I hope this helps any of you who feel like your compositions are trapped in a computer :). This is how I go from a DAW session to lead sheets for a live arrangement played by human musicians.
So far, my music has mostly existed as digital fantasy worlds I’ve built—layered soundscapes and arrangements that haven’t been based in the question if they could be played by an actual person with an actual instrument. Now I’m really interested in taking that “musical dream world” to the stage and I’ve developed somewhat of a system to translate that digital chaos into something that will work on stage.
Timestamps:
0:00 – Intro & backstory to all of this
4:10 – DAW Session to Lead Sheet – Let It Rain example
4:37 – Who and what are you working with?
4:55 – Step 1: Assessing the function of the parts within your DAS session
7:48 – Step 2: Translating the original production into the live arrangement
13:06 – Step 3: Converting essential parts to MIDI
17:27 – Step 4: MIDI to notation software
19:38 – Outro & final thoughts
Check out the full song I used as an example for this video: Let It Rain by Sonj Marina
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Happy practicing,