Hi Christine,

I don't think there's anything you can do about the sco file
associations and will have to choose which program is more convenient
to you to have associated with the files.

As for your exercise of melody writing, I think it's a good exercise
to do, though you might not want to do a whole piece as it can be
quite a bit.  Maybe do as much as you feel is necessary to feel like
you have a good understanding of what is going on.  I think if you're
working and it feels like experimentation and exploration, keep going,
but if it starts to feel like tedium, stop and try something
different, maybe introducing another p-field to the simple sine
instrument to control articulation, etc.  Keeping in mind a musical
goal will help keep the exercise enjoyable and fruitful.

BTW, this brings up a general question I'd like to ask the list.  I've
been reading Max Mathews "The Technology of Computer Music", a text on
computer music and Music V from 1969 which has been very interesting
to read.  There are may aspects of it as a manual I think are
excellent which makes me see ways in which the current manual can be
further improved.  One aspect of the Mathews text I enjoyed and
thought would be good to have for Csound is it discusses a number of
note writing scenarios (in standard music score notation) and how to
achieve those with a combination of instrument design and note
writing.  Would a tutorial text or Csound Journal Article be found
useful to demonstrate these ideas, gradually starting with very simple
instrument/note writing and slowly adding more and more features, with
a graphic of a music score shown at each step?

(Also, i found interesting the fact that Music V had score generation
routines introduced as a part of the music making process.  It's
something which isn't inherent in Csound itself (unless you use
CScore, but that sort of requires a separate process outside of the
orc/sco/csd itself, while the Music V routines seem to be inline as
Fortran code).  Anyways, a side note to the conversation. )

Hope that helps and good luck!
steven




On 3/2/06, Christine L. Myers <levite247@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello!
>
>  First, I want to thank you all so much for giving me some great places to
> start!  I'm kinda just plunging in, looking at all the various aspects of
> creating music on a computer and you guys are helping me to know what a
> great pool it is to be in.  The command line thing was what was hanging me
> up before with cSoundVST, so now I'll study up on how to do that.  Which is
> the flag for real-time output?  I'd like to hear it right away, instead of
> having to go find the resultant wav file and play it in a seperate program -
> if it is possible.
>
>  Quick question - is there anything I can do to keep my computer from being
> confused about the sco files?  I have Sibelius, and it sometimes knows that
> they are cSound score files, and other times it thinks they are Sibelius
> Scorch files.  It looks like .sco is the same extension for both...maybe
> there is nothing I can do, except open whichever program first and then open
> the actual file I want instead of double clicking on the file in My
> Documents.
>
>  Do you all think it might be helpful for me to take my understanding of
> written musical notation to score files by writing out in csound some
> well-known public domain melodies (I'll probably use church hymns), using
> whatever basic sine wave I make in an orchestra file?   Or would that be
> counter-productive?
>
>  Thanks again for your help!
>  Christine
>