finale finally + currently listening

I'm in about ankle-deep entering notes into Finale for this one French song that's finished. It's probably the most terrifying part of the process because MIDI sounds terrible and it always shakes me a little to hear something that sounded gorgeous on an acoustic piano farted into my ear by a shitty MIDI approximation of a flute. My first instinct is to think that the music is terrible rather than the "instrument" that's playing it. That being said, I don't have any plans to try and figure out how to make it sound good any time soon because, in my humble opinion, my time could be better spent doing something useful...you know, like blogging. So for now I guess I'll just have to pull myself up by my proverbial bootstraps and just find a good MIDI combination that works (I'm partial to the oboe sample as well as the sax family...but the flute is t-t-terrible).

All this Finale/MIDI talk brings up a good thought that's been festering for me. Whenever I'm at a premiere or something like that there is inevitably someone who comes up to talk shop about composition. That discussion always results in the question, "So do you use Finale or Sibelius?" And then we usually talk about the supposed huge contention about which one is better or some such thing. There are even people out there that think there is some sort of massive rivalry between the two competing brands. Like the Sharks and the Jets of music notation software or something like that. (If that's true then I want to be Bernardo...but would settle for Anita.) Is this really a huge deal?

That's just a half-formed thought but I think it bears mentioning. I do not understand people who can write on the computer. There is no way I would be able to do that because I don't think I could move fast enough to write at the speed of thought if I was hampered by a bunch of electronics. What can I say? I'm a pencil-in-hand guy and I have yet to meet someone who doesn't write this way. That being said, I know they're out there.

I bought two albums this past week that have been on a loop. Rufus Wainwright just put out a live album called Milwaukee At Last!!! and, although I am a huge Rufus fan, this album feels obligatory rather than inspired. There's nothing extraordinary about it like his last live album where he recreated Judy Garland's landmark 1961 Carnegie Hall set song for song. Don't get me wrong: it's a fine, fine album and I love hearing some of his songs rendered in a live performance (especially "Release The Stars" and a great cover of the Irish song "Macushla" sung with nothing but a brass ensemble), it's just that I wanted something more inspiring.

Someone handed me a copy of Ocean Eyes by Owl City on Monday morning and I think I've listened to the entire album at least once a day ever since. Owl City is the nom de plume for singer/songwriter Adam Young and, people, this music is incredible. It's digi-pop in the tradition of The Postal Service (he even sounds like Ben Gibbard at times) and there is something contained in this album that just sits right with me. It's optimistic but not naive. Repetitive but not boring. There are a few perfect songs on this album that people will struggle to live up to whenever they sit down to write music (this composer included).

And the have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too thing about it is that Young is from Minnesota! Specifically the town of Owatonna (the home of the company that makes the Finale software!) fifteen minutes from where I grew up. There's a strong possibility that we even had the same choir teacher in high school.

The only thing I'm worried about with this album is that it seems like the MTV culture is going to take it up as a cause célèbre and I think that the inevitable over-saturation that would result from this would really be doing this music a disservice. There's too much integrity in it for it to be whored out like that...not to put too fine a point on it.

Mahalo.