Hey Donald, attached is my latest score for Solo Flute, Harp, and Strings.

I
plan to have this performed by a small ensemble at the College I will be
attending this fall. I hope if you could look it over for proofreading,
engraving, etc. My goal is to make a solid score ready for live
performance. Please feel free to send my any thoughts, suggestions, etc.

DanielIve divided up my comments into General Observations and

Specific Suggestions sections. Please forgive me for taking this long, and
also for not going back to coordinate the corrections you mentioned that
were made by someone else with my own. Ill leave that task to you. Most
of my comments are about technical and notational matters, not about the
aesthetics of your piece per se. Something Ive relearned this past year by
orchestrating a former students book of original Piano pieces for them is
that MIDI (dynamic) balances of recorded sound patch library instruments
are not always representative of what youll get when actual instruments/
humans rehearse and perform. There too, the room a human ensemble
performs in can affect the sound and balances significantly. So you may
have to adjust individual part dynamics to better fit your ensemble
balances and the room they play in once you hear the music in rehearsal.
My best wishes to you for success with your piece and for your first
semester at school. You stay in touch too, OK?

General Observations about the piece and the individual parts

The piece has a pleasant sense of stasis and serenity to it. It might make a
nice soundtrack for a video, provided the two matched up compatibly
moment-by-moment.

With very few exceptions, the piece is comparatively easy to play note-
wise/finger-wise.

Cosmetically, the chromatics in your key signatures (probably a default

setting in your notation software?) and some individual chromatics on
notes as well, particularly the non-parenthetical naturals, seem positioned
a little too close together or to the notes they precede.

__________________________________________________________

Flutein m. 13 you may want to respell the D-natural as a C-double

sharp, though you can get away with the spelling youve already used. The
reasons are: (1) You only need to show one chromatic alteration if you use
C-double sharp (since D-sharp is already in the key signature), and also
sharps are more often used, and therefore are also a bit better recognized,
as a pitch-raising chromatic than are naturals, which very commonly can
either raise or lower a pitch; (2) Sharps too can lower a pitch, but only in a
context already dominated by double-sharps, which is rare; (3) pitch-
raising chromatics tend to be favored in passages involving ascending
chromatic pitches/scales/scale-fragments.

In. mm. 8081, the key change requires a funny interval somewhere
since the Flute plays across the change; I see you've opted for D-sharp in
m. 80 (creating a doubly diminished Fourth with the G-flat preceding it) in
order to create a Perfect Octave going through the key change/double bar-
line itself. In some engraved scores Ive seen such interval conundrums
clarified, if actually not solved, for the performer(s) confronting them by
inserting a parenthetical smaller note-head after the main note-head, thus
showing the enharmonic spelling equivalence where it occurs. The idea is
to keep the interval on both sides of the transitional note spelled correctly
in their respective keys by representing it both ways (old key spelling first,
new key spelling second, smaller, and in parenthesis). Im not sure if this
is a currently recommended practice or not, but it has been done in the past
to avoid oddly-spelled intervals altogether. Your Flute player this fall could
tell you what they personally prefer, but of course by then youd want to
have your Flute part all extracted in advance and ready-to-go, and not have
to backtrack and revise that measure in the score and in the Flutists part.
The historic fix Ive just described would appear like this:
m. 80G-flat half note followed by E-flat half note [which spells a minor
Third]; the E-flat half note then immediately followed by a smaller/solid
note-head (no stem) in parentheses, and in the same measure, showing the
enharmonic equivalent pitch, D-sharp. The enharmonically clarified
respelled note, D-sharp, then makes a Perfect Octave with the first note in
m. 81.

