In the Bleak

I just finished up this morning an SATB arrangement of "In the Bleak Midwinter". Part of me wants to just send it out to see what happens, and part of me wants to finish up a second arrangement and send them out together (yeah, I know it's weird, but I feel better sending my pieces off into the world with a friend). I suppose the worst that would happen if I waited is this piece wouldn't get out and circulating until next week sometime.

And, against the chances of angering the immortal composing gods, I think I may actually be starting to get the hang of this choral composing thing. Back when I was younger and foolisher (which I know isn't a word so please don't tell me), I had assumed that writing for one instrument or ensemble was much the same as writing for another, you just had different ranges and transpositions. I've since discovered that writing for choral -- at least for my brain -- is much, much difficulter (welcome the day of mis-formed comparatives here at Jason Krug's blog). I think the fact that I grew up almost entirely instrumental -- I pretty much stopped singing in junior high, where as I played violin or percussion from 5th grade all the way through college -- has something to do with that, and even a decade of being in and directing choirs hasn't helped that much, at least at a deep-down level in my brain.

But against the odds, the choral pieces are starting to come more easierly (...), even if they're still a struggle. It still drives me crazy when I've got a phrase I think is great, wonderful, just right ... and then I find that I've got parallel motion between the bass and the alto. I can just hear my theory teachers rolling over in their graves (even though most of them, thankfully, are still very much alive), so I go back to the piece and revamp, rejig, and then try once again to persuade Finale that it really does want to put the lyrics where I have them.

Speaking of Finale, I just got my disc of Finale 2011 delivered to my door yesterday. I have yet to install it, since I wanted to finish "In the Bleak Midwinter", but now it's done, I'll spend part of the morning getting myself up to speed.

For those of you not composers, Finale is probably the best-known and most-used music notation software out there. I've used it since the mid 90s, trudging along with putting notes in with just the computer keyboard one at a time. In college, I discovered several hundred things the program could do that I wasn't doing, and that made the whole process of composing about fifty times easier. Then, when we moved to our home back in 2004, and I was blessed with an actual office of my very own, I was able to hook my MIDI keyboard in to the computer, and ever since then, composing has been a supreme joy, mainly because the number of steps from getting the music out of my head and on to the paper is drastically reduced. A piece that back in high school might have taken me a month to churn out now takes two or three days, tops. And, it appears the new version is only going to make the process easier (who knew there were keyboard shortcuts for putting in slurs and crescendo hairpins!).

Once I get Finale 2011 installed and play with it a bit, I'll post my thoughts back here. Any of you readers use Finale? Have you upgraded to 2011? Are you glad you did? Are you a die-hard Sibelius user who wishes nothing but death and dismemberment on all us poor Finale-using hacks? Feel free to comment below.