Sales Statement 2013

I got my annual sales report from Alfred Publishing recently, in which they compile and break down sales of all my music for the year, from April through March, 2013. Unfortunately, sales were down a little bit from last year and the report showed some interesting trends.  Here are my top domestic sales of scores and parts in 2013:

1. Maharaja
2. Avatar
3. Gargoyles
4. Gauntlet
5. Agincourt

Avatar has been the top seller for the past few years and was unseated by Maharaja. I'm still surprised at the popularity of Maharaja but that piece was all over YouTube this year. Gargoyles edged ahead of Gauntlet for the first time in a while - both are usually in the top five and are very close, but Gauntlet is normally slightly more popular. In truth, Gargoyles sold one more copy than Gauntlet this year.

It's important to note that this report predates the release of Dragonfly and Across the Wind, my newest pieces. That means that the newest pieces on this report are Harrowland, which would have come in 7th, and Beale Street Strut, which would have come in a distant 8th.

Foreign sales are a different story. Sales abroad are usually much lower, because the system of music education is different outside the U.S. and many countries don't have group music instruction in schools. Here are the top five sellers of scores and parts outside the U.S.:

1. Harrowland
2. Beale Street Strut
3. Samba Del Sol
4. Sneaking Suspicion
5. Avatar, Gargoyles, Gauntlet, Maharaja, Porcupine Pantomime

A complete inverse of the Domestic Sales list! And a five-way tie for 5th place! I honestly don't know what to make of this, other than deducing that foreign orchestras gravitate toward the newer titles. Also, there are more minor-key pieces on the Foreign Sales list than usual. Usually, this list is full of major-key tunes.

Finally, I'll include a list of the top five selling scores. This is important because orchestras buy extra scores for the judges when they take a piece to contest. And when a piece is included on contest lists, that speaks to its long-term popularity and quality.

1. Gauntlet
2. Avatar, Gargoyles
4. Las Mariposas Exoticas
5. Agincourt

Gauntlet is the runaway winner in this race, selling more than Avatar and Gargoyles combined. All are popular, time-tested pieces (Agincourt being the newest), which makes sense on this list. I'd be shocked if something from the last three years showed up here, but I expect that Maharaja will work its way up this list in a few years.

I'd also like to give a shout-out to the handful of honest folks who went through the proper channels and paid licensing fees to copy, record, and re-arrange my music.

So sales were down in general, but I got some good data from the report. Hopefully, things will turn around next year with five new pieces in the works. Look for March of the Wood Elves, Winstride, Zuma Breakers, Pioneer Sky, and Woodpecker Cha Cha later this year. Also, my next report should include Dragonfly and Across the Wind, which I suspect will make a major impact.

A Performance in Qatar

So I was looking around on the Interwebs recently and discovered an article from May 26th, 2013 about a performance of Maharaja. The article was in the Gulf Times and my first thought was that it was from Mississipi, Louisiana, or maybe Texas. But I was way off.

The Gulf Times reports news from the PERSIAN Gulf.

It turns out that Maharaja was performed in Qatar. In the Middle East.  Roughly, here:

Here's what the article said about the group and about Maharaja:

Almost 80 musicians took to the stage of the American School in Doha (ASD) on Saturday evening to perform in front of a delighted audience.  

Musicians range from semi-professionals and professionals, including the occasional ‘loan’ from the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, to amateurs ranging in age from 10 to those nearing retirement - all united in their passion for music.
It seems that at every concert the orchestra achieves new heights, and Saturday’s performance was no exception.  

...and then it was time for ‘something completely different’ with the musicians snapping their fingers as well as playing away for dear life in Doug Spata’s  sizzling and stylish ‘Maharaja’, with the audience invited to join in the finger-snapping by conductor Brita Fray. Combining rhythms and motifs from Southeast Asian music with a powerful beat and exciting melodies, this very recent composition is as much fun to play as it is to listen to, and the DCO did it full justice.

  They were doing a "multi-cultural" program and chose Maharaja to represent India (by way of the U.S.). My mind is blown. I also appreciate the Monty Python reference. Thanks to the DCO orchestras for choosing my music!

