THE EVOLUTION OF SCORES (through the lens of the bass part of can of beans).
VERSION ONE: SOUND SPECTRUM EDITION
I wrote Can of Beans first, because that was the song that could be written as a text score, one of the easiest ways to read a score. In this version, there are three sections that the musicians jump between on cues. I enjoy this version, but when the theme of HW showed itself, using graphics was probably more the way to go.
VERSION TWO: FIRST REHEARSAL EDITION
This was one of those scores where I thought I was brilliant, I cracked it. There are sections, it’s more complex but not too complex that the players can still play it, it feels better. It was only in the rehearsals that I realised there’s no cue marks, and though the graphics were cool, there wasn’t a vocabulary to understand them through. And I wasn’t particularly sure what I even wanted out of the graphics, were they an indicator add white noise? How is that applicable to bass? Pull the cable out a centimetre? That would be pretty good, actually, but nothing I came up with at the time.
VERSION THREE: SECOND REHEARSAL EDITION
After figuring out the graphic identity and lexicon of HW, I wrote out all the parts again in this style. I think this was a good choice in the end, because I only dealt with one software for editing instead of jumping between my graphic software and Sibelius. This form was also good for getting a more precise idea of what I wanted out of each piece, by forcing me to use the staves. This also has the cues, something I forgot in the second version.
VERSION FOUR: FINAL EDITION
The final version, with some minor fixes to chords and clarity, very little things that go a long way.