Brendan's first composition

[celticdragonfly]

Brendan has composed his first piece of music.

He'd been trying to write out music staves himself, and gets confused as to how many lines. I'd told him five each. He brought the page to me and asked me to draw the lines. I did, and put the treble and bass clefs by them. I got the bass clef backwards, I do that sometimes, he corrected it We didn't put a key in or a time signature, he doesn't know that stuff yet. Off he went with it. Rikki from school drew a picture for him that was in his backpack, almost a valentine's type of thing, and I'd suggested he draw a picture for her in return, and he said he wanted to write her a song. Well, he did. I looked at it later. Okay, he doesn't know from measures yet. I just plugged the thing into Finale NotePad, making my best guess as to what notes went in what measure. Comes out 5 measures long. Okay, the kid's not Mozart, but actually, it's not bad.

I think I'm going to kidnap this piece of music and at LEAST get it photocopied before I let him give it to anybody. Maybe scanned, if I can get access to a scanner. And does anybody know how to turn a Finale file (.mus) into a wav file or something like that, that I could post online?

Comments

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

Well, you may be able to export it into a MIDI file, and get it played that way. MIDI being basically a form of notation, which when combined with software instruments is what you're looking for.

If you take a digital photo, given how short it is perhaps someone could play it on a piano and record that or something? I'm afraid it's beyond me, but friendslists are amazing things.

I hope this girl is appropriately receptive to his gift. :-)

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

I am able to play it in Finale NotePad. I can save that as a webpage and post it - in fact I have, http://www.kelthaven.org/Brendan/gotojoy1.html . But then you have to scroll down and download the music viewer plug in from Finale - and I can't get it to work. Now, that may be my computer - it has some serious problems. If anybody else would like to try that for me, and let me know if it works?

[technomom]

For future need, there are quite a few web sites with free printable staff paper out there.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

I found some online yesterday and sent the link to selenite so he could print some and bring it home. I've told Brendan he can use some tonight. No, not now dear, the school bus will be here any moment!

Interesting reaction he had to me playing it for him this morning in Finale NotePad - "Is that what you meant it to sound like, Brendan?" "No. Yes." [frustrated look, pause] "I want more notes."