Here's a link to the full article.

YouTube Concert

It's time for another online concert! Let's start with a performance of Maharaja by the Marshall Philharmonic Orchestra of George C. Marshall High School in Falls Church, Virginia,

These guys get it. The tempo isn't too fast, leaving lots of room for expression and the stylistic nuances of their performance are excellent. Maharaja is a character piece and this group was able to see beyond the notes on the page to really bring the character to life. Bravi.

Up next is a performance of Star of Valor. I'm not sure which group this is, but it looks like it was performed at Oscar Smith High School in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Nice job! Star of Valor is like an emotional roller coaster and this group does a good job of navigating the turns. Lots of good stuff happening in Virginia.

Our final selection is Gargoyles, performed by the Concierto Solidario of the Conservatorio Superior de Música in Córdoba, Spain, led by D. Gabriel Arellano.

I can see that there's a lot of passion in this performance but, to be honest, this isn't the greatest rendition of Gargoyles I've ever heard. It's rather heavy-sounding and there's not a lot of dynamic contrast. So why am I featuring this video? Because it was made in Córdoba, Spain. In Andalusia.

BOOM!

INTERNATIONALLY FAMOUS COMPOSER!

 

Sales Statement 2012

Every year, the good people at Alfred Publishing send me a report showing how many of each of my pieces have been sold in the past 12 months. It's always exciting to get that kind of quantifiable feedback. When I first started getting them, they were much simpler, but since the advent of digital printing and different combinations of scores and parts became available for sale, the sales reports have become a lot more complicated. So, filtering through the many lines of data, here are my top-selling sets of scores and parts within the U.S. for 2012:

1. Maharaja
2. North Pole Workshop
3. Avatar
4. Gauntlet
5. Agincourt

I submitted Maharaja with little hope of it ever getting published and was shocked that it was accepted. I just thought it was too odd or too technically demanding to be taken seriously. A year later, looking around YouTube, I was shocked to discover that it's popular. And now I'm shocked to learn exactly how popular - nearly twice the sales of my next-best-selling piece! New pieces for tend to make a big splash in their first year, but Maharaja goes beyond expectations.

Gauntlet always makes the top 5 list and I'm excited to see that it remains popular. North Pole Workshop was also a new piece this year and it's great to see that it did so well.  Avatar was the top-seller for the past two years and I credited that to people mistaking it for the theme to James Cameron's movie, but it still has a strong showing, so I think it's safe to start attributing success on its own terms. Agincourt is one of my personal favorites, so I'm thrilled that it remains popular. Gargoyles usually makes the top five list but this year it was edged out by just one sale. Another newer piece, Shadows of Venice, would have taken the #7 spot.

Looking at the data for foreign sales of scores and parts is a different story:

1. Maharaja & Shadows of Venice (tie)
3. Agincourt & Sneaking Suspicion (tie)
5. Mambo Incognito & Star of Valor (tie)

There's a different system for music education abroad, which often doesn't involve classroom music ensembles, so foreign sales are far lower than in the U.S. But still, this year's numbers show an increased interest in some of the newer selections. If I was shocked to see that Maharaja is popular among American orchestras, I'm floored to learn that it's popular in other parts of the world. Major-key novelty pieces tend to dominate this list, but it's wonderful to see music like Agincourt and Shadows of Venice catching on.

Here's one more list - domestic sales of scores:

1. Gauntlet
2. Gargoyles
3. Avatar
4. Agincourt
5. Las Mariposas Exoticas

This list is important because orchestras need to buy extra scores to give the judges when they go to state Solo & Ensemble contests and high sales mean a piece is popular at contests. It takes several years for a piece to build enough credibility to be included on contest lists, so big sellers here are usually older pieces, but it's good to see Agincourt surging ahead.

There are a lot more ways to break down the data - digital scores and parts, print licensing, MP3 downloads – but that's enough for now. If you bought one of my pieces in 2012 (in any format) I want to thank you for a great year!

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!

