Engraving Challenge June 2020: Beach Romance

UPDATE: Entries are now Closed for this Challenge! Be on the look out for videos on the MET YouTube channel for the reviews!


Here’s a new, exciting event we’re going to do on Music Engraving Tips! An engraving challenge, hopefully the first of many we will do. It is intended as a learning experience so engravers can share tips and solutions to thorny engraving problems. If you’re familiar to Thomas Goss’ Orchestration Challenges on Orchestration Online, this is a similar format.

For the month of June 2020, engravers will have the chance to engrave a piece by Amy Beach, her Romance, Op. 23 for violin and piano. It has all sorts of interesting problems to solve and I hope you’ll join us!

Here’s how it will work:

  1. Download Amy Beach’s Romance in PDF and MusicXML. The MusicXML is completely devoid of layout or engraving cleaning, it only has all the musical objects from the PDF published edition.
  2. Import the MusicXML into your music notation software of choice. Engrave the piece using best practices. Engrave the piano score and a separate violin part. Some guidelines to keep in mind:
    • – Layout should fit on a 9×12 inch paper, or similar.
    • – Approach as if you were engraving a modern edition, not as a reproduction of an old edition or urtext.
    • – Don’t change the composer’s original intention as much as possible, but some notation choices of the original edition may not be optimal.
    • – Keep in mind to include good page turns where applicable.
    • – Reference Gould’s Behind Bars and other repertoire of a similar instrumentation for inspiration.
    • – Feel free to post your in-progress entries to Music Engraving Tips for feedback from other members.
  3. Submit your engraving to this form. You must submit a PDF of the piano score and violin part. You may also submit notation software files if you so desire. All entries must be received by June 30, 2020 at 10:00pm EDT.
  4. In the month of July, we will have a feedback period where multiple entries will be reviewed by Justin Tokke on YouTube. Feedback from other members is also encouraged.

Hope to see many of you submitting! Email justin@musicengravingtips.com if you have any questions.

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