# Wrote an opera, little/no experience, now what?



## Orselina (Mar 16, 2013)

Hey. I'm new. This *might* be under the wrong forum (opera forum? beginner forum? musician forum? feel free to let me know if it needs to be moved!), but I have kind of a strange situation.

I'm a huge classical/opera/musical theater buff, with a decent amount of choir experience, but pretty much nil in the area of reading music, notation, and theory (I know! I know! Don't shoot!). And I often read about how, for composers, writing an opera is kind of intimidating and painstaking, and takes forever, and involves meetings-of-the-minds (which then often turns into "too many chefs").

Thing is.... _I wrote an opera_. It was just me, a borrowed casio, a word document, and the recorder function on my iPhone. I would plunk out the melodies by ear (many having been written years ago, but just sat in my head), come up with lyrics, and sing the vocal parts and play the melodies (often separate since I have trouble doing both simultaneously) into the recorder app. I'm not trying to brag. It took about a year, and I don't know if (or I don't think) I did it _properly_ by any means.

So, my question is this: now what? Or rather, what [several] steps lie between here and having it performed _somewhere?_ If I were a properly trained pianist or musician of any kind, I could just write it out on notation paper, but I can't. Aside from maybe taking some music reading/theory lessons (friends warn me that it's kind of looked down upon when musicians can't read music  ), what is my next step?

I'm editing bits here and there, and (perhaps unwisely) drawing set and costume designs, but I want this thing to take off eventually, and need to start making progressive steps. Any info will help! Thank you!

(ps, I know I left out lots of info, like the subject, the title, the genre, etc, but I didn't want to turn this into a novel. I'll answer any questions that I can.)


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## Lunasong (Mar 15, 2011)

Congratulations on writing an opera; something to be proud of if you like it. Do you have any contacts in music, perhaps through friends who share your interests or are in choir, to whom you can direct your questions and share what you are doing?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Is there any way we could hear part of it?


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## Orselina (Mar 16, 2013)

1) Luna, THANK YOU. I am happy with it and am proud of it. I have a few friends with a little bit of knowledge. I'll pick their brains (figuratively).

2) AvantGarde, here's the thing. I don't know what privacy/copyright laws are with putting music up online. Not that I'm worried about anyone here trying to steal it, but I don't know safe it is to just have it out there.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Orselina said:


> 1) Luna, THANK YOU. I am happy with it and am proud of it. I have a few friends with a little bit of knowledge. I'll pick their brains (figuratively).
> 
> 2) AvantGarde, here's the thing. I don't know what privacy/copyright laws are with putting music up online. Not that I'm worried about anyone here trying to steal it, but I don't know safe it is to just have it out there.


Maybe put up just an excerpt to give us an idea. Usually it would be considered under copyright if you just write (c) [your name] 2013 if you did all the work on it yourself.


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## AmateurComposer (Sep 13, 2009)

Orselina said:


> ..... I don't know what privacy/copyright laws are with putting music up online. Not that I'm worried about anyone here trying to steal it, but I don't know safe it is to just have it out there.


There are facilities to register copyright on intelectual properties. Why not protect yourself by registering your work prior to publishing it here and/or elsewhere?


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## Orselina (Mar 16, 2013)

Thank you, AmateurComposer. I think I