The computer and book battle rages on

My old Dell laptop was pretty much on last legs by the end of August. With one available usb port and basically a non-working mousepad it was becoming impossible to work, not to mention a few close calls with crashes and reviving my computer from the dead putting my book project at risk. Having enough I got a new Mac Quickbook. (I hate the vista, windows 7 family of products). In order to continue my book work I basically needed to upgrade to Sibelius 7. I figured I’d start cooking pretty good after that. A bit of new mac user learning curve but a good one and trading in a lot of processing sludge for new speed.

Not quite. My battles over the problematic Sibelius 7 for Mac are now public knowledge (see Sibelius forums. You can actually find me easily at top of a search by googling on “unhappy with Sibelius and my name” ). A replacement CD set later, I’m still struggling with things but basically the very necessary things- being able to save my work seems to be solved by downgrading my sound set while writing and saving. I respect Sibelius in many ways and wouldn’t go back to Finale but Sib7 is a work in progress unfortunately.

Other things are Mac related. I’m really discovering what a PC dominated world it is in terms of finding Mac equivalent software. Video upload and creation software like I used with my PC (despite Mac users extolling the virtues of equivalent products like Handbrake and some others) just don’t work right. I use my wife’s PC for that. For the most part you have to pay for stuff – that’s the bottom line. Something I’m not used to with the frequent freebee and open source available for PCs.

I managed to figure out how to use my prized MS Word 2007 (that I created my book in) in Mac via programs called X11 and Wine Bottler. Sun Microsystems product, Open Office just makes a mess of my work when I import it- especially images and none of the equivalent out of the box font theme styles are available. Figuring out the Mac directory system is a job and a half but I’ve managed to bookmark my last saved locations so I don’t have to think about it. X11 gives you a virtual MS view but file directory locations are a bit virtual as well – where “my desktop” is not really “my desktop”.

Anyway… currently focusing on the bolded areas. Other areas of the book are continually augmented with new extra examples that occur to me (and old ones haves to be revised because of fig X.X numbering.) Another solo transcription is in the list as well

– II-V “go-to” licks
– Inverted chord lines
– auxilliary tones (PT, NT, and turns)
– Exercises 8A-C (based on above 3 sections)
– Major Chord concepts
– Minor chord concepts
– Dominant chord concepts
– Exercises 8D-F (based on above 3 sections)
(Status: 80-90% done. Needed: minor, dominant concepts sections, Exercises 8D-F

– Jim’s Tune
– Cross Your Heart
– Isn’t It Romantic
– Motion
– Signal
– Just One of Those Things (Norvo)
– No Male for Me
– Pennies from Heaven
– The Flag is Up
– Stella By Starlight (3) …Tokyo, w/ Phil Woods, Strings & Swings
– Anthropology
– The Song is You (Birdland ’52)
– Anthropology
– Strike Up the Band

Cheers

Jon