Well, it is now officially finished, and ready to be sent to the printers and distributors.
My 2nd symphony, done in Dorico, with parts.
I hired a professional harpist to edit the harp part, which was just about the best money I’ve ever spent (after buying Dorico, I mean.)
And the ONLY two things that were issues for me, were the inability to make measures 3/4+4/4 look like 7/4. So hopefully, dashed lines within bars as sub-divisions of larger or more complex time signatures, will be a much-appreciated addition to Dorico’s features some day.
And the other issue, though not a game-ender for me, was the slightly painful process of creating harp glissandi. It would just be nice to have a simpler function for this.
Otherwise, the spacing, and everything else, look wonderful!
oh fingers crossed. I don’t know!
it’s very difficult to get large orchestral scores performed in Canada.
I think the viola concerto will be performed first. hopefully it will convince some orchestras to do the symphony.
It’s actually kind of funny that both my 3rd and 4th symphonies have been performed, but neither the 1st nor 2nd have! Of course, numbers 3 and 4 are chamber works (one for a mozartian sized orchestra, the other for strings only).
I’m happy for your success. How do you go about getting an orchestra “interested” in the first place. Do they know you? Are you connected with it somehow? Do you go through a music agent?
well, for the viola concerto, the dedicatee is my viola teacher (I started VERY late in life learning), and she’s first desk / viola solo in an orchestra.
my 3rd and 4th symphonies I already knew the conductors (the 4th symphony was actually commissioned by that orchestra).
from my experience, it’s “who you know” that plays a LOT into whether or not you get performed.
my difficulty is that I am not necessarily a very “social” person, at least not when it comes to my own music. I find it very difficult to promote my art.
thank-you kindly.
I really hope I get it performed as well. it may not be the longest work I’ve ever composed (that would go to the hour-long requiem I wrote a LONG time ago), but I consider it my “magnum opus” in the sense that it the most deeply personal work I’ve ever written. It took me nearly 10 years to write.
It is, in essence, a musical view of Canada as a land. Each movement representing one of the major regions (Northern Forests, Prairies, Maritimes, Pacific Interlude/Rockies, and “northern variations”, my ode to the far North.) It took me a long time to write because I felt that I had to set foot in each region at least once before writing the music.
at some point (soon, hopefully) I’ll remake the YooToob videos I had initially made for the symphony, but this time using the Dorico playback (NP + Dorico).
One thing I didn’t like about the videos (I’m an absolute noob with video editing) was that I was lacking some images for a few of the places and ideas that the music requires.
No, Tyler, you misunderstood me (or I expressed myself incorrectly… as this was covered at length in another thread a few weeks ago):
the measures are supposed to be in 7/4, with dashed lines halfway through the each bar.
Dorico, for the time being, doesn’t support doing this.
(not without going through the whole rigamaroll of making one measure in 7/4, then making the others 3/4 then 4/4, then suppressing display of time signatures for that passage… and…
it looks like a total mess in the parts)
Congratulations on finishing. How long has it taken you to compose/score this symphony?
I’ve been slowly scoring into Dorico, my masters thesis (a 20 minute piece) for two years, now.
I don’t expect it to be performed since it’s a huge chorale-symphonic piece with 8 percussionists, but I am hoping to hear a good mock up of it at some point.
First off, good luck to you on your thesis!
My master’s pieces were considerably easier to get performed (a 30- minute long song cycle, and a piece for string orchestra.)
This symphony, my 2nd, is actually the work that has taken me the longest to write.
If I don’t include the time spent in Dorico re-editing the piece, it actually took me 10 years to write from 1st note to when I put the final note in the 5th movement.
I admit to being a slow writer, but normally not QUITE this slow.
my 1st symphony took about a year to write (30 minutes long, large orchestra.)
my 3rd and 4th symphonies took between 4 and 8 months each to finish.
while my viola concerto was exceedingly quick, I wrote it in less than a month.