NOTE: If you need to get in touch with me, please don't use Facebook. It goes into a folder I rarely ever look at and Facebook doesn't give me any notification. If you instead leave a message on my Discussion page on this site, IMSLP sends me an e-mail so I can respond much sooner.
I wrote this little eBook about the music of Anton Bruckner: The 20 Crucial Compositions of Anton Bruckner (SmashWords edition)
I was a "winner" of a Knight Arts Challenge Detroit 2013 matching funds grant to run an ice cream truck around town playing classical music. I was not able to do even one ride in 2013 or 2014, plus it didn't help that Knight essentially handed me over to the Miami Foundation, an organization I knew next to nothing about. I still want to do this project (though only for one day) but I can't promise any timeline for it.
I also write music, but the "userbox" for it reads sort of strange. I don't intend to post any of my original scores here, other than perhaps warm-ups, drills, puzzles and such.
In fact, I am the first composer ever commissioned to write a Symphony through eBay. I have already started actually writing it (the winning bidder chose the key of A minor) but I need to get to work on the press releases. But there are other ways for other bidders to make history in a similar manner: they can bid to commission me to write a Symphony in C major dedicated to a special someone in their lives for $100,000, thus setting a record for highest price paid for an Internet commission.
Here's a selected listing of my original compositions which have been played before or are ready for performace:
- Fanfare in B-flat major, for brass band (2004)
- Adjutant's Polka, for brass band (2004)
- Fugue in D major, for piano (2005)
- "Amazing Grace" Minuet, for wind band (2006)
- Passacaglia, for orchestra (2006, ready for performance)
- String Quartet in G major (2007)
- Two Minuets in D major, for string quartet (2008)
- String Quartet in A-flat major (2008) - you can hear the Waltz from it at Reverbnation.com
- Fugue in C-sharp major (transposed to E-flat), for concert band (2008)
- Symphony in D major (2008, ready for performance)
- String Quartet in A minor (2009)
- String Quartet in A major (2009) - you can hear the Minuet from it at Reverbnation.com
- Engineering Suite in D major (2010) - you can hear the Civil Minuet from it at Reverbnation.com
- Symphony in A minor (2011 - commissioned through eBay by Dr. Bryan Ho, M.D., the first person ever to commission a Symphony through eBay)
- Horn Concerto in B-flat major (2011 - commissioned through eBay by Ray Barnes, the first person ever to commission a Concerto through eBay)
- Ukulele Concerto in A minor (2012)
- Overture in D minor, "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (started in 2009, wasn't until 2013 that it occurred to me to make a couple of little additions and adding the evocative Sir Arthur Conan Doyle title)
- Symphony in A minor (another one, 2014)
There are plenty others, but if I decided they were good enough to be worth performing, I would probably have to do a lot of work on them besides just updating them to the newest Finale file format.
Also, I have arranged the following compositions by others:
- Arrangements by Alonso del Arte
- Anonymous, Antarctica, for recorder and string quartet (2008)
- Ludwig van Beethoven, "Turkish March," for string quartet (originally orchestra) (2007) See Die Ruinen von Athen, Op.113 (Beethoven, Ludwig van)
- Keith Buckner, Prentis Street Sonata, for clarinet (originally trumpet) and string quartet (2009; actually, all I did here was take the original trumpet in C part and transpose it for trumpet in B-flat, so technically I could also claim an arrangement for trumpet in B-flat, but on trumpet it has always been played on trumpet in C)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, String Quartet in G major, K. 387, for saxophone quartet (2007) Just transpose it to A-flat major, reduce the double stops, and voila!
- Antonio Salieri, Military Minuet in D major, for string quartet (originally orchestra) (2008)
- Alexander Tcherepnin, Bagatelle, for orchestra (originally piano) (2005)
- Traditional, "The Star-Spangled Banner," for string quartet (2007). Dante Palmieri did an interesting arrangement for string quartet, but as the quartet included immigrants, they feared Palmieri's arrangement would make them seem unpatriotic. My arrangement is far more conventional, with only one or two eccentric touches.
