Dev

Adding to the percussion tips, your notation must be clear and consistent. I gave a seminar on writing for percussion once, and the mnemonic I came up with is "Hit what, with what, move to what." In other words, for any note, you should label the instrument being played, what it is being played with, and to what instrument the player will move to next. Many common instruments will have a "default" beater (such as sticks for snare drum or bass beater for bass drum), and as such the second step isn't always necessary, but even for instruments like glockenspiel, suspended cymbal, and marimba, you should specify the mallet you want used. The caveat to this is that most percussionists have spent years in band class playing music written by mediocre composers that had no idea what they were doing when it came to percussion, and have developed the skill known as "figure out how to make vague, impossible stuff work," so if you forget to say that the suspended cymbal part should be played with medium yarn mallets, the player will generally try a few things out and go with what he or she feels works best. Speaking of cymbals reminds me, you should err on the side of specificity. One of the most annoying things is to see some whole note in the middle of the staff with "cymbal" written over it, because I have no idea what type of cymbal, what mallet I should be playing it with, whether I'm supposed to sustain it for a whole note or hit it once, whether I should let it ring or choke it, etc. etc. Be clear with what you write. Score for players, not instruments. I've seen scores that were half percussion staves, because the composer wrote separate staves for wood block, triangle, cymbal, bass drum, snare drum, etc. even though, in performance, those parts had to be recombined into two or three players. Sort out the parts by person, give each just one staff, and notate instrument changes with words (e.g. "to wood block"). This removes the superfluous logistics step of laying out all the parts, then re-writing them for the performing forces available.

heyyy, I might be going to Indiana for grad school next year. Won't that just be a laugh and a half.

I essentially have the same credentials as you, insofar as music experience is concerned (composition background, use finale, etc.), so I don't know what exactly I'd be able to bring to the table. Are you basically looking for "hired hands" to do, for lack of a better term, grunt work (basic input etc.)?

It is definitely hard to think about what else can be done, now that we have atonality, now that we've gone as avant-garde as 4'33'', now that we have electronic instruments to exceed the playing capacity of humans, what else is there to do? What more advancements can be made? Sometimes I feel like declaring that we have everything available to us now, that there are no new frontiers. But even if that were the case, it's foolish to think it.

I will admit this seems too good to be true. I get to keep the copyright, sell hundreds if not thousands of copies, and at no cost to me? What's the catch is my question.

viidim is a chord - vii, that is "7", dim, that is diminished. To be fair, the way he posted it is haphazard and unclear. Come on now composerorganist. Clean up your act.

mostly #3 happens for me. Things are just swirling in my head, fully orchestrated and harmonized, and I have to figure out what the hell they are. Dictation and ear training are important skills for me because of this.

My how timely, I too am looking at Yale for grad school. I myself only plan to submit three works (not sure which ones yet) for the reasons mentioned above: I'm just one of many applicants, I want to as succinctly and directly as possible demonstrate why I deserve to be accepted over anyone else. Also, apparently if you get into the Yale school of music, you get full tuition. Snap.

John

Berlioz and Wagner, off the top of my head. You don't need to be a good performer to be a good composer. You do, however, need real live experience writing and re-writing for instruments.

Hello one and all, I recently wrote a piece of music for a competition using some of Carl Sagan's more well-known quotations as the text to be sung; however, the estate has denied me rights to use it and I find myself in desperate need of some poetry (or artsy prose, whatever) that meets the following conditions: 1. Is in public domain in the U.S. and U.K. B. Is in English III. Is about or related to one of the following: -Awe and wonder -Outer space/the cosmos -Man's innate curiosity -Man's ability to accomplish anything -Hope for the future/optimism etc. etc. along those lines. If you've read/heard Sagan's more famous prose works and quotes, you have an idea of what I want aesthetics-wise. Thanks everbuddy in advance.

with singers, focus only on individual lines and not vertical spellings. If the soprano's line makes sense with flats, and the basses need sharps, and the tenors alternate...that's fine. If you need to change one augmented 4th to a diminished 5th or whatever...don't feel like all the other parts have to change too.

okay, you have to tell us what you mean by that. Recorded sounds? Players imitating pterodactyls vocally? Or just some avant-garde piece where the only "true" performance would be real pterodactyls, rendering the piece unplayable?

You have to understand, this is like asking, "what instrument should I give the melody to?" or "what rhythms should I use?" It's your composition - do whatever you feel like! Change chords every bar, every beat, every note, or don't follow any patterns at all! The other problem with your question is that it begs the question of there even being chords at all - what about a solo piece? What about an atonal work? The idea that pieces even have to have "chords" at all is (and don't take this as an attack on you in any way) an entirely outdated notion. I mean, pieces don't even have to use notes anymore. The answer is, chords change whenever you, the composer, feel they need to. That is the only answer anyone can really give. If, however your are trying to emulate a certain style, or write a pop song, or something like that, then there is a more concrete answer we can give.

Basically all of Stravinsky's Firebird is a display of a mastery of orchestration, but beginning the "final hymn" with mid-high range french horn over pianississimo tremolo strings was perfect.