I have a new studio setup, based around Apple's Logic Studio software suite. As part of my initiative to educate, or re-educate, myself, I am digging into the score production aspect of Logic Pro 9. This powerful, industry-level application requires a fair bit of learning before being able to claim you are using it to its full potential. Nonetheless, I have selected an obscure work for my first attempt to reproduce an entire score.
The piece is "Song of a City" (sometimes known as "Rising Tide") by the twentieth century composer William Grant Still. This music was commissioned by the 1939 New York World's Fair Corporation to be played via continuous loop recording inside the iconic Perisphere building as part of the Democracity exhibit. The actual recording is nowhere to be found, and I went so far as to inquire about it with the music company owned by Still's family in the year 2000. They sent me a copy of the full, hand-written score for the music.
Here is an excerpt from a piano-only recording.
The impressive Logic Pro 9 software includes templates for various instrumental setups, and as luck would have it, one template almost exactly duplicates the instrumentation required for "Song of a City". There is no glockenspiel part in the music, so that track in the score will remain vacant for now, but I may take some license at some point and write a glock part on my own.
Transcription may take several months, as I am learning the software at the same time as deciphering the hand-written score. As the major segments of the work are completed, I will upload them here for review and critique.
Here is some background on William Grant Still and the musical work I am about to re-create.
And below are links to the various components of my studio:
iMac 2.93 GHz Intel Core i7 with 27" screen
Logic Studio
M-Audio Axiom 61
M-Audio Keystation 49e
Samson C03U USB Microphone
Muse Research Receptor Komplete
Traveler Guitar Pro Series
Sony DP-IF3000 Cordless Infrared Earphones
KK Audio A-1-88K Edit Desk
