Some progress on the Little Waltz/MuseScore

I’ve ABANDONED that first ABORTIVE ATTEMPT from last week’s post and am concentrating on the more likable second one.

On the Lyles Scale of Compositional Harmony, today’s work has been about a 4: Human and 5: Sludge. Again, what you’ll hear is ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS and is actually a great example of how the King of Hearts Fallacy is a trap. You’ll hear the bit you heard last week plus a few more measures, and then you’ll hear some chords but no real melody, and then some more chords without even a bass line, then a couple measures of rest, and then a completely new sound that apparently is how it’s going to end.

In the score you will see that each of these sections is separated by a double barline.

ABORTIVE ATTEMPT at a Little Waltz, 06/11/2025 — score (pdf)

Am I liking it? Not really. It’s stodgy and more than a little predictable, and that possible ending means there’s a lot of GESTALT and SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION to be done to get us to that point. Onward!

As for MuseScore, I’m getting to the point that most of my frustrations have to do with it not being second nature to me, like where is that thing I just used three minutes ago to tie this measure’s notes to the next measure? However, Musescore, one thing you really need to give me is the ability to tell the playback to start at the leftmost measure of the screen, like in Finale. Having to remember to unfocus on the last thing I worked on and then refocus on the leftmost measure is an unnecessary pain in the butt.

And of course, this is one simple piano waltz. I have severe reservations about tackling an orchestral work.

This has been another in a series of blog posts to convince you that you don’t have to do it perfectly the first time… or the second or the third or…