Hi Daniel,

Thank you for your wonderful words of encouragement. I don’t consider myself to be a composer (or arranger) …yet. I’m still a saxophone player at heart. As a young musician, I was fortunate to have the respect and adoration of many fans ( 50 years ago, we called them groupies), and that gave me the right to walk with a “swagger” and provided me with the motivation to retain my reputation. I wrote one rock and roll song when I was 16, and that was the extent of my composer status….until Mark provided us with such great software. My arranging experience was limited to statements such as “Hey Joe, you play this” and “Hey Wayne, you play that”. Nothing was ever put on paper. I didn’t write much because all I had was a broken down piano or my sax and I got tired of playing three notes and writing them on the staff paper.

Quote: “I don't want it to sound like I'm dissing the rough draft, but at
first I wasn't too impressed with it: just thought it a normal,
un-exciting piece. But when I heard the orchestral version, I was
Stunned”

That explains, in a nutshell, how I write my ballads or more serious pieces. I sit at the keyboard, eyes closed, in a trance. I vividly hear the orchestra playing in my mind and I play along with it. I imagine I am writing the theme song for a movie. Unfortunately, the software can not record the orchestra playing in my mind, only the piano comes out. Therefore, it is un-exciting and normal by itself.
The Greek goddess, Ariadne, is the subject of many artists and poets because of her powerful story ( primarily of love lost and found again). In this case, I imagined the movie was “Ariadne” and this is the theme played throughout. A piece I wrote last September, “The Summer’s Gone” was written the same way.

Quote: “(and I cant wait for the day I can write
orchestral music too. Its somewhere in my future, that's for sure!)”

Wrong!! That day is here right now, today, this instant! You would not believe how easy it really is. If you look closely at the arrangement, you will find that many of the strings parts are simply copy and paste of the piano part ( left hand or right hand ) to start with. Then edited pretty extensively to get rid of some clutter and add some counter melody with the clarinet, or flute etc. In this case, the clarinet and viola are together. Sure, it needs a lot more work, but it is at least a start. If I hear something in my mind, I will add a staff called “add notes” and try that part along with it with different instruments. If it works, I copy it and add it to the arrangement and get rid of the add notes staff. If you would like to see a good example of that method, I have a file that I started to add orchestra to my piano piece “The Summer’s Gone”. It needs a lot of editing, but I will be working on that. I use too much pedal in my playing and that needs to be edited first, then the strings need to be worked on quite a bit. I have only one measure of clarinet ( just to see how it would work ), a little flute and a little harp and timpany. If you would like to see that file, let me know and I would be happy to upload it. The piano alone piece was uploaded in Sept. I would be glad to upload both files if it would help to show the “simplicity” of creating an orchestral part out of a simple piano arrangement. Thanks again for the kind words.
Cheers,
Fred