Blog

Errors in parts or scores can cost a conductor precious time during an already tight rehearsal schedule.  New editions by Frodnesa Music Publishing clear up the oversights and errors from the original works without taking away from the original intent of the composer.  You can find great pieces for your ensemble at https://shop.frodnesa.com

Music engraving during the early 20th century required amazing skills that required an expert in artistry, cartography, metal-working and geometry.  Often working from hand-written scores, the engraver would use a wide range of hand tools to cut every item of a score or part into a sheet of metal.  An immense amount of concentration and precision was essential to produce playable music.  Once a page was finished, it was difficult to alter or fix many problems without cutting an entire new piece of metal from scratch.  Experienced musicians have long grown accustomed to "that one part" which they can always expect to find a note or accidental written in due to an error.  The following example shows one such error.Missing note in first measure of second line.

This part, in 3/4 time, is missing a note in the first measure of the second line.  New editions from Frodnesa Music Publishing use a contemporary process which virtually eliminates the possibility of missing notes.  Every part is entered by hand on a master score and proofed against whatever original is available.  Engraving oftentimes meant making tough choices on where place many items, this oftentimes meant dynamic markings not matching precisely among parts or tempo changes not aligning.  By pairing the above part with its sister parts, not only is the missing note clearly exposed, but the accents which appeared on the other parts were noticed as missing in this part.   Also, the key change in the original part could be mistaken as an accidental to the first note.  Our software uses minimums which help clearly indicate the difference between a key change or an accidental that may have been left to the skill of the engraver in days past.

Contemporary method for finding mistakes in originals.

Great music was shelved during much of the first half of the 20th century, victim to overt, covert and institutionalized racism and misogyny.  I had long dabbled in expensive notation software, but when I happened upon Musescore, I was immediately drawn to its ease of use and accuracy in rendering notation.  I felt that reinvigorating this awesome music by exposing it to a larger audience could aid in some tiny way as a gateway for students to explore the depth and breadth of black and women composers who are rarely heard from while their contemporaries continue to be celebrated. 

One of the most striking things I noticed was the Ohio Music Educators Association's Concert Band Competition List.  It includes 72 works for concert band by 51 composers.  Of those 51 composers, 47 are white men.  While this has no bearing on the quality of the work produced by these men, many of these compositions are spectacular pieces for educating young musicians, it says volumes about the continued inequity and lack of diversity in the U.S.  To put this into perspective, a greater percentage of Presidents of the U.S. have been black (1 out of 45) than the percentage of black composers on the OMEA Concert Band list (1 out of 51).  And, at a time when women lead countries around the world, only 3 have made it onto this list.

Much of the concert literature by black and women composers of the early 20th century was pushed aside by a white, patriarchal society.  Frodnesa opens its site to the dream that we can revive some beautiful, challenging music from those composers who are underappreciated and underserved due to race or gender and the continued echoes of institutionalized racism.

John Asendorf, Founder of Frodnesa Music Publishing

© 2024 Frodnesa Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

Main Menu