Psalm 62- unfinished arrangement

• Nov 23, 2009 - 05:21

This is my first attempt at MuseScore. As a well-versed Finale user and very casual Sibelius user, I've been very impressed with what I've been able to do, thus far. I don't have the cash for Finale, and when I wanted to start this arrangement, a Linux using friend of mine did a Google search and found MuseScore for me. So far, I've put in about 20 hours on MuseScore. I've been very impressed to only encounter one bug in it, and that would be the bug I posted on in regards to improperly played tied/slurred notes (so, you'll see/hear that in many, many spots throughout the piece). Two other slight things I found was that there is not a "Grand Pause" symbol, but that can easily be filled with a fermata and a breath mark (it's just not quite the proper symbol I was looking for in the second to last measure, as a grand pause is a fermata with a built in breath), and I don't have the option of writing in a ritardando at the end, or if I do, I'm not sure how to do it (I could care less if I can play it back with a "Rit.", I'd just like to be able to have it written in on all four staves).

I'm not done with the arrangement, yet- still some tweaking to do, and still need to put in lyrics for the baritone and bass voicings. Also, still need to do dynamics. The first two measures are just to give someone at a piano our keyality. ;-) The rest of the arrangement is more or less as written, with- as I said- a few tweaks to be worked out, yet. Even though I'm not finished, I'd still be interested in some feedback on it, if anyone is willing to provide it. It's an arrangement of an Aaron Keyes song, from his CD "Not Guilty Anymore." I'm attempting to make an a capella (guys quartet) arrangement of it. Go to http://strength4fear.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/my-soul-finds-rest-psalm-… and then click on the play button in the music player on the left hand side if you want to check out the song to listen to what I'm arranging from.

One thing to note- I know that MuseScore says that I shouldn't be able to sing nearly as high as I and my friends can actually sing. I'm not going to lie- I've been listening to a capella groups my whole life sing stuff where the 1st tenor is always "screaming high" (Rockapella, is a classic in this regard; more recently, after becoming a Christian, I started listening to Glad and their a capella hymn/ worship song style is actually what I'm trying to emulate in my arrangement; see Glad: A Capella Worship 2 on Amazon.com for more examples; specifically "How Deep The Father's Love For Us"). So, though I know that the range checker is doing ranges for "normal" tenor voicings (I'm guessing it's probably based on normal SATB arrangements), in this style of musical arranging, the range checker is rather impractical in the "limitations" it wants me to place on the 1st and lead tenor voicings (which is what I'll be singing, and I'm more of a baritone than a tenor- I've just got decent falsetto range). So, yeah- you're going to see a lot of red when you open up this file. That's okay, I already know that. ;-) However, I do appreciate that you guys have made it so that there is a range checker that actually works! This could be helpful in future arranging, particularly in orchestration pieces. It'll make it- assuming ranges were plugged in correctly- so that I don't have to dig out my Orchestration textbook in order to make sure I stay within normal operating ranges on the various instruments (unless I'm trying to write a virtuoso type piece, then I'll want to dig out the Orchestration textbook, anyways- if I'm not writing for bassoon that is, since bassoon's my major proficiency).

For anyone who may not know, the copyright symbol can be achieved by either finding it in your character map in Windows or by holding alt and then typing 0169 (and yes, that ASCII code works in MuseScore, too; it's pretty universal, regardless of the font, near as I can tell).

Other than that, any feedback (I do prefer constructive criticism, though) is welcome!

Attachment Size
Psalm 62.mscz 17.27 KB

Comments

I'm not qualified to give feedback on the arrangement itself, but 2 remarks regarding MuseScore use.
MuseScore makes the difference between Tie and Slur . You need to make it too. See attached file, where I replaced some slurs to tie when I thought it was needed.
Regarding copyright symbol, in copyright text, you can use (c) and check Edit->Preferences->Text to have it renders correctly, in case you don't know the alt 0169 trick.

Attachment Size
Psalm62_fixed.mscz 16.05 KB

In reply to by [DELETED] 5

Thank you for your quick reply to this! I can't believe I didn't think of that fix, considering Finale uses the same keyboard command for ties. I'm too used to using the visual palette to do all the work for me.

After reading your comment in the other post I had made, I went through and already made the changes before I saw that you had responded to this one. Thank you, though!!

If you don't mind my asking, "lasconic", are you a musician working on this coding project? Just curious.

In reply to by [DELETED] 5

At this point, there is a huge temptation to make a joke about drummers and the type of music education they receive, except as someone who really is the guy that always wanted to be a drummer (even though I play bassoon and flute), I am respectful enough not to. ;-) In all seriousness, I do apologize that percussionists are not afforded as much accolades as other instrumentalists are. A guy in my high school could do amazing things with a snare drum. I remember hearing him play "Tornado" at Solo and Ensemble in high school. Not to mention Rain Dance on marimba at a concert. The guy was good. As a future band director, I understand, appreciate, and value the musicality of percussionists.

With that in mind, why would you say you're not qualified to comment on the arrangement itself?

(BTW, you know how the band director got there, right? He was a snare drummer who lost one of his sticks, so he just started waving the other one around.... ; -) )

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