Hello M.G.,
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I wouldn't worry about things such as beginning with an orchestral statement of the ideas. Beethoven starts his 4th with solo piano and the 3rd movement of his 5th begins with a piano flourish. What I thought, on second hearing, when it came to measure 110 went something like this: A brief statement of this theme would make a good beginning, with strings in upper octave 6, ppp and tremolo, playing sustained notes and the melody by i'm-not-sure--perhaps an English Horn.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>I am inclined to do something opposite. Rather than start with a quiet beginning (such as the theme at measure 110), I might want to start with a brief, powerful orchestral statement, perhaps made out of new material, that would be weaved into the movement and probably reused at the end of the movement.
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Back to your piano/orchestra piece. If is to have more than one movement, might it not be a good idea to play around and see if additional musical ideas emerge, that would work with what you already have?<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>Exactly. I probably need to have a few more improv sessions to find some new material, and perhaps to expand on the quiet, somewhat melodic idea at measure 110.
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But I found that I had a thing about manuscript paper, which I still have.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>I'm with you! My pencil notation isn't terrible, but certainly not readable by other performing musicians. The last time I did music calligraphy was about 20 years ago for a 32-page, 20+ minute piano piece (Concert Variations on a Hymn). I took me about 100 hours to do the pen calligraphy. The calligraphy is quite readable, but not pretty. There is some satisfaction in doing music calligraphy, but I'd much rather spend 100 hours writing music... or music software... than doing calligraphy.
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The metronome is one thing I haven't figured out, in Composer. Turning it off doesn't affect playback and I don't enter notes from an external midi instrument, at least not now.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>I've noticed that sometimes the metronome button up/down position doesn't correctly indicate whether the metronome is turned on or off. Sometimes you have to fiddle with the button to make it work. I'll fix that in the next 1.1 release of Composer.
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I will put a midi of something up on the Share Your Music site in the next few days.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>I'm looking forward to that!
Cheers
-- Mark