Former principal trombonist of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Timothy Myers now channels his passion into
Ascenda Music Publishing while continuing to perform in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“Wouldn’t that sound great on the [name your instrument]?”
If you have picked up the habit of transcribing your favorite music for your instrument, then at some point you figured out how to get it into a readable format. During my college days, I kept an eye out for great staff paper. Composition was only done with pencil and paper (yes, music stores used to sell staff paper), so the right paper for the job had to have the ideal dimensions, the optimum weight, the right number of staves, and the best staff size for the situation. Nowadays, notation software will make those decisions for you, if you let it. But what the computer chooses by default is not always the best choice for a particular situation.
Very young musicians need help with identifying pitches, so for them, extra large staff sizes are the best choice. On the other end of the spectrum, the libraries of some symphony orchestras have their own guidelines about paper size, color, and staff size. How do you prepare your music for publication?
One solution is to do all the Google searches you can think of for the right choices for your situation. I use Dorico, which has virtually infinite options to control font size, staff size, and the like. But all the big engraving software have lots of options, which can easily overwhelm the user.
Another place people get stuck is in page layout. Each software has its own quirks that have to be figured out. Plan to spend lots of time watching how-to videos on YouTube.
Or you can engage a professional engraver. Ascenda Music accepts submissions in all formats. If you still arrange and compose with pencil and paper and have avoided or are intimidated by Sibelius, Finale, and Dorico, we can turn your work into a beautifully engraved finished product. We have done basic note entry for several of our currently published titles.
If you have been hesitating on getting your work ready to publish, you don’t have to wait any longer. Ascenda Music will get your music ready for publication, whatever the state of your manuscript.
Former principal trombonist of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Timothy Myers now channels his passion into
Ascenda Music Publishing while continuing to perform in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Everyone who studies music and understands pitch, rhythm, and meter can write out music themselves if they have to. But music notation penmanship receives very little emphasis in musical training,
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