How I did it: I started making connections with chamber music meetups. So far that has not yielded any fruit, but it may by the by. Ultimately, my wife decided she wanted to give me this experience as a 40th birthday present. She contacted a local music school, that in turn put her in touch with the Head of Chamber Music Studies at a local university. He organized and coached a chamber ensemble of students and recent graduates. I had to provide the score and parts.

Lessons & tips: Double check the final score. I thought I had, then heard some wrong notes in the performance. When I checked later, the musicians did in fact play the notes as written. They got shifted in the score somewhere along the line.

If you're used to composing on the computer, remember that with real people you need to give breathing room, attack time, and take the physical characteristics of playing the instrument into account.

Resources: Money. It cost nearly twice as much to hire the ensemble to play my original music as it would have had they played music from their repertoire, because they have extra learning and practice time.

Logic -- specifically the notation engine, for producing the score and parts.

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Oct 26, 2009, 07:32PM PDT | 3 comments | 4 cheers