wltz(loop)frgmnt(s) and a little discussion about typeface

Just finished my piece for the Norfolk New Music Workshop.  Given my time constraints maybe it wasn’t the best time to try and mess with some new engraving ideas, but oh well. I am trying to making the score look sleeker and less “Sibelius-y” by using a few sans serif typefaces. The two I used the most in this score were Gotham Medium and Future Medium.  Gotham is a little less jagged and has a certain smoothness to it that really sticks out. However, the letters are spaced wide so it is hard to cram performance instructions without getting too small and unreadable. Futura tends to do the trick most of the time. It is kind of a never-fail font if you ask me. I would be interested in what people have to say about what typefaces they use in their score or if there are preferences for the default Times New Roman that is everywhere in Sibelius. Is this the case for Finale too? I haven’t used Finale for years.

On to a little bit about the music. Here is my working program note for the performers (not necessarily the audience–quite yet). I am gradually coming around to the idea of program notes written by the composer. But I have only come so far as conceding that it is more necessary for the performer to get inside the composer’s mind and pre-occupations than the audience. Anyway, here is the blurb:

“This piece was written for the Norfolk New Music Workshop sponsored by the Yale School of Music. I use the idea of the sweeping, broadway-esque waltz as a point of departure (along the lines of what you would hear in a pops concert). Departure is as apt and cogent as can be in this case. The ‘waltz’ theme as introduced in the very beginning of the piece with the strong agogic weight on the second beat doesn’t ever become more than a fragment–an ephemeral essence of something familiar to the ears. It makes various appearances throughout and is essentially recontextualized from a broad sweeping motive to a delicate and fragile fragment. In the middle of all of this are various loops that are sent into motion. They closely resemble the aspects or detritus of the waltz-like theme but become individualized and divorced from the feeling that began the piece. In a way, one can easily become disoriented as the music unfolds. Out of such disorientation come surprising moments of synchronicity and clarity, culminating in the reification of the waltz fragment (as mentioned above) in a more fragile, yet coherent state.”