Many years ago one of my 7-year old boy students was dying to play the theme of The Last of the Mohicans on the piano. The problem? He was still in the first half of the Piano Adventures primer level, so there was no way he could make sense of any of the sheet music arrangements available. So, my only alternative was to write him his own arrangement. In the most simplified version possible, I notated a single line of melody split between both hands. I presented it to him at his next lesson and he was ecstatic! I have a few other such arrangements conceived of necessity over the years that are either lost for good (as is The Last of the Mohicans one) or squeezed out of sight in my too-full file cabinet. For copyright reasons, these could never be shared or distributed beyond the walls of my studio. But all that has now changed!
The other day I came across a PSA of sorts that mentioned ArrangeMe.com. The description intrigued me, and upon closer inspection I discovered that it’s a dream come true for amateur teacher-turned-arrangers who have collections of arrangements that have never been shared due to copyright considerations. ArrangeMe.com was designed by Hal Leonard to provide aspiring composers and arrangers with a platform to publish three kinds of sheet music: original compositions, arrangements of music in the public domain, and arrangements of copyrighted music for which they have secured copyright permissions (which amounts to over 3,000,000 pieces and counting!). The commission on the former two is 50% and on the latter is 10%, which in the publishing world is not bad at all. They handle all of the securing of rights and provide a handy template so you know exactly how to format your work for publication.
I decided to give the whole process a try with another arrangement I wrote for my sister’s wedding. She loved the music from the film Emma and wanted to use the main theme for her wedding processional, but we couldn’t find quite the right arrangement anywhere. It needed to start with a sweet, delicate sound for the beginning, but then crescendo to a climax for the bridal entrance. So I ended up writing an arrangement for the occasion.
The ArrangeMe dashboard is simple and intuitive, so in a matter of minutes I was able to update the formatting of my arrangement according to the template and add the provided copyright. I saved it as a pdf and uploaded it to my account.
A couple of hours later I received notice that the arrangement was approved and ready for purchase via the online distributors: Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus. There is also the option to publish interactive music scores via the Noteflight Marketplace, but I haven’t looked into that at all yet.
The minimum list price is $4.99, but there’s no limit to how many pieces you can publish, no membership fee, and no other catch to the process. I certainly don’t expect to get rich selling piano arrangements, but it is really cool to have the opportunity to share these with other teachers and students who might be able to benefit from them. I’ll have to think about this some more, but it could also be a fitting outlet for students who are aspiring composers or arrangers… If you end up giving it a try, let me know so I can check out your compositions and arrangements!
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