You can download additional instruments, sound effects, and playing techniques to your NOTION3 sample library instantly and affordably. Individual instruments sets can be purchased for as low as $14.99. Or you can purchase instrument collections with even greater savings.

Current expansion sounds include Banjo, Mandolin, Acoustic Guitar (Fingered),  Advanced Strings Section Techniques, Saxophones and a variety of percussion instruments and sound effects.

Additional sounds will be added on an ongoing basis.

For more information go to http://www.notionmusic.com/products/expansion_sounds.html

With the press release that went out yesterday, NOTION SLE seems to be getting good coverage. You can just Google NOTION SLE to see for yourself. It even made the USA Today News section

http://content.usatoday.com/topics/article/Places,+Geography/Towns,+Cities,+Counties/Vienna/053VeTmgkg8dd/0

We just launched our first SLE product – NOTION SLE for VSL SE. It was an exciting journey to get here with lots of support from friends and colleagues alike. I’m sure people were wondering what we were up to the last two weeks after NAMM, so here it is – we made a new product.

SLE means Single Library Edition, and this is probably the best description of what NOTION SLE does. It is designed for a particular library and works only for that library, but has all of the NOTION3 features except for the bundled library/effects and the other VST isntruments support.

It’s downloadable and it will remain as such and it is priced quite lower than its big brother NOTION3. Which makes it an easy choice for any composer that is working with said library. It features ReWire, VST effects support, Performance features, etc.. etc..

Check it out: http://www.notionmusic.com/products/notion_sle_vsl.html

Lubo Astinov

Product Manager

NOTION Music

We recently attended the annual Schools Music Association Conference where our Notion Conductor program caused quite a stir! Please read the following article taken from the November 2009 SMA Newsletter:

Notion Music –Notion Conducting by Douglas Coombes (Schools Music Association)

At the recent SMA conference (Bristol, 23rd-25th October 2009), during the conducting sessions I directed, I made use of the Notion Music – Conducting software. This enabled the students on the course to conduct an orchestra, in fact The London Symphony Orchestra. If you think it is the same as conducting to a CD where everything is ‘set in stone’ and so you cannot affect the outcome, then you are in for a surprise. With this software you can determine such things as tempi, dynamics and length of pauses. As you conduct, a colleague follows your gestures by tapping on a computer or on a midi keyboard, using just one key. The effect is just ‘mind-blowing.’ Some of the students even conducted the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No.1. The very first piece used was 13 chords in piano score, of a chorale type melody which could be conducted in 2, 3 or 4 time, starting either on an upbeat or a down beat, putting in a pause if required and also a rall at the end. Because of the immediacy of the response to the gesture, one was able to quickly help the student with various problems. During these sessions it was invaluable to have Chris Swaffer (Education Consultant) from Notion Music who patiently followed each conductor by tapping away and was able to contribute so positively to the teaching aspect. For the last session, Chris put down and orchestrated The Music of Our Life which I composed last year for the 70th anniversary of the Schools Music Association (SMA). I counted in with a steady ‘1-2-3-4’ so that six members of the course could start conducting at the same time. From then on, Chris took it in turns to follow one conductor for a few bars, before following another conductor. None of the conductors knew which one Chris was following. The result was very illuminating. The current price for this highly recommended package which comes with a book containing teaching points and full scores of the music is only £64.95 (inc.VAT) – that’s no mistake – £64.95. For more information, go on line to: www.notionmusic.com/products/conducting.html

Quote from delegate David Wrentham: A highlight for me was the Saturday morning conducting session. Having intended to attend just the first part, I stayed for more than two hours, much of the time exploring some excellent new software which enabled us to take turns to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra. With the aid of a computer, the players were most responsive to every nuance of our conducting!

• The Schools Music Association: www.schoolsmusic.org.uk
• Douglas Coombes: www.musiciansgallery.com/start/conductors/coombes/douglas.htm
• Chris Swaffer: www.musiciansgallery.com/start/conductors/swaffer/christopher.htm

Whilst composing a piece of music, have you ever wanted to slow a passage down? The easiest way of doing this is by adding the word ‘rit’ – the abbreviation to ritardando. Musicians are generally aware of this instruction and when playing your newly composed piece of music, would follow the musician instructions and slow down. The question is – how much should they slow down? What did the composer have in mind? How should I accurately perform their piece as they would have wished? The answer is – use ‘rit to… bpm’ using NOTION 3!

Within NOTION 3 there is a very clever and extremely easy way of being able to stipulate the degree of how much a rit slows a piece down. Just point and click the cursor to where you would like the rit to begin and hit the letter ‘r’ on your keyboard. This will change the cursor to the word ‘rit.’ and you can click where you want it to appear in your piece. This then brings up a box that says ‘rit to 96 bpm’ which you can overtype to the speed you want to slow to. (Bpm is beats per minute). Click again and you can position where you want to return to the original speed. Brilliant!

A couple of weeks ago (that really sunny Sunday!) we were invited to demonstrate Notion music software (and in particular our Progression program) at the Registry of Guitar Teachers (RGT) Annual Guitar Teachers Conference (www.rgt.org), held at the Thames Valley University, London. About 200 guitar teachers covering a wide variety of styles had a varied day of seminars that included a Progression Clinic. We received a lot of very positive feedback about Progression, especially when compared to programmes like the (now obsolete) G7 and Guitar Pro. Most comments were about how difficult G7 was to use and how expensive it was – the feeling being that it was just too complicated. Compared to Guitar Pro – everybody thought that the Progression sounds were far better. This group of guitar teachers also thought it was a more comprehensive guitar focused program to use in conjunction with their teaching – and REALLY easy to use.  RRP £64.95 (inc.VAT) Check it out at www.notionmusic.com

I just received my copy of NOTION3! Very exciting thing to see.

All this hard work is on these two disks? Seems odd…

Should be gold with diamonds or something…

Hope everyone enjoys their copy of NOTION3.