be easily opened. I can highly recommend Snip.



I've just used snip to copy this it being incredibly easy.

I'll keep at it and I'm learning all the time. Another day slips rapidly by.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[rob aylestone]

Microsoft snip and then any old paint app should let you copy and paste enlarging as you go. At a push Microsoft word or the free open office let’s you do this pretty simply. My grandson does much of his homework at my house and can do it on any of the computers can do it. Snipping lines of music and pasting it into word or paint is pretty straightforward. I don’t think you should need any extra software

 

[TalismanRich]

Here is page 1 zoomed and cropped into two pages oriented horizontally. Try printing these in landscape format. That should make it pretty big.

 

[Retired]

Hi,

Many thanks once again rob; you make it look so easy and of course it always is once you know how; it's very decent indeed of you to keep pointing me in the right direction.

I've spent a frustrating day trying to get to grips with snip; Irfanview; Gimp & Word and so far only managed this;



I've cut out the bits I don't want and have painstakingly cropped and resized as seen; I've copied and pasted each crop into Word but it's all over the place and when I print it comes out a lot smaller than expected; I'm trying to get this onto full A4 to fill the page and to print out full page size; it's driving me round the bend; a five year old could do better than this but I'm a dinosaur so it might take six months but I'm stubborn. It does however show what I'm trying to achieve.



I also managed the above but don't yet know how to increase the height of each line again hoping to fill the A4 page. Not easy by trial and error; I need to go back to infants school?



Good news though one of the books kindly recommended by @Slouching Raymond has finally arrived today it's "The little book of music theory and musical terms". what an excellent little book; I've only had time to browse through it but I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot from it.

I've tired myself out concentrating all day at the keyboard so tomorrow I'll resume where I left off. I think I'm in for some welcome peace over the next few days nothing hanging over me at the moment; the days though are disappearing at an alarming pace.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

On the blowing up issue, some years ago I bought what was an expensive A3 colour inkjet printer, although I've hardly used it.
It may be possible to take an A4 page of sheet music, and print it out on an A3 printer, telling it to 'fill the page'.
You might get somewhere just telling your A4 printer to blow it up in landscape mode, to get it to print the image over 2 sheets., then tape them together.
Or plan B, talk to one of those 'photographs printed on canvas' traders, to pick his brain for suggestions.

The books are pretty friendly, and not dry academic texts, which helps.

 

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks Raymond for your interesting suggestions.

Months ago I wanted to copy a A2 full sized Strad violin diagram giving all sizes in order to make a violin including tools and clamps etc; I tried all over locally without success so in the end I used my A4 scanner to scan sections and as you kindly suggest I joined the ones I wanted to work on; this took ages to sort out but in the end I had exactly what I wanted;



I've made the knives to exact sizes having printed paper templates and cut them out.



Here's one quarter to exact size of the Strad violin.


Here's the full sized A2 drawing; I've been absolutely bogged down with jobs demanding my attention around home and gardens this year so had to leave making a violin alone although eventually I do intend to make a violin from scratch; I've also bought the correct wood from Poland it costing £110. Time is my enemy.

Here I am again having to learn from scratch how to modify the music score to suit me which I thought would be ever so easy; how wrong could I be. I've been playing around with the score this morning getting nowhere fast but I'll not quit until I succeed in achieving what I want to do; I'm too thick to know when to give up.

Ideally Raymond my plan is to enlarge the parts of the music score I want to use and discard the rest printing to A4 size then I can place three A4 sheets on my music stand. I have reading glasses which are useless for viewing music scores whilst playing the violin; I also bought a pair of magnifying glasses but having to remove my prescription glasses and putting these magnifying glasses on I was virtually blind everything just being a blur; I've not tried eye laser treatment and don't intend to so in order to read a music score whilst playing my violin the best option I can think of is to simply (?) enlarge the music score to suit me; I just need to spend more time learning. I'm sure once I find out how to do this I'll kick myself because I always do things the hard way; if there are 99 wrong ways to do something I'll do the wrong thing 104 times because I can make the same mistake a few times; one thing's certain I'm never bored; I was thinking about this in bed at 4:30 this morning; my head never stops buzzing with ideas.

I can of course print out each line after enlarging which is very easy and cut the lines out pasting or taping to a backing sheet and I'll do this before being beaten but now I've started I want to learn how to do this enlarging the correct way; I've been watching YouTube videos but not yet succeeded; I have emachineshop CAD which is brilliant but it won't accept music sdheets to play around with;




I can do this kind of thing but how strange I struggle with simple text editing. I might be over thinking the problem.