The only other way I know of to avoid odd intervals is to use an

enharmonically equivalent key signature instead for either the old or new
key (e.g., if you used 7 seven flats instead of 5 sharps for the new key
starting at m. 81), but the success of that in turn depends on what sort of
spellings the enharmonically equivalent/alternative key requires for the
ensemble as a whole. I resorted to this particular solution myself in the
theme/variations movement of my Second Quartet, in which the main key
signature was A-flat major and then I wanted to use the parallel minor (A-
flat minor) for a single variation, but it would have required too many
double-flats and even some impractical triple-flats, so I opted to notated it
in G-sharp minor instead, where I still had some double-sharps but no
triple-sharps[!]). There are string-tuning purists who would object to the
composer choosing an enharmonic key (which choice is rather the
outcome of equal temperament tuning keyboard thinking), but my sense
was that I would get fewer performance mistakes, either in rehearsal and/
or in performance, by using 5 sharps with recognizable-if-uncommon
intervals instead of by using 7 flats which would have resulted in some
completely unrecognizable intervals. Many string players still prefer
sharp-based key signatures to flat-based key signatures, so that was a
consideration too.

Overall, your Flute part is not difficult to play, and the highest notes
youve written are at louder dynamic levels, which is easier for the player
to perform and control, than are very high notes that are soft. The Flute
parts rhythm overall is very easy. At the same time, your Flute player is
probably going to ask you where you want her/him to breathe in those
passages where there are many (say, more than four) measures of solid half
notes or solid whole notes. Theyre going to wonder what the phrasing
should be in such passages and my advice in that regard would be to go
back through the Flute part, decide where the breathing should occuri.e.,
where you would want the Flutist to breath and how you want them to
phrase such passagesand introduce breath marks in all those places.
Wind players will breathe in suitably placed rests if they are long enough
(eighth rests or longer in moderate tempo) so you can resort to placing
rests to indicate phrasing instead of adding breath marks, if you prefer.
Either notation gives the player a place to breathe, although the breath
mark is more explicit in that regard.

Also overall: There are some places (e.g., mm. 5371) where you may
want to add more in the way of articulation (e.g., slurs). Im sure you
already know that bare notesthose with no slursare all individually
tongued by Wind players, but another consideration is that its harder to
get lost reading your part if some of the notes are grouped by slurs. Slurs
should of course be used foremost to get the musical effect you want, but
they do bear the side benefit of breaking up the visual sameness of many
adjacent measures that are otherwise undistinguished from each other by
(much) variation in the pitch/rhythm of what they have to play.

If youre ever unsure of what articulations (slurs, staccatos, etc.) to give to

a part, try singing it as musically as you can and in the way you want to
hear it, and then add in the articulations which best express that sense of
the passage as you sang it and and preferred it to sound. It turns out that
every articulation plays a part in creating the particular sense of a
passage and that if you change the articulations that sense of what the
passage says changes too. The right articulation of a passage can help it a
great deal musically.

HarpI wont tell you not to use them at alland a good Harpist or
orchestration book would probably be of better help herebut slurs in
Harp parts (e.g., mm. 61, 63, 65, etc.) generally mean less than they do to,
say, Wind players. The reason is that Harp notes continue to ring until their
sound decays completely or until the Harpist hand-mutes them to stop the
sound. Theres no tonguing/breathing/bowing involved in Harp playing
technique and so slurs dont bear those kinds of articulative meaning in
Harp notation. They may well indicate smoothness and phrasing, however.
Again, check with your local Harpist and with any published Harp parts
you can lay hands on to see how theyre written and, if you can, ask your
Harpist if they like how theyre written and why.

For me at least, the most difficult aspect of writing Harp parts is

understanding, coping with, and keeping track of the pedal settings/
changes Harpists must employ to produce the requested notes. Each pitch
class (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) can be set by the Harp pedals as a flat, natural,
or sharp, and it takes time for the Harpist to be able to reset a pitch class to
a different 'notch' in its pedal setting. The standard joke about the modern
chromatic Harp (with the three-notch pedal settings available for all the
pitch classes) is that the pitch-changing mechanism is so disruptive of
maintaining accurate intonation on the instrument that Harpists spend
half their time tuning the Harp and the other half playing out of tune!
While thats an exaggeration, the process of making pedal changes on the
Harp to access the requested pitches is something thats a bit of a mental
challenge for us composers to keep track of (so that we dont ask for too-
many-too-soon pedal changes), unless we happen to play the instrument
ourselves (so take Harp as a minor instrument if at all possible) and
already know how to write gratefully for it.

