Jim's Legacy
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This weekend (Sat. Jan 21, 2006) a large contingent of band members met at director Susan and Rick's home to inspect the four boxes of music left to us by former Director (and band founder) Jim Ryan. We had lots of delicious potluck, camaraderie and beverages, then went to work sorting the manuscripts and the personal or business documents. Who was there? We should have some photos. Let's see - Ivy, Carol, Wayne, Ingunn, Susan, Rick and Renya B., Mary and Rob G. and their daughter Elizabeth, Glenn and Stephanie, Cheryl, Laura, Ed, Christine C., perhaps one more member. More than a dozen, anyway.
What we found was a complete disarray of compositions, some complete, many mere drafts, even a couple of complete manuscripts for concert band with all the parts entered, but no title or autograph! Jim Ryan's handwriting is unique, however, and there's no doubt it's his original work.
However, they're all jumbled in with photocopies from fakebooks, transcriptions of jazz and pop standards for alto sax, chamber settings... and some of the pop tunes are so obscure as to warrant research, because they might be Jim's. Or he may have written down a solo for someone to play - as was often the case for Rachel, his virtuoso flute student.
I am now in possession of two full boxes of folders and another half a box of jumbled pieces. My first task is to catalog the contents, with comments as to how complete each is, and what instrumentation, etc., so we could decide which pieces to score for the band to play.
It's certainly a time-consuming exercise, and I invite others to acquire music transcription software such as Finale Notepad (free), which can create fairly complex scores, quite good for free software.
Meanwhile, I'll keep plugging away at it. I'll post the list here.
PS
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This weekend (Sat. Jan 21, 2006) a large contingent of band members met at director Susan and Rick's home to inspect the four boxes of music left to us by former Director (and band founder) Jim Ryan. We had lots of delicious potluck, camaraderie and beverages, then went to work sorting the manuscripts and the personal or business documents. Who was there? We should have some photos. Let's see - Ivy, Carol, Wayne, Ingunn, Susan, Rick and Renya B., Mary and Rob G. and their daughter Elizabeth, Glenn and Stephanie, Cheryl, Laura, Ed, Christine C., perhaps one more member. More than a dozen, anyway.
What we found was a complete disarray of compositions, some complete, many mere drafts, even a couple of complete manuscripts for concert band with all the parts entered, but no title or autograph! Jim Ryan's handwriting is unique, however, and there's no doubt it's his original work.
However, they're all jumbled in with photocopies from fakebooks, transcriptions of jazz and pop standards for alto sax, chamber settings... and some of the pop tunes are so obscure as to warrant research, because they might be Jim's. Or he may have written down a solo for someone to play - as was often the case for Rachel, his virtuoso flute student.
I am now in possession of two full boxes of folders and another half a box of jumbled pieces. My first task is to catalog the contents, with comments as to how complete each is, and what instrumentation, etc., so we could decide which pieces to score for the band to play.
It's certainly a time-consuming exercise, and I invite others to acquire music transcription software such as Finale Notepad (free), which can create fairly complex scores, quite good for free software.
Meanwhile, I'll keep plugging away at it. I'll post the list here.
PS
posted by Ammo | 10:08 AM
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