Leading an ensemble

Leaders – teachers, conductors, choir directors – look after the ensembles they lead. Admins and librarians create ensembles and decide who leads them; everything else on this page leaders do themselves. Leaders can also browse the whole library and open every part.

Ensembles lists your ensembles; My music shows the ones you lead under You lead.

Players

On the ensemble’s page under Members:

  • Add a person … adds someone who already has an account. Admins can also Invite someone new.
  • For each member, + instrument sets what they play, with a part number or all: “Clarinet 2” sees only the second clarinet part, “Clarinet (all parts)” every clarinet part. Someone can play several instruments.
  • Remove takes them out of the ensemble (the account stays).

Members of an ensemble see only themselves in its member list – pupils are often minors.

Single parts: sometimes one person needs one more part – the full score for the accompanist, the second part for someone helping out. Under Single parts choose the person and the part and Grant; Take back ends it. It also ends when the person leaves the ensemble or the work leaves it.

Works

Add a work from the library … gives a work to the ensemble; from then on every member sees their parts of it. Taking a work away also takes it out of the ensemble’s programmes.

Appearance

Under Appearance (on the ensemble’s page) a larger ensemble gets its logo; a small one a symbol – an emoji on one of eight colours – or its initials. The logo wins while there is one.

Programmes

A programme is a concert or a set list: name, date, start time, venue and notes, and the pieces in playing order. New programme, e.g. Spring concert creates one.

  • Add works of the ensemble (adding a work from elsewhere gives it to the ensemble) and breaks such as an interval or a speech, with a duration if you like.
  • Reorder by dragging or with the arrows; each item can have a note (“with repeat”, “soloist: …”).
  • The card shows when each item starts, the total and the expected end. Works without a duration are named – enter it right there; it is stored with the work.
  • Running order is a printable page with numbers, times, composer, arranger and durations.
  • Set list is the list for the performing rights society (in Germany the GEMA Musikfolge): event, and per work title, composer, lyricist, arranger, publisher, work number and duration – printable and as a CSV file. Works with missing details are listed with links. It follows GEMA’s paper forms; it is not GEMA’s own form.

Members see each programme on My music with their parts in playing order, and the viewer turns from one piece to the next.

A substitute who has no account gets a guest link: on the ensemble’s page under Guest links, New guest link ….

  • For whom – a name, e.g. “Max, trumpet substitute”.
  • The parts – one by one, or All parts of an instrument and part number in a programme.
  • Works until – suggested is the day after the next concert, otherwise two weeks; at most a year.

The link is shown only once: copy it and send it on. Lost it? Stop it and make a new one. The guest can open the parts in the viewer and download them – no markings, nothing offline. The list shows when a link was last opened; Stop link ends it at once. You are reminded the day before a link runs out.

Shared markings

Bowings, breaths, cuts, dynamics – what everyone should have in their part. In the viewer’s annotation tools, Write for switches between For me and For everyone in the ensemble. Markings for everyone go to every member who plays the part, beneath their own markings; they cannot change them and can hide them. Two ensembles playing the same work keep separate markings. Players are told when there is something new (at most twice an hour).

Recordings

On a work’s page under Recordings, leaders of an ensemble with the work (and the library) add audio files: choose Kind – Practice recording of a part (for a part, or for an instrument or voice) or Full recording of the work – and Origin – recorded or generated (e.g. from MIDI) – then Add audio files …. Several files at once are fine.

Formats: MP3, M4A (also voice memos from a phone), WAV, FLAC, Ogg/Opus, WebM, AIFF – no videos. MIDI files cannot be played directly yet: export them as audio from your notation software. Everyone who sees a part of the work hears its recordings.