An Interview with composer David Warin Solomons

Recently I interviewed David Solomons via email.  David Solomons has written over 5,000 instrumental, vocal, and choral works.  Here are his interesting answers to the questions below:

  • Do you write your music out by hand first, then put it into your DAW, then send it to a music editor, then send it to your live musicians to record, then once they’ve sent you the recording and you approve of it, then you post the recording, and your .pdfs on sheet music plus?

When I started out, I wrote by hand, but these days I use Finale software (some prefer Sibelius, but I’m a Finale bod). A lot of my work is arrangements (they sell better than originals, even though I just upload electronic previews created in Finale). When I do originals, I eventually send them to professional music companies such as Budapest Scoring or professional soloists such as Daniel Mihai and Robert Billington. Occasionally I get nice surprises when a group or soloist does my works for free.

I publish on Sheetmusicplus and on MusicaNeo – often I upload an electronic preview of originals and replace them with professional recordings later.

  • Do you set goals for how many compositions you write per month?

No.

  • How much does it usually cost to pay live musicians to practice, perform/record your music?

It varies. I always prefer to have a video of the performance as well as the audio. A piece lasting 4 minutes can cost up to $2K.

  • Do you pay for their studio recording fees?

Yes.

  • Does it pay off in the long run, financially?  Or, is it more about getting your music out there online?

Possibly in the very long run. Getting my music known is the important thing and often I feel that my arrangements subsidize my professional recordings, although not yet completely.

  • Do you send your music to orchestras?

Yes, but none have offered a free performance.

  • Can you support yourself being a composer?

No, it started out as a hobby and has become an expensive hobby, but fulfilling   ðŸ™‚

  • Why do you write music?

It’s better than watching football!

I imagine you have already seen my website www.dwsolo.com – that may give you some ideas.

Kind regards,
David W Solomons
http://www.dwsolo.com
www.youtube.com/user/dwsolo