It is very hard to be objective when you are composing or playing through your piece.

So it’s a real benefit to be able to take the listener’s seat for a few minutes and listen to Finale’s playback of the notated score.

It’s true that the playback quality is not very good, but it’s enough for me to get a sense of how the architecture of the piece is working: the arc of the piece, the flow from one section to the next, the development of ideas, that sort of thing.

But is it cheating? I used to think so, but I have since realized a simple truth:

What seems good in your imagination may not be quite as exciting out in the real world.

Anyone knows this to be true, but simple things like this tend to get obscured when you are composing in the shadow of Mozart and Beethoven.

But now I know better.

After all, it’s a lot like how musicals do workshops to fine-tune the piece, or how screenplays get altered in the editing room.

And, who knows, if Bruckner had had MIDI playback, perhaps we would have only one version of his symphonies!

Today I begin engraving Sandro’s piece!

But that doesn’t mean it is finished, because it definitely is not. I have the skeleton of the piece in place, and I just need to fill it out.

Here’s an example.

This shows an idea for a line where I knew how everything else was supposed to go around it, so I didn’t stop to write out all the details, choosing instead to keep on writing the main line.

If I had taken the time to fill out every detail of note, chord, counterpoint, voice-leading etc… then I would have surely lost my flow of ideas.

This is an extreme example, though. Most of the piece is much completely fleshed out than that. Filled out enough that I am ready to begin engraving.

I like to start engraving at this stage because it is really exciting and motivating to see the piece start to take on its final, engraved look.

But I also start engraving now because it breaks up the work a bit: I fill out a page or two of the piece with paper and pencil at the piano, and then move to the computer to engrave them. Then back to the piano and so on.

It keeps it more varied and thus more interesting.

And because it is done digitally, once the piece is engraved I will still be able to make all kinds of changes, additions, deletions and whatever else needs to be done to get this piece as a fit as a fiddle.

Now, I need to start thinking about titles…

Since Sandro is a virtuoso, a goal for this piece is to showcase his outstanding technique.

A common feature of virtuoso works is the flashy scale or arpeggio run meant to thrill the audience with its super-human difficulty.

But it is soooo easy for these gestures to be all flash and no substance, a trap I am trying to avoid.

I want every gesture, even the flashy ones, to be part of the architecture of the piece.

They must be as exciting as possible while still being part of the development of the theme.

t’s like a good story; you use only what develops your character and storyline. No fluff.

As an example, here’s a sketch from my notebook. It’s a very cool idea that develops the main theme.

(Right now I am using it in the finale, but we will see if it stays there after the rewrites.)

This gesture has all the right elements:

• It’s flashy and virtuosic
• It is gestural (not just a melody, but it has a gestural “shape” to it)
• It’s different (you can’t just imitate Liszt, you know!)
• It develops the theme

Notice the the circled pitches, that’s where the theme is.

Accompanying each melodic note is also an octave, either above or beneath it, clarifying the melodic line.

I can’t wait to have the whole thing put together.