At 12:30 PM 11/09/02, Andrew Stiller wrote: >If somebody wants to set themselves up as a composer (as opposed to, >say, a singer-songwriter), but nonetheless has to farm out the >notation of their works to someone else, I think that that someone >has a legitimate grumble.
Who has the grumble? The guy doing the notation work? If you don't want the job, just say no. Being "able to write" is not an either/or proposition. I have in mind two local composers whom I have frequently worked for. Both of them do read music, but they aren't very good at writing out exactly what they want, and they hire me to do that for them, along with the usual engraving work. With Ms K, she writes out her songs by hand. Depending on the music, some are better than others, but in general she frequently writes things in ways that aren't exactly what she really wants or aren't the best way of expressing it. My job is to read her scores and figure out what she really has in mind and then rewrite it in a way that will make the performers play what she wants to hear. Often this requires meeting with her to read through the music at the piano. As far as I'm concerned, she is the "composer" and I am her editor. With Mr F, it's a similar process. He is somewhat less experienced as a musician, and he writes his copy out in Sibelius (making use of the playback to help him compose). These pages, although they look more "official" than something handwritten, are also poor representations of what he really wants. I recopy his musid in Finale, making no effort to convert the files, doing all the necessary editing along the way With Mr F, I've had different levels of collaboration. For about half of his songs I was an editor, as with Ms K. For most of the rest my editing was more along the lines of the Paul McCartney example, and he credited me as "arranger". On two occasions, I actually joined in the creative process, and for those pieces he and I are credited equally as co-composers. For the rest, as far as I'm concerned he is the "composer" and I am his editor and/or arranger. Either of these composers could, if they had to, write out their own pieces properly. It would be slow work for them, but eventually they'd get it right. They choose instead to devote their energies elsewhere, and they're happy to pay me to do this for them. I fail to see why I should grumble about this or feel slighted in any way. On the contrary, I enjoy this sort of collaboration. In the (non-music) publishing world, it is taken for granted that every writer, no matter how good, needs a good editor. I don't see why a composer shouldn't have a good editor as well. I don't think it makes him or her any less of a "composer." mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
