Online Concert

It's time for another online concert!

Up first, please enjoy Gargoyles, performed by the DPO on October 28, 2011. (Possibly California's Dos Pueblos Orchestra? There's no indication of who the conductor is or where the group is located.)

Fantastic musicianship and some great, precise playing! The articulations are perfect. It's exciting to see such a large group that doesn't feel the need to play loud all the time. Their pianos are exhilarating.

Up next is the LaVilla School of the Arts Orchestra of Jacksonville, Florida performing A Breeze In the Keys.

There's a really nice energy in that performance and good contrasts between the bouncy rhythmic parts and the legato sections. Kudos to the percussion section on this one.

Next, let's hear from the Philharmonic Orchestra of Hopkins High School in Minnetonka, Minnesota, led by Andrew Bast. They're performing Maharaja.

This is a tough piece and they pulled it off nicely. It's all about pacing, and making sure you don't get too loud or intense too soon and they did a great job. They also have a good sense of rhythm and an ear for the style.

Finally, let's jet over to Germany (Berlin, I think), where Jana Wirth leads the Kammerorchester MSO in a performance of Agincourt.

Small but mighty! Those are some good players. The crispness of their staccatos is absolutely delightful and their intonation is spot-on. They look like high school students but they sound like pros. Well, done!

 

Royalty Statement 2010 - Part 3

The third part of my royalty statement is a little nebulous.  It involved "licensing" - an umbrella term that involves all income other than print sales.  Most of it is listed as "MakeMusic Print Licensing."  MakeMusic is the company that makes Finale notation software and Smartmusic, which is a great online resource where teachers and students can play along with recordings and print parts.  So whenever someone pays to download one of my pieces online, I get a cut.

Some other pieces registered income from "Misc. 3rd Party Mechanical Licensing" which, I think, means that I get paid when someone records one of my pieces.  A lot of orchestras record their concerts and sell them as fund raisers and, in theory, the directors should let Alfred Publishing know and pay for the copyright.  In reality, only a handfull of honest directors have ever done this.

A third listing reads "Digital (Other Than Print) Licensing." and accounts for the highest single royalty on the licensing report.  I have no idea what that means.  Maybe something to do with video?  I can only guess, but whoever you are, thanks for doing whatever you did with Breeze In the Keys and please do it again.

You'll notice that there are no rankings listed in this post, which leads me to the most nebulous part of this report.  I have no idea how many MakeMusic downloads there were or how many recordings of each piece were sold - just that a certain lump-sum dollar amount is assigned to each title. And no two amounts are the same. I'd suspect that the royalty rate depends on the number of downloads or CD's burned, so it's hard to specify exactly.

New Videos

It's been a while since I've updated the ol' blog!  I found a couple of new YouTube videos that I can share.  First up is a nice performance of "A Breeze In The Keys" by the Evergreen Orchestra.  They do a great job with the syncopation.

The second video is not really a video.  It's a recording of "Las Mariposas Exoticas" accompanied by an odd little collage.  The style and the use of dynamics are really spectacular in this recording, the intonation is beautiful, and the tempo is rock-steady.  I'm not sure who the group is or where they're from, but bravi to them and hats off to their director!