21 February 2011

Rooting about the electrons

An amusing footnote to the recent request for Pascha nostrum is: I was also asked for Flourishes on Easter Hymn for brass quintet and timpani. So, the m.d. has taken the time to pore through my site! Most gratifying.

That little bit of occasional music, though, has lain unused, and who knows in just what form, for twelve years. In my musical output, it’s just a squib, really . . . a brass intro to the hymn, little skirls punctuating the verses . . . but the reason I added it to my “catalogue” is, hey, there must be other church m.d.’s with brass available on Easter Sunday who would find just such a squib of use.

In what form? Well, obviously a Finale file. But where have I put it? Is there already a PDF file? Probably not, as this was done probably the first year I was using Finale, and I didn’t have any PDF utility at the time. &c.

Does anyone remember floppy discs? I’ve got probably 16 floppies (which with a little organization, I could probably consolidate into a single flash drive, and then, with space to burn) . . . so I am poking through all these floppies the night before last, hoping (a) that the piece is on one of those discs, and (b) that the floppy disc it is on, is not one of the corrupted discs.

The odd incomplete snippets of music which I have been finding on all those floppy discs astonish me . . . most of them worthless, I’m sure, but it’s an amusing snapshot of a time when I was sort of throwing off sketches by starting a score in Finale.

And I did find the disc with the Flourishes on it. Or rather, I’ve found a score, so now I need to re-learn/remember just enough Finale to generate parts.

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