 

MP3 Downloads 2012

One of my absolute favorite things about working with Alfred Publishing is hearing their promotional recordings of my music.  The studio orchestra does a great job every year and I always look forward to their professional interpretations.  This year's recordings are no exception.

The links below are to Alfred's music download website, Alfred-music.com, and my three new pieces for 2012-2013. You can listen via Flash or download each piece for only $.99 USD.  You can search for my name or for any of my pieces and you can download those as well. For example, Gauntlet, Gargoyles, Agincourt, and Maharaja. Enjoy!

 

Maharaja Video

It looks like my new piece "Maharaja" is really taking off! I've already found a few concert videos on YouTube and I think this one is the best. It's just a little too fast, but the intonation and rhythms are flawless and check out the bass player's fancy German bow grip! I also like that the Violin II player is really getting into the groove of those finger snaps at 1:40.

Anyway, please to enjoy the Encore Strings of East Lansing, Michigan in their Fall 2011 concert:

 

North Pole Workshop

My third piece officially has a title!  After submitting it as "Workshop Song," my editor suggested I change it to be more overtly Christmas-related.  I suggested "North Pole Workshop" and they're going with it.  So there it is - next year you can look for these three new pieces:

Maharaja
Shadows of Venice
North Pole Workshop

Also, they liked my suggestion of including alternate parts for "Shadows of Venice."  The set will include Violin III parts (doubling the Viola part) and Cello II parts (doubling the Bass). The reason we're doing that is that each part includes at least one solo, so if an orchestra has no basses or weak violas, they can still perform the piece.

New Music Selected: Maharaja

Guess what, Interwebs?  Alfred Publishing selected three of my submissions for their 2011 String Orchestra catalog!  (I'm sure this news will be met with great elation by the approximately zero people who read this blog.)  Never the less, I'm excited about it and I feel compelled to describe each forthcoming piece. I want to give them their own space, so each one will get its own blog post, starting with Maharaja:

The MENC has dictated in its National Standards that young musicians should be exposed to music of international origin, in order to foster an understanding of foreign cultures through their art.  This has not been difficult, because folksong arrangements from Japan, Latin America, Australia, and all over Europe are readily available and quite popular.  The exception: India.  There are no "Indian" songs available to string orchestras.  Traditional Indian music defies simplification and arrangement because it:

1. is a mostly improvisational musical genre.
2. doesn't really have "melodies" in the Western sense
3. utilizes sounds that are nearly impossible to replicate with Western instruments.

It's a challenge, to say the least, but one I was up for.  I decided that the key was not to approach Indian music from a "classical" perspective with all its confusing ragas and improvised noodlings, but instead, to approach it from a pop music perspective.  The "Bollywood" style uses Western tonality, forms, and  instrumentation but with a distinctive South-Asian flair and often the addition of tabla drums and sitars.  It's a fascinating blend of Indian and Western pop styles.  And that would be my starting point.

When writing my new, forthcoming piece, Maharaja, I started as I always do: with meticulous research.  I listened to countless songs and watched videos on YouTube to get an understanding of Bollywood style - its conventions, typical rhythms, melodic style, forms, and use of instrumentation.  The piece is based it on the "Asian" scale with flat third and sixth degrees and sharp fourth degrees.  I made sure to use idiomatic flourishes and syncopations, octave interjections in the violins, and even approximated the sound of tabla drums with slurred pizzicato in the 'cellos and basses.  Bollywood music is typically very rhythmic and, in lieu of using a drum kit, I opted for finger snaps.

Honestly, I submitted Maharaja with little hope of it being selected for publication but, once again, the selection committee surprised me.  I'm very glad they did, not only because I poured a lot of time and love into its creation, but because Indian music has a close plase in my heart.  As a small child my family lived in Sri Lanka, just off the coast of India and my parents lived in India before that. The two countries have somewhat similar cultures and musical traditions. I grew up surrounded by wicker, brass, Sri Lankan and Indian artifacts, and stories of the Para Hara.  My childhood nickname was that of a bell-shaped Buddhist shrine.  Long story short: I've always had an affinity for South Asian culture and I'm thrilled that I can share that interest with orchestra students of the world.