I have a friend who before retiring worked in printing so a word in his ear might help. Violin practice is on hold until I sort myself out.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[rob aylestone]

Probably not something you fancy, but most modern TVs can be connected to computers - VGA, or HDMI connections are common, and you could play from the computer - no need for paper at all, just have it on your computer and play it on a big TV. It's really common now for pro musicians playing live to use ipads and other gizmos, and change pages by swiping or more commonly now, with a foot switch. If you have an old big screen TV, you could have the music as huge as you fancy. If you have prescription glasses that work OK, have you thought about maybe finding a way to just get the music closer. There are all sorts of things you could do. I have progressives and they need carefull angling, but I've discovered I can cope better by changing how I play. I discovered that looking at my hands on the keyboard put me into the position where I could not read an old fashioned music score on the stand. My solution was to move my head so the music was readable, and then not look at my hands. I discovered that looking down was actually a comfort thing, and I didn't need to with a bit of practice.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

I tried the big screen idea Rob, with a full HD tv, but the little laptop had a lower resolution screen. What I got was that same low resolution image in the middle of the tv screen, with acres of black around it. It works fine with my new full HD music laptop.
You could set the big screen as 'Portrait', and direct the computer's output to just the big screen.
I believe browsers can open pdf files directly now (I think firefox does), and you can zoom the web page within the browser.

I practiced a bach duet with another bloke at the local guitar society.
We had our big moment, performing it to the society members.
The playing went pretty well, - but he messed it all up twice, by trying out his new foot-pedal tablet page turner for the performance.
He kept jumping more than one page, and we had to restart again and again.

 

[Retired]

Hi,

Many thanks once again rob for your continuing help and advice; I do have a laptop in the studio and actually opened part of the music score where I could enlarge it from "Pictures image of a full page" but it was only one page and with my set up it meant having to stop to click the next page; your foot pedal suggestion would take care of this if set up correctly and is a good solution saving me no end of editing with paper scores.

As you know a violin needs a bit of space in order to be played and it's this causing me problems; my studio is small and my eyesight not the best so I'm struggling.

It's infuriating me though;



I can now easily enlarge to paper using Gimp but now printing is another huge hurdle; it never ever lets up; I have an old version of Word and to update I believe it now costs money; this version I have the page set up and the printer set up they are messing me around; why can't it be straghtforward just for once; I've got the enlarged sections all I need to do now is stack them on an A4 page and this is proving difficult; I didn't have problems designing my own score using words alone and it worked perfectly for me;



This is what I wanted to do with a proper music score removing a lot of unwanted sections which I've done by editing using Gimp but it sure drives me mad. I think I might need binoculars rob; I keep trying my best and I've not yet given up on modifying music scores which if I'm successful will sort me out for the future.

I don't think I'll go to the trouble trying to set up a foot pedal but the idea is good; thanks Raymond for the information it will save me trying to use a foot pedal.

I know I'm downright stubborn but I would prefer enlarged sheet music which would be my best option; having wasted lots of time my Kaizen training kicked in this afternoon; I've gone back to basics and having used Gimp for over ten years on a need to know basis rather than waste more time I used my head;

https://www.gimp-forum.net/Thread-Editing-music-scores-help-please

One way or another I'll succeed. Having given this problem some thought I decided to try a different way and browsed the web for a Gimp Forum; it was just a guess but I know Gimp has been around for a long time so I was pleased to register and start asking questions; I do fully appreciate all help thus far received so if I'm successful I can give something back.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[TalismanRich]

I tried stepping on the mouse, but the little bugger kept biting my toes, so I quit!

Sorry, it must have been the bourbon's fault....

 

[Retired]

Hi,







It's taken all day but I've now got what I wanted; I used Gimp to delete the unwanted sections then used "Grid" and "Unified Transfer" to reposition and enlarge what was left; I used 8.5" x 1.75" grid spacing although could have even made the heights a little taller. It's been a ballistic learning curve but as the day progressed I became a lot quicker using the tools even skipping some as I found shortcuts. I'm highly grateful to Krikor on the Gimp forum for pointing me in the right direction.

I've printed the three pages so am now ready to move on learning to read violin music. It's been challenging and interesting learning how to change the music score to suit me but now I can change any music sheet in future.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[Retired]

Hi,

I've now received both the books you kindly recommended Raymond which is good timing after sorting out my music score to suit me; I can now move on to learning how to read violin music and am well on my way because I can already play a violin just needing to pull everything together. A lot to look forward to and winter in which to practice hopefully in peace.



Kind regards, Colin

 

[rob aylestone]

Colin - those books should nail it for you, but they're not easy at first, but all of a sudden the light will go on - good luck!

 

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks rob; I never do easy as witnessed over the last few days trying to do something I thought would be easy; I've briefly glanced through both books finding them highly interesting; I understand the very basics but now need to put each note on the music sheet to the correct note on a string also I need to understand note length etc; learning to play my violins has taken over anf there's no going back now I've come this far.

