Encore Transcription Milestone: All of My Pieces Entered w/Fingerings

As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm entering every piece in my set into Encore so I'll have Encore files, MIDI files, and MIDI to M4A files of every piece in my set. That way, I'll be able to practice along with MIDI files versus just a metronome while reading the music. This will greatly facilitate memorization as well as precision execution of the music.

Well, I've chosen the path of least resistance: First I transcribed all of the preludes in my set, because I had old PDF's of those, and every suite in my set begins with one of my Figuration Preludes (That was 13 pieces, right there), and then I did all of my Axial Studies, since the second piece in most of the suites are Axial Studies (That's another 18 pieces), then the rest of my miscellaneous pieces (Another 12 pieces), so I've completed Urtext and Fingering versions of 43 pieces (86 files total). Whew!

Next, I'm going to transcribe all of the standard repertoire classical pieces I play - Urtext and fingered versions - and then I'll do the contemporary pieces, both versions, as well. After all of the pieces are entered, I'll go back and create a third version of each with the string and position indications, and finally I'll add the performance indications and expressions. So eventually, there will be four versions of each, for a total of over 250 Encore files!

I haven't been so absorbed by a project since I finished composing my first guitar sonata at the end of 2007.

Encore 5 renders absolutely gorgeous PDF files:



This is a 700 pixel wide maximum resolution JPG screen cap I did. For the original PDF, look here. If you have a wide screen monitor like my 23" Cinema HD Display, you can fill the screen up with your browser and the resolution will still be perfect. That's pretty amazing. Encore 4 was not WYSIWYG, so what you ended up with was a bit of a guestimation, but Encore 5 is WYSIWYG, so what I see in the application window is exactly how the PDF turns out. Infinitely superior.

As I do each version, I'm tweaking things like measure widths and note placement, so for the third and fourth versions, I'll tweak the fingering indication placements. This is a great way to work, as each version gets better, and the final ought to be close enough to perfect for even me.

I believe I'll relax with some beers and watch DVD's tonight... which reminds me, Terminator: Salvation, The Director's Cut is available now. I'm ordering it!

It's been a while since we had a redhead.