Lacking that, the next best thing is to draw yourself some kind of
representation of the Harp pedals on paper and keep track, measure by
measure, of which notch (flat, natural, or sharp) the pedal is currently in,
so that you can diagrammatically see how many pedal changes are
required between any two points in your score. A Harpist will be your best
guide for how many pedal changes can be handily (or footily!) done in a
given space of time, and how they prefer to make pedal changes (some
changes are made as they play, which is generally harder; others are made
during measures of rest, which is generally easier). An overall rule of
thumb is: Require the fewest number of pedal changes that you can. In that
regard its relatively acceptable to use enharmonic notes, more or less to
your hearts content, in Harp parts in order to make the playing/pedaling
easier and less complicated. So Harpists are generally used to a greater
degree of enharmonically spelled pitch material in their parts than are most
other musicians. Remember too that a Harpist cannot change a pedal
while a note affected by that pedal is still required to be sounding.

My guess is that the transition across the key change in mm. 3233 of your
score will be the biggest question mark place where your Harpist can
most helpfully advise you. That spot is probably the trickiest youve
written here (e.g., C-sharp in m. 32 has to be repedaled to C-natural by the
end of m. 33 and then changed again to C-flat by beat two of m. 34, and
then changed back again to C-natural by beat two of m. 35).

My overall advice would be: Sit down with your Harpist and your Harp
part, and go over the part with them measure by measure, asking them to
tell you if anything is unplayable or impractical before your first ensemble
rehearsal and then fix up the part accordingly before that rehearsal. If you
cant meet with the Harpist beforehandHarps are hard to haul around
and that could require an extra tripat least communicate with the Harpist
beforehand that youd like their input (phone or Skype may work best for
that, plus they dont have to haul their Harp to meet with you) on anything
they think is impractical or downright unplayable. Its better to iron out
those things one-to-one beforehand than during an ensemble rehearsal
where everyone else is forced to just sit and wait, which can waste
valuable rehearsal time.

1st ViolinsYou may want to employ the same historical notation I

mentioned for the Flute part (above) for the 1st Violins in m. 80, regarding
playing E-flat in the old key and then D-sharp in the new key (a sounding
Perfect octave higher, in m. 81) in order to clarify the weird written
interval of the augmented seventh between mm. 8081.
Generally, your string players may want to see more slurs in their parts
since slurs are used to indicate single-direction draws of the bowthan
what youve shown for them here. I admit the vagaries of string bowings
are a particular weakness of my own, my having only taken Violin minor
in music school (but no Viola, Cello, or Bass) and my having gotten only a
rudimentary understanding of orchestral/sectional bowing practices.
Showing some bowing indications is probably better than none, provided
that what you do show makes basic musical and string-technique sense to
your players. If you dont really know what to slurs to indicate for them,
its best to sit down with a knowledgeable string player and have them tell/
show you how they would bow your music, and why. If theyre willing to
do that with you, jot down their suggested bowings and learn everything
you can from what they tell you. Generally, a single-direction draw of the
bow can last longer if the dynamics are softer, and so can take in more
notes. You can also study scores of fine composers who knew enough
string technique to have written well for strings and to have even included
some basic bowing indications (e.g., Tchaikovsky, Mahler) to learn more
about idiomatic string bowing.

Sectional string players often assume the responsibility for creating/adding

a suitable set of bowings to their parts, and they devise such bowings
based upon practicality and their own best musical sense of what will
make the music sound good and what will be idiomatic for them to play. In
some sense, that process is for them like pre-fingering of unfingered sheet
music is for Pianists and Organists. If you follow the historic Leopold
Mozart tradition for bowings (Wolfgang Mozarts dad wrote a famous
treatise on Violin playing), downbeats of measures should always be
down-bows, but other and more recent bowing traditions sometimes
disagree. You might meet with one of your string playersor, ideally, with
the leader of each string sectionto discuss bowings for your parts with
them before your first rehearsal. If you happen to be a string player
yourself, and you already have a good practical knowledge of bowing
procedure/notation, then you can add in more slurs to indicate bowings
anytime yourself before your first rehearsal. But if youre not a String
player yourself youll have to learn as much as you can about how they
work out their bowings. Again: Take Violin and the other string
instruments as a minor instrument course if you possibly can while at
school, if youre not already a string player yourself. Theres nothing so
helpful for knowing how to write idiomatically for any instrument than
having played it yourself, even if for just a semester course. And thats far
better than nothing. If your college doesnt require a particular minor
instrument for your prescribed degree coursework (as mine didnt), try to
take it as an elective instead. If your college doesn't offer it as a semester
elective, see if you can create it as a private study semester elective with a
suitable teacher.

