Piano works

As a member of the American Composers Forum and a subscriber to newsletters like New Music USA, I regularly get notifications of composition competitions, most of which I do not qualify for. I mean, I could claim that I’m in the beginning phase of my career, since I don’t have one already, but I think those competitions are for the young people. Of which I am not one.

So it was with gratitude that I saw a couple recently that allowed anyone of any age to enter. Very sweet of them, I thought.

I won’t say which competition I’m entering at the moment; it’s one of those where submissions have to be blind, i.e., my name can’t be connected with the pieces so as not to influence the judges’ decision either way. (As if anyone in the music world would have an opinion about “Dale Lyles.”)

So what am I submitting? This is one of those competitions that allow you to submit more than one piece, so I’m looking at Ten Little Waltzes and Six Preludes (no fugues) and possibly Five Easier Pieces.

The fun part of it is that I’ve had to import all the old Preludes and Easier files into Dorico to clean them up, and that’s been about as exciting and productive as I’ve come to expect. To be honest, it’s gone pretty smoothly so far, moving measures around and flipping note stems. The only real problem I’ve encountered is in the third Prelude where Dorico insists on notating off-beat quarter notes as tied eighth notes, that kind of thing. But what it’s done is technically accurate, so we’ll blame any hesitancy on the part of the competition pianist as being their own incompetence.

I’ll keep you posted.