Today I've spent catching up on forums and mail it all taking time; time which disappears at an alarming pace. I can combine the books with YouTube videos; I'm good at researching things I don't know.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

They are friendly books. I read them right through, and still refer to them, now and then.
Note lengths are important, and counting them out in your head as you play helps.
If you post your recordings Colin, we'll all see the improvement.
Onwards and upwards!

 

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks Raymond; the two books look very interesting and I'm sure will be hugely helpful; I'll read both through first then go through more slowly; I'm not the sharpest tool in the kit but I get there in the end.

I find posting on YouTube very time consuming but posting my music onto forums is much quicker so hopefully as I make progress I can update; thanks for your encouragement. I've not been into the studio to play my violins for days due to spending so much time on Gimp and clearing other things out of the way but now I think I can get into the studio in peace at last.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[Retired]

Hi,

Yesterday evening I finally settled down to reading "The Little Book Of Music Theory" you kindly recommended Raymond; the basics start at Page 7 and by page 8 I'd already lost the plot; little made sense to me apart from the white notes referred to on a piano; I must be thick. I'm playing only violins;




Above is what I've got used to and understand with violin string postions and notes at G, D, A, E.




I wondered if the notes shown on page 8 were for violin or another instrument so browsed YouTube and found guitar strings are arranged differently and Viola string notes are different. I read to page 27 when concentration faded.

I'm determined to learn how to read violin music and to play my violins so yesterday I also bought this;




You did say I'd have to grapple with it Raymond and I fully accept this so I'm grappling; I'm now caught up giving me lots of free time so I'll study both books you kindly recommended; I've not been into the studio for days so I've some catching up today. I've all winter ahead of me to read books and practice playing; it's definitely very interesting and a wonderful challenge so any novice reading my progress please don't be put off after all I'm a late learner now aged 75; kids these days think 40 is old so I must be a real dinosaur to them.

"Colin - those books should nail it for you, but they're not easy at first, but all of a sudden the light will go on - good luck!" Thanks for this rob and for your good wishes; the light hasn't gone on yet so I must be having a power cut?

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[rob aylestone]

I think all that's happened is that you've been introduced to other ways of displaying notes. Using me as a good example - once the notes go below that bottom or top line they have to sit on little short ledger lines, and these, if there are more than a couple confuse. As viola, cello and basses are lower and lower, there are other ways to display them on the five lines - your one is the treble clef - with the flamboyant curly sign - that has the usual EGBDF notes on the lines, going up/ Those other clefs are the Alto one - which just lets viola players have less of those ledger lines. Ignor that one, and ignore the bass clef too - the one with a sort of backwards 'C'.

Just carry on learning the treble one - with the GADB tuning for the open strings.

Just shout whenever you take a step too far and we'll sort it. even if it's what you think is a silly question - we don't mind.

 

[Retired]

Hi,

Many thanks rob; yes I'll certainly ask; I was always the one in meetings at work who dare ask the silly questions. After posting this morning I then started on the second book as kindly recommended by Raymond it being "Essential Dictionary of Music Notation" and this time made a bit of progress; only the first few pages covering "Accidentals" and with the aid of YouTube videos I'm starting to understand.

The book I ordered yesterday "How To Play Violin In 14 Days" has just arrived; brilliant service. I've just glanced through it and I think I'll make better progress with this book because it covers violins and appears to be like I already understand a bit so I can build on it. If I get stuck I'll ask but I don't like to mess anyone around and will always try to help myself first. I'm not going mad trying to learn everything at once but am pacing myself in order to take it in bit by bit; there's a lot to learn and once I've got the basics I'm sure I'll quickly speed up. I've struggled so hard to get studio time which really has slowed me down but now I've got the time I need at last.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[rob aylestone]

One thing I used to do when having to play by sight - was playing the next note because my brain knew what was coming - when I should have read the note, not remembered it. Your Lara's them will at some point become 'muscle memory' and then your reading will suffer. I know you want to get Lara's Theme done properly, but break it up with something else, and work on two. This prevents your memory starting to take over. Before long, you will automatically start to play. Few people can say this doesn't happen, and I think memory makes you better - BUT - it really spoils reading the notes. I'm having exactly this problem with my new idea to learn how to read proper piano music. Reading lots of notes at once is hard for me, and I am playing slowly, but accurately, but as soon as I don't turn the page, I'm running on memory, and not reading. Bad habit of mine - don't start doing it.

Good to hear about the accidentals - another good thing to get comfy with. I found a sort of barrier once I needed to go above 2 sharps or flats, and it took a while to get over that one.