And edited many compositions by others, of which this is only a small selection:
- Scores edited by Alonso del Arte
- Franz Asplmayr, Symphony in C major, for orchestra, with continuo realization (2009)
- Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Symphony in C major, for orchestra, with continuo realization (2010)
- Anton Bruckner, Rondo in C minor, for string quartet (2009) It's an early work of his, so he wasn't as careful with accidentals as he later became. In my edition, I've dialed up more cautionary accidentals, but not to the level of his late works. See Rondo in C minor, WAB 111 (Bruckner, Anton)
- Keith Buckner, Prentis Street Sonata, for trumpet and string quartet (2009) This involved many changes of enharmonic spellings (the piece is quite tonal and looks it when respelled), and the addition of cues and rehearsal letters.
- Monica Caldare, Tiger Stadium Postcard, for flute, clarinet, violin and piano (2009) I added rehearsal letters, cues, and wrote out all repeats.
- Christoph Graupner, Symphony in D major, Nagel 75, for orchestra, with continuo realization (2006) Noack's edition has a figured bass realization but no figures. My realization is (predictably) similar to Noack's but I haven't yet figured out a good way to put figured bass in Finale. I suppose if need be I could scan my handwritten figures and upload that. See Symphony in D major, GWV 546 (Graupner, Christoph)
- Michael Haydn, Duo in C major, Perger 127. See Duo in C major (Haydn, Michael)
- Michael Haydn, Symphony in C major, Perger 2, for orchestra, with continuo realization (2007) Sherman quotes Leopold Mozart on Haydn's preference for continuo but includes neither figures nor realization in his edition.
- Michael Haydn, Symphony in F major, Perger 30, for orchestra, with continuo realization (2007) Sherman quotes Leopold Mozart on Haydn's preference for continuo but includes neither figures nor realization in his edition. This Symphony, the few times it's been played, is usually played without continuo.
- Anthony Lai, The Jester’s Violin, for string quartet (2009) Adding rehearsal letters is the only thing I can claim on this one.
- Antonio Vivaldi, Rustic Concerto in G major, for string orchestra, with continuo realization (2007)
Of my editions I intend to post here only those that are in the public domain on account of their antiquity.
Rondo rehearsal marks
I don't know if I can patent these or if I'm even the first to have come up with them, but for rondos I like to use special rehearsal marks that clearly disclose the structure of the piece. Instead of just numbers or just letters, I use both letters and numbers, with each rehearsal mark enclosed by a circle (a "round" enclosure). For example, in an ABACABA rondo, the first A section has rehearsal mark A1, the first B section has rehearsal mark B1, the second A section has rehearsal mark A2, etc.
Tenor clef for horns
However, I'm probably quite alone in my predilection for the use of the tenor clef for actual pitch entry in Finale for the horns. A typical horn part written at actual pitch in the bass clef will occasionally require ledger lines. A typical horn part written at actual pitch in the treble clef will almost certainly require ledger lines. By using the tenor clef for actual pitch entry, the need for most ledger lines is eliminated. This is especially beneficial for horns in D and horns in low C.
Now, you might be thinking that it would just be easier to enter the horns at the written pitch of the modern horn in F, which is a perfect fifth higher than the actual pitch. But then I'm annoyed by the artificially high sounds, and if I take my headphones off, I lose out on the benefit of hearing the intervals and catching mistakes I would miss by only looking at the notation.
Horns using archaic transpositions
Under the assumption that my providing of horn parts is mostly of benefit to high school or community orchestras who can't afford hundreds of dollars for public domain pieces they might only play once, I let Finale put key signatures in horn in F parts.
However, if you are a professional horn player (and, even better, have a natural horn and some crooks) and would like horn parts for a particular piece I've done using the old transposition and without a key signature (but with accidentals as appropriate), just ask, and I'll be happy to provide it at my next convenience.