Violasaround mm. 5360 you might want to switch to Treble clef where
the Violas divide and play their highest notes. The main point and
advantage of such clef changes is the minimization of leger lines.
Switching back to Alto clef in m. 61 as youve done it seems very
workable. In mm. 5760 the upper divisi part stems may be more readable
if you extend them to their full/normal length. Shortened stems are usually
the most helpful to keep inner parts (e.g., Alto and Tenor registers) from
crashing (stems-on-stems) in closed score format when the upper and
lower staves are close together.

CellosAs with the other string sections, your cellists may hanker after
more slurs in their parts.

Specific Suggestions

Measure Comment
Before 1 Specify the initial Harp pedal settings(?)

1 Tempo marking: Raise it a bit higher and leave more space

between it and the Flutes top staff line so that it doesnt
 look individually associated with just the Flute part.

1 Harp: Place the mezzo piano indication between the staves

(like Piano music).

1 Cellos: Place the dolce indication above the staff, away

from crescendo hairpin.

56 1st Violins: Curve the tie higher so that it doesnt mostly lie
on top of the top staff line.

3233 Check with a Harpist: Is there sufficient time for the tuning
pedal resets before/at the key change?

33 Just checking: Your Flute plays F-natural while your

Harpist plays F-flat (left hand, upper note on beat 1)is
that a deliberate pitch mismatch?

4148 Violas: Curve the ties higher so they dont mostly lie on top
of the top staff line.

44, 76 Remove the cautionary Treble clef(s) from the right hand
staff. (The right hand staff is already in Treble clef in
those measures.)

53, 61 Move the div. and unis. indications more to the left, so
that they either align vertically with the left side of the
note-heads or even slightly precede them.

5360 Violas/lower divisi part: Curve the ties lower so that they
mostly lie within the bottom staff space.

56 Violas: Double-stem the two quarter notes if the divisi parts

 play those notes in unison; otherwise, include a half rest
for whichever divisi part it is which doesnt play them.

60 Cellos: The C-sharp should be enharmonically rewritten as

D-flat, which also matches those other String instruments
who also play D-flat.

6168 Violas: Curve the ties higher so that they dont mostly lie
on top of the top staff line.

75 2nd Violins: Better to respell this G-sharp as A-flat (which

is in the key signature anyway and which the Flute also
plays on beat 1). It also avoids the doubly augmented
unison written interval with the previous 2nd Violin note
(G-flat).

8195 Cellos: Perhaps return to Bass clef here(?) Not necessary,

and I do realize youll return to Tenor clef at m. 100103.
Also, since too many or unnecessary clef changes are a
distraction to players, so this could go either way.

100 Combine the dolce indication with the flautando indication

and keep them both above the staff. Any of these would
be acceptable:
flautandodolce
flautando e dolce
flautando; dolce
flautando (dolce)

116 Cellos: Delete the arco indication, since the previous music
was already arco and since arco cancels pizzicato and not
flautando, which is also a bowed technique. If you
intended to cancel flautando, indicate ordinario (or its
abbreviation ord.) in m. 116. Ordinario, which means in
 the usual or normal way, cancels any special bowing
indication/technique (flautando, sul tasto, sul ponticello,
etc.) and restores normal bowing played in the usual
location.

102, 133 Harp/right hand: If you respell the chromatic half-step (F-
natural to F-sharp) instead as a diatonic half-step (E-sharp
to F-sharp, as you did in m. 100) it will save the Harpist
two pedal changes (F-sharp to F-natural and then back
again (mm. 101102) and also again across mm. 128
134.

106 1st Violins: repeat the dynamic (piano) after the previous
two bars of rest, both for clarification but also for player
security (this is the delicate end of your piece and you
want the 1st Violins to enter unquestioningly, assuredly,
and softly.