This morning, I orchestrated 12. The Marmalade Man Makes a Dance to Mend Us. This is one of those slight cheats, since the original piano score was easy enough to do with the eventual instrumentation: flute/pizzicato cello. As you’ll hear, the completed orchestration is not much more complex.

Here’s my question: does it need to be more complex?

Here are the piano score and the orchestral mp3.

I have two more smallish pieces to do, 13. The King of Cats Sends a Postcard, and 14. The Tiger Asks Blake for a Bedtime Story, and then I’m faced with a dilemma. Anything even approaching a full orchestra simply overloads my laptop. It doesn’t have enough memory. It’s clear that I’m going to need a new computer before going much further with this project. The remaining pieces, 5. The Man in the Marmalade Hat Arrives, 9. The Wise Cow Makes Room, Way, and Believe, 10. Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way, and 15. Blake Tells the Tiger the Tale of the Tailor, all of which are huge orchestrally-speaking-wise.

So can I get another laptop, which would be my preference, or will the memory requirements of Finale 2006/7 and Garritan Personal Orchestra force me to buy another desktop computer, which will be a great deal of money more than I want to spend? This will require a lot of research and a couple of extended visits to the Apple Store at Lenox.