Welcome to NotionWow.com.
Are you a musician who sometimes writes notes down on staff paper? Are you a songwriter, music teacher, worship leader, choir director? If you are, I'd like to tell you about a software program developed by Dr. Jack M. Jarrett. The program is called Notion.
Imagine!
Imagine an empty room with a desk, a lamp, a pencil, and a sheet of music staff paper. Then consider the thousands of hours spent by composers, down through the centuries, sitting somewhere, writing notes on a page.
One more step: imagine the staff paper was "magic" in that whatever notes you wrote were immediately heard, not just in your head, but all around you. For example, what if you put these notes down on the page, and as soon as you finished writing it you heard this.
(Click on the flash player or download Violins.mp3 )Suppose you then decided to add a bass line. You thought about it, and wrote something like the following. After writing it down, you heard...
(Click on the flash player or download ViolinsBasses.mp3 )
Next you decided to add a cello line, told the violins to play a little bit louder, and the page looked and sounded like this.
(Click on the flash player or download ViolinsCellosBasses.mp3 )This is what Notion does for you.
You choose the instruments. Notion gives you a blank staff for each one. You enter the notes, rests, tempo markings and articulations. Notion plays the score!
You can print the score and the individual parts. You can save the audio as a wav file. Surprisingly, if you write a "tempo staff," you can even tap on the computer keyboard and "conduct" the piece.
That's Just The Beginning
Since the program first appeared, lots of cool things have happened. A smaller version of Notion, which does the same things, but limits the composer to eight staves, is now available for around $70. The program is called Protege, and version 2.0 is now selling (Sept. 2007).
Expanded sound files are also available as separate purchases... all kinds of instruments, harp, drums, saxophones... too many to mention here.Another exciting program, called Progression, is soon to be released for guitarists... (Sept. 2007).
Two Song Examples
Here are two demonstration songs using Notion. The first one is an original pennywhistle tune. The Notion string parts were saved as a wav file, and the two pennywhistle parts were recorded later.The second song is called "Notion With A Red N." It's more or less a "fun song" highlighting some of the intuitive keyboard shortcuts Notion programmers designed into the program.
If you'd like to listen, the two demonstration songs are here.
Where Can I Find Out More?
If you would like to learn more about about Notion, Protege and Progression, please visit...Copyright 2006-2007 Steve Mugglin
NotionWow.com is designed to spread the word about Notion.
Notion's web site is NotionMusic.com.NotionWow.com is part of Mugglinworks.com
