Arranging and You! (POLL)

[The Jackson]

I really do like arranging music. At this point, I've done virtually all of my arranging for a brass quintet, and I think it's great practice for me as a composer as well as insightful for finding out the inner mechanics of how the ensemble works. I've had to good fortune to be able to hear some of my arrangements played, and that is extremely beneficial and educational to me.

[tbn.al]

I wish one of the choices had been "out of necessity". Just finished a 2 hour Sibelius session after my real job. As a church orchestra director I don't have a viable alternative sometimes. The choir director picks a piece of music, orders the orchestration and then she says, "This calls for 4 horns and we only have 2. Can you fix it?" So mostly what I do is very rudamental orchestration. Changing instrumentation or orchestrating pieces that don't have published orchestrations available. I do get to arrange for my BQ some and that is strictly because I hear something I want to play.

[BVD Press]

I have gone from "arranging for a living" to mostly engraving and making other people's charts look nice and pretty! I guess I do a lot of editing, but it is not the same...

I will plug a new version for Czardas for Tuba and Brass Band I arranged a few months back which will be available fairly soon. No guarantees on when....I believe that is the last chart I have done, but they are few and far between.

[Rick Denney]

When the TubaMeisters first started at Fiesta Texas, we had hardly any repertoire of the type they wanted (standard beer-tent fare). So, the arranging mill wound up. The arranging machine for the TubaMeisters was and is Ray Grim, who has arranged everything for tuba quartet from Penny Lane to Scheherezade. Many of his arrangements are available from Cimarron Press (owned by BVD Press).

Even the Arranging Machine couldn't keep up with demand that year, so we all took our turn. I did some from vocal music, some from German band music, and some by ear. My motivation in all cases was that I liked the music or thought it would go well in our group, and I had the time in those days to do it.

But I'd rather be playing.

Rick "who hasn't done any arranging in a very long time" Denney

[Carroll]

I do almost all of the arrangements my quartet (Euphouria) plays. We use three euphoniums and a tuba. Not a lot published for that animal. What I do not write is usually published trombone quartet literature.

[Donn]

I've arranged a handful of things for Balkan brass band. Minus percussion - by mutual agreement we don't write percussion parts, and they don't read them.

The other local band that does similar music, learns by ear. I think the written parts are more efficient for us, but there's some loss in fidelity to the original. They learn more, learning by ear.

[TubaRay]

When the TubaMeisters first started at Fiesta Texas, we had hardly any repertoire of the type they wanted (standard beer-tent fare). So, the arranging mill wound up. The arranging machine for the TubaMeisters was and is Ray Grim, who has arranged everything for tuba quartet from Penny Lane to Scheherezade. Many of his arrangements are available from Cimarron Press (owned by BVD Press).

Even the Arranging Machine couldn't keep up with demand that year, so we all took our turn. I did some from vocal music, some from German band music, and some by ear. My motivation in all cases was that I liked the music or thought it would go well in our group, and I had the time in those days to do it.

But I'd rather be playing.

Rick "who hasn't done any arranging in a very long time" Denney

And the TubaMeisters are still using the arrangements you wrote, Rick. During that season at Fiesta Texas, we had to play many of our tunes several times per day. That would no longer be necessary, as we have somewhere around 100 tunes in our book. We can, but seldom do, play a four hour gig, without repeating any tunes. Our audience tends to encourage us to repeat certain tunes, such as the Beer Barrel Polka, Chicken Dance, etc. We've found that we keep our act fresh, in part, by continuing to add tunes.

In the meantime, I've gone from having little to no knowledge of the beer tent repertoire(Am I allowed to use those words together in a sentence?), to being pretty familiar with it. Our music includes German, Czech, Austrian, etc. I have come a long way as an arranger. An added bonus is that our group gives me good and honest feedback about the arrangements.

[Steve Marcus]

In the stone age (1990's), I had handwritten my arrangements and compositions. I used the excuse for not writing more that doing it by hand was too time consuming (not to mention more unclear to read than computer generated parts).

So for my birthday gift, my wife bought me Finale and installed it on our Mac--in 1997.

What neither she nor I had accounted for was at that point in time I had become very serious about playing the tuba. I was spending many more hours practicing and performing than I had previously.

So my musical priorities had changed (and remain so). As a result, I never even got around to opening the Finale tutorials. My wife may even have purchased the Finale updates one year or another, but they were never touched.

Now, 12 years later, I would still have to virtually start from the beginning learning how to use notation software. I would use it for fairly standard, traditional notation--nothing like inventing my own notation system. But I would only use it occasionally--not an every day activity.

My primary concern about starting now with notation software is that I just don't have the time for a lengthy learning curve. With that in mind, should I purchase the latest Finale upgrade or start fresh with Sibelius or some other notation software? How many hours would I have to dedicate to nothing else but learning how to use it?

Is there a free notation software program that can be downloaded to handle all but the most complex notation projects and still have clean (not necessarily publish-ready) scores and parts?

[Carroll]

Now, 12 years later, I would still have to virtually start from the beginning learning how to use notation software. I would use it for fairly standard, traditional notation--nothing like inventing my own notation system. But I would only use it occasionally--not an every day activity.

My primary concern about starting now with notation software is that I just don't have the time for a lengthy learning curve. With that in mind, should I purchase the latest Finale upgrade or start fresh with Sibelius or some other notation software? How many hours would I have to dedicate to nothing else but learning how to use it?

Is there a free notation software program that can be downloaded to handle all but the most complex notation projects and still have clean (not necessarily publish-ready) scores and parts?

Steve,

Since you do not need the things possible with the newest software, you do not need the newest software. If your version runs on your machine... you are golden.

The advice I give to musicians who want to learn Finale (or Sibelius or Noteworthy Composer or whatever) is to choose a project and learn the skills needed for that project. Then pick another project...

I would wager that in an evening you could gain the skills needed to crank out a decent looking tuba quartet, and have the added advantage of hearing it, mistake free, before you hand it out. There are plenty of folks on this board who could quickly help with anything you might run into. Just do it.

[Sean Greene]

I would wager that in an evening you could gain the skills needed to crank out a decent looking tuba quartet, and have the added advantage of hearing it, mistake free, before you hand it out. There are plenty of folks on this board who could quickly help with anything you might run into. Just do it.

YES! Just do it.

[bearphonium]

I initially arranged some Christmas music for two recorders (My Mom played soprano, I played tenor) while in college. The pieces work really well as trumpet/euphonium, so I've been getting them from the hand written stuff from 30 years ago to printed.

I got ahold of Finale's Print Music, and stumble through it. I have transcribed some pieces for our concert band that had some hand written parts, and have reconstructed some from the conductor's score when we're missing parts (what, no second trombone?)

My biggest projects to date have been to do "Beer Barrel Polka" for our marching band that is playing at a micro brew fest next month, using some accordian sheet music to base it on. I have also arranged "Finlandia" for the same group; this time using a piano score and two recordings. I hope we're able to get Finlandia down for our last concert, that would be cool.

I know exactly enough to be real dangerous when it comes to arranging.

Ally"who cringes at the clarinet section that forgets how to play concert Ab"House