If you read my blog for my compositional news, disregard this post and keep surfing. 
If you’re interested in notation issues, though, here’s the summation of my recent problem with losing formatting in all my parts in a Finale 2007 file:
Time for a weekly update-
Three Nocturnes is basically done, thankfully. I’m just letting it simmer since it’s not due until Jan 1. I’m mostly excited about it, and a little curious about a couple more experimental places. I’m anxious to hear what the commissioning group (West Valley Chorale, Phoenix, AZ) thinks of it, but for the life of me I can’t get a hold of Paul Yoder!
Today I was finally nearing the finish line on extracting parts for Arise, Shine, when Finale 2007 (the latest and greatest?!!!) decided to completely and spontaneously re-generate parts, thereby replacing my parts (which I’ve spent the last week tediously and laboriously formatting and editing) with totally new, unformatted, unedited parts. A weeks’ worth of work would have been lost were it not for AutoSave. (I remember Joan Pinkston once asking why I use that irritating feature- here’s the answer!) AutoSave had saved my file before it corrupted, and I managed to quit Finale before it autosaved again and overwrote the file. I opened my AutoSaved file, and all my formatted parts were there. Praise the LORD!
I’ve submitted this problem to Finale, and will post the results here. If this is a bug that others are going to encounter, Finale may have finally put the last nail in their own coffin!! On the other hand, if I did something stupid, unwittingly, I’ll have to admit it publicly here, too. But for the life of me, I can’t find anything I did wrong. It just stopped working on me, and then my parts were gone…and it’s not like there’s some keyboard shortcut for re-generating parts that I could have accidentally hit…
Anyway, I’m now free (relatively speaking) to focus completely and entirely on my dissertation…I have such high hopes for it, I don’t know how I’ll ever be content with it…but better to do that that to aim low and “reach” that.
My apologies (especially to those of you that I know check my site daily) for not posting much these days. We’ve been so busy “doing” that I haven’t had time to provide a running commentary on everything.
Various Updates: Arise, Shine is now off the ground, and in rehearsal stage at Shawnee Mission East; I’m anxious to hear it sooner or later… My set of pieces for the West Valley Chorale (for chorus and percussion) are (after weeks of wrestling with them) finally in rough draft form. I’m very pleased with the second and third in the set; the first may be great or it may have problems- I’m not quite sure yet. There are some experimental things that may or may not work well- we’ll see… I’ve had quite a few conversations with various people about various commissions in the last couple weeks- some of which are far enough down the road that I hope to accept them, and, regretably, several that I just don’t have time to do right now because of my dissertation. I sure hate saying “no” to people who are kind enough to want music from me… Proofing season is upon me- I’ve been proofing several pieces for various publishers, and have quite a stack of things that I’m still waiting on… I’ve also gotten a couple nice factoids from a couple different publishers, in the last few days, about some of my recent choral pieces being best-sellers: nice to hear that kind of news!
Anyway, my musical life is full right now with finishing up orchestral parts for Arise Shine, finishing up the Three Nocturnes for the West Valley Chorale, teaching Theory III, taking conducting (I must be crazy- but Paul Tucker sure is good at it!), and, lastly, working on that little Thing called a Dissertation.
Lastly, a confession: I’ve recently become completely enamored with the sound of bowed crotales…
Thanks to Brian Bondari for hooking me up with a new contact form on the “Contact Dan” page!
Since I posted previously on the manifold benefits of Sibelius, and my frustration with Finale, it’s only fair that I provide some praise where praise is due.
I installed Finale 2007 a couple days ago and have been loving it. The speed enhancements are noticeable; while Finale is still somewhat large and lumbering compared to its older light versions, 2007 has improved quite a few things…
