My current writing process

I am very old school having started composing long before the advent of personal computers. So almost all of my pieces begin on good old fashion manuscript paper, a pencil and a small drafting triangle. All my preliminary work is done “manually” and is done away from the computer and the piano. [I do not write at the piano.] I also have a pad of graph paper for making notes, sketching abstract ideas, instrument placements and any other ideas. I also have a set of ten pens in ten different colors, and a set of ten high-lighter pens in ten colors that almost but not quite correspond to the the ten regular pens.

Once I have the basic material worked out, depending on the piece and my mood, in greater or lesser detail I input the music into Sibelius. One the piece has been entered into Sibelius editing and polishing of the piece beings, this is a very iterate process, usually proportional to the length and size (number of performers) of the piece. While some editing (changes) occur in the initial inputting of my sketches into the Sibelius software most occur after the initial data input. My usual method is to print out the score and go sit down with it away from the computer. With the score I being to “edit” or polish refine the piece by writing all over page with my colored pens, highlighters and my pencil. Once the score is all marked up I then sit down at the computer again and enter all of my edits. Only after this initial first edit do I turn on the speakers and listen to the piece through the Sibelius Playback. After this another score print out is made and the whole editing process is repeated. This process is repeated as many times as needed. As a side note, I usually save the Sibelius score with a new version number in the file name for each iteration. I also tend to put each piece in its own sub-folder.

Once I am done with these editing iterations I end up with my final score that I will publish for performers and from which I will extract parts. At this point I consider the piece complete.

This is however not the end of the process. Now begins the process of “recording” the piece, but that is for another post.

Ursus Demens