The Ensemble Concert Book Series

This page is intended for those arrangers who have said they want to help by contributing to this project. I'm assuming you've all read the Guidelines; links on this page are to specific segments in the Guidelines, in case you want to refresh your reading.

Here are some links to the contents of this page:

Avoiding duplicated efforts
What do I do next?
Will I have my name on my arrangement?
Will there be any royalties?
When do I need to have my arrangement done?
Summary of how to get started

AVOIDING DUPLICATED EFFORTS:

The response to the Call For Arrangers has been outstanding. In less than a week after putting out the initial Call For Arrangers (January, 2010), we have over a dozen people ready to contribute to the project.

To ensure we don't have arrangers duplicating efforts, I will email to each arranger the names of two tunes from our list.

When you receive this email, please let me know right away if you will arrange one or both of them. If neither of the tunes suits you, that's okay, just let me know that, too, and I'll send you a couple more from which to choose. I do understand that some tunes simply don't resonate with some people, but we have plenty to choose from, so alternatives are available.

Because many of the questions I’ve received so far might be of interest to all of you, I’ll put the answers to them here.

QUESTION 1:

The most common question is “What do I do next?”

The first thing is to go ahead and arrange your tune(s). Write the arrangement essentially for brass quintet. This gives you the proper voices (SSATB), and with two exceptions, the proper ranges.

You can read our guidelines on Part Ranges here, especially the bass and alto part ranges.

Even though you might be thinking "brass quintet" when writing the arrangement, be aware that instruments other than brass will be playing the parts. So brass-specific figures, such as extensive double/triple tonguing or trombone smears might need to be left out or rewritten.

Please try to make your arrangements something more than just “plain-old plain-old;” they should be fun to play, and fun to listen to. Feel free to use tricks and gimmicks if you like; innovative modulations, passing the melody around to different voices, throwing in snippets of other tunes, using different styles, anything to give your arrangement character and flair.

The bottom line here is that we want all the arrangements in each book to be so much fun that customers feel they simply must buy all the books we produce.

Once you have your arrangement complete, or mostly outlined, send it to me and I’ll either have some suggestions for you, or I’ll give you the green light to go ahead.

Once you get the green light, scrub your score. Make sure all your dynamics, articulations, phrase marks, and text elements are consistent, then copy each of the parts to all the transpositions for those parts, insert any necessary rehearsal measure numbers, format the individual parts per the guidelines, and create the PDF files. If there’s some part of this you can’t do, just let me know and we’ll work something out. I’ll be happy to provide feedback at any step of this process.

By the way, the formatting requirements are updated as of January 9. 2010, so please read through them again, if you haven't read them since that date.

Because we have so many people working on different arrangements, I have high hopes that we’ll finish the first book very quickly, and the second one not long after that.

QUESTION 2:

Another question has been, “Will I have my name on my arrangement?”

Absolutely yes. We recognize that being published is an important consideration for those on academic faculties, and each arranger will receive full attribution for their contribution(s).

QUESTION 3:

While very few of our arrangers have actually asked the question, I’m sure most are wondering, “Will there be any royalties?”

The short answer is a qualified “yes.”

The long answer is an explanation of why the “yes” is qualified.

The number one reason for this project is to simply get these books produced and make them available so people can use them. The music community really needs these books, and it’s a way we can all help bring more music to more people.

From the tone of all the responses to the call for arrangers, everyone recognizes this, and simply wants to help make it happen. This is wonderful.

The second consideration is, of course, financial. There will be considerable expense involved in the initial production of these books, so we’ll have to sell them as opposed to just giving them away, to recoup the expense.

The next consideration is royalties to the contributing arrangers. The reaction I’ve heard to these books has been universally enthusiastic; hopefully, this portends a huge market for them. However, as with any publication, payment of royalties is based on a percentage of sales.

Traditional publishers pay royalties of 10% of the sales price of a work. Because we expect to get print-ready PDFs from you, and can therefore avoid the expense of typesetting or engraving, Silver Clef Music pays royalties of 30%. Please keep in mind that the total royalty payment for any sale will be 30% of the sales price, and this 30% must be split among all contributors, in proportion to their contribution. For example an arranger who contributes two arrangements to a book will receive twice as much as an arranger who contributes only one.

Yes, this will result in only a few cents royalty per sale. But that’s not why we’re doing this project. We’re doing it mainly to provide a much needed resource to instrumental music. If we do a good job of it, perhaps sales will be such that the few cents royalty per sale will become significant for each of us.

QUESTION 4:

“When do I need to have my arrangement done?”

We don’t have a deadline on the project. The answer to the question is: How soon do you want us to be able to release a book? In other words, please don’t just sit on it.

If we can get twelve completed arrangements (and a completed appendix) by the end of February, 2010, then we should be able to send book 1 to the printers by tax day, April 15, 2010. Fingers crossed on that.

Later arrangement completions means a later release.

SUMMARY:

• Identify the one or two tunes you would like to arrange.
• Arrange the first one in five voices (a la brass quintet.
• Send me the draft of your arrangement.
• When you get the green light, create all the transpositions and send me the PDFs.
• Repeat for other tunes, if you want to continue contributing.

That’s all there is to it.

With so many wonderful people contributing to this project, I’m very excited about getting the first book into print soon, and I’m very much looking forward to working with each of you.

From me personally, but also on behalf of the entire music community, who will benefit from the project, THANK YOU for contributing.

David P. Miller