Prime Form Music provides computerized music engraving and related services done to the highest standards of craftsmanship. We produce scores and parts in printed or electronic form, make transcriptions and piano reductions, provide editing services, and publish selected editions.

Why Prime Form Music?

Let the composer compose

Many composers produce their scores using notation software, but few have the exhaustive knowledge of notation and layout needed for the creation of scores and parts that are problem-free and a pleasure to use. Composers have enough to do without having to master the arcane fine points of notation (nor can software handle them all automatically). Let the composer compose!

Superior appearance has practical value

Small matters of layout add up to big differences in clarity. The more complex the score, the more inadequate are the automatic decisions of software. Of course you don't want obvious problems, such as crowded or colliding symbols, but you also don't want subtle errors that invite misreading, such as horizontal note spacing out of proportion to the rhythmic values. You certainly don't want your performance materials to cause rehearsal stops.

An impeccably clear score also represents the quality of your work to performers who may be encountering your music for the first time.

The performance materials affect the performance

Performers, especially at a premiere, are often doing their best just to play or sing the right notes and have not had time for the work to take shape in their minds, in which case it is no surprise if the work doesn't take shape in the audience's minds either.

Errors or ambiguities in score or parts amount to throwing rehearsal time away. Errors? It's difficult for composers to proofread their own work; we all see what we expect to see. Ambiguities? Is this an intentional cross-relation or is an accidental missing? When were the horns supposed to remove the mutes they inserted 135 measures ago? Two minutes here and three minutes there spent on score and part issues in rehearsal could instead have been used for a complete run-through of an underrehearsed movement, giving the performers essential experience in grasping the continuity of your work.

The engraver as musician

Finding the best solutions to notational problems requires musical as well as software expertise. An engraver who is an experienced chamber and solo performer, who has conducted and has performed under major conductors, and who as a composer has rehearsed and performed in his own premieres can anticipate the needs of performers and apply that awareness to creating performance materials for you that will enable your performers to be at their best in presenting your work.