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!

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: Shadows of Venice

As you might remember from a previous post, I enjoy Baroque music, but prefer the simplicity of the Italians to the ostentatious flourishes of the Germans.  I have a special place in my heart for Vivaldi.  Maybe it's the simplicity of the music, the austere joy he conveyed, or the fact that, like me, he wrote for school-age musicians, providing them with quality material.  When I visited Venice many years ago, I came across the church where he worked and had one of my very first full conversations in Italian.  It went something like this:


[I arrive at the church, right on the Grand Canal and see a woman at the box office window]

Me: Buena sera!  Questo é la chiesa di Vivaldi, si?
Her: [nods]
Me: La sua tomba non é qui?
Her: [shakes her head "no"]
Me: Ma che un concerto da qui questa sera.
Her: [nods]
Me: Hmm. Grazie. [exit]

I thought I did pretty well for a beginner, even if she seemed kind of annoyed with me. 

So anyway, I enjoy Vivaldi and wanted to write a piece in his style.  I'm really not a good mimic of style - everything I write sounds like me - but wanted to use some of Vivaldi's techniques, like his sequences, articulation style and rhythms (I think of Vivaldi's rhythms being very "square." They're angular and require very precise, even playing).  The form that is most frequently associated with Il Prete Roso is the concerto, so I felt this would be a great opportunity for school orchestras.

Written in ritornello form, my piece Shadows Of Venice starts off with the whole orchestra playing a dark main theme.  Then, students get a chance to play solos.  Students from each section get solos and it's very easy to break the solos up into smaller parts, giving more students a chance to stand out.  In fact, there could be as few as five soloists and as many as 24, depending on how the solo parts are broken up.  The MENC guidelines warrant that students should have the opportunity to play solos, and this is the perfect opportunity for them.

Shadows Of Venice is written for late-beginner students (probably the end of their first year) and negotiates three key changes without requiring anything but the first finger pattern and only uses three strings on each instrument.  I'm rather proud of that.  I'm also happy with the title.  The "shadows" can refer to the dark, minor-key style of the piece and could describe a nighttime chase through the city, over the bridges and through tight alleyways. The title could also refer to my modern take on Vivaldi's style: The piece isn't a direct copy, but uses elements of his style, hence "Shadows Of Venice."

You can read the blog post I wrote shortly after finishing the piece.

Shadows of Venice

I'm feeling really good about this new piece I'm working on!  I'm also feeling very proud of myself for writing a Grade 1.5 piece that only uses the first finger pattern on the G, D, and A strings (and a little E-string for the basses) and successfully negotiates three key changes.  It starts in B minor, transitions to E minor, over to G major, and back to B minor.

On top of that, it gives teachers the option to feature outstanding students with solos in each section.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, the piece is a modern take on Vivaldi's style and takes the form of a rondo, so there's a recurring main theme with optional solos bridging the sections.

And to add to the excitement, I've already come up with the title: "Shadows of Venice."  This is a nod to Vivaldi's stylistic influence as well as the back-and-forth style of the solo sections.

I hope to finish the main writing tonight and put the finishing touches on this weekend.  Then I'll be ready to jet off on my Florida vacation!