I had an empty block of time, so I thought I’d amuse myself by pulling up “Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way” and filling in the gaps where, in the choral version, the orchestra is not doubling the chorus, i.e., there is no melody present. There are only a couple of passages where that is the case, so this looked to be like an easy re-entry into my composing.

The first stumbling block, you knew this was coming, didn’t you?, was my old nemesis Finale itself. Somehow, whenever there’s an upgrade, it completely loses the ability to read its own dynamic or technique markings. There’s been a steady degradation of playback on “Milky Way” since 2006.

Actually, that was the only stumbling block. Filling in the gaps was an easy thing, or should have been. There were plenty of lacunae in the orchestral fabric, i.e., several appropriate instruments were sitting on their butts during those passages. The problem became, what the heck does it sound like?

Then of course the reverse fear began to haunt me: what if, rather than getting worse, Finale was actually getting better, and the lush, flowing orchestral piece of 2006 was in all reality a dreadful, clunky piece of sludge? The fact that it can’t play its own pp or mf or pizzicato is a comfort in this case.

Anyway, I plugged the holes and am considering sending it to Stephen for his perusal.