UPDATE (28 Feb 2014):
Digitization completed. The file is available here, along with my comments on the software and more.
UPDATE (27 Feb. 2014):
Well, I’ve finished the first movement, (sparse) dynamics and all.
When I’ve finished all three movements, I’ll update again, combine the PDFs into a single file, and add it to the page where the audio is posted. The second and third are much shorter and simpler than the first, but it may take a little while for me to get around to it.
(And not that I expect it’ll ever get performed, remixed, or anything else, but if anyone’s interested, feel free: there’s no charge. While I retain copyright over the piece, any not-for-profit use is fine with me. All I ask is that you send me a recording of the performance. I haven’t thought about Creative Commons licenses, but I may release this under one. Until then, though, feel free to download, print, and perform it to your heart’s content.)
Original Post:
I’m working on a few pressing things now, so I’ll just say that I’m still sometimes grabbing an old manuscript and attempting to notate it in Musescore, which I’m finding far easier to learn how to use than Finale ever was. (Finale may be more high-powered, I’m not sure–I have a few scores I think will be difficult to notate with either software, so I guess we’ll see eventually–but Musescore is handling everything I’m doing much more gracefully than I found Finale to do back in the day.)
Anyway, the piece I’m notating now is one I have a recording for, and also not my best composition, but it’s fun. It was a piece a friend (Lana Fribance) commissioned for one of her recitals, I’m not sure which: I wrote a bass clarinet duo for her, and each movement was named after a friend in the department. The first movement was titled Grace, for the inimitable Grace Yip.
I’ve only input the notes so far–no dynamics, no slurs or breath marks, no performance instructions: it’s just a half-hour’s work–and as with the last piece, I’m just inputting the notation as it was when performed.
I may make changes it at some point, though I don’t think the piece is really worth trying to edit into anything better than it currently is (it’s kind of awkward and amateurish, in part because I was just starting out) but anyway, at the moment the purpose is just digital archiving of this piece for which I currently only have a single hard copy and a scan. Here’s what I have so far…
I wonder if any of the people who saw it performed back in, I think I was 1995, remember it at all… but probably not. It was pretty simple and forgettable. Were I asked to write something for bass clarinet today, it’d be very, very different!