Richard Whynn McGuire

They did say it would boost my chances if I included large ensemble works of significant length and if I can't get professional groups to play my pieces then midi realizations are the next best thing. And I would like these midis to sound nice. Believe me, I'm putting in a lot of effort towards making these pieces beautiful from a musical standpoint technology aside.

Hello all, So I'm very new to sound libraries and music technology in general. I do however own Sibelius 6 and a midi keyboard. For my composition portfolio for college I intend on writing an orchestral piece, a wind symphony piece, a choir piece, a big band piece and a multi-percussion solo which is almost done. Considering it's difficult to hire an orchestra and other large groups to play my pieces I'm turning to sound libraries. You might ask why all of the big ensemble stuff? Well because from emailing the professors at the schools I'm interested in they recommended large ensemble pieces that are of significant length. I'm working a lot this summer as well as composing, practicing, studying for the SAT and trying to get my Eagle Scout squared away. Lots to get done, but I figured with all that I'm working I'd be able to make about $2100 this summer and maybe into the school year. I don't know where else I'd put this topic now that I think about it. Oh well. Anyways, I was wondering if anyone of you could recommend some good music tech that would make my midis sound as real as possible. I've considered the Complete Composers Collection from Eastwest/Quantum Leap for my orchestral, wind symphony and choir pieces, and Garritan Big Band for my big band piece. I couldn't find a good jazz sound library from Eastwest, but perhaps I need to look again. I'm going to record myself live playing my percussion solo btw. Is there anything else you'd recommend? Do I need Pro Tools or something like that? I would really like these large ensemble pieces to be very realistic considering getting together a large orchestra would cost a lot more than I'm able to make. Then there's application fees and actually paying for school, but I'll figure out how to pay for that later. Any other advice about college composition portfolios would be much appreciated. Thanks a bunch! -RM

Hello all, although I've composed for a while I'm pretty sure this is my first post on this forum. I would like to hear your opinions and advice about college majors because I'm torn between them. I would like write music for visual media I.e. film composition. I was trying to explain to my parents that a music degree doesn't guarantee success in the music industry, but they still want me to go to college and also get a business degree with music degree I.e. double majoring (what business degree I have no clue, but that's beside the point). I'm asking if what you would think would best service me in trying to get into film composing. Should I major in composition, jazz composition, or audio engineering? Ideally, I would like a school that offers all and I'm able to experience a little bit of all three along with a strong business program, but this may be far fetched. I'm torn between the three and whatever advice you could provide would be appreciated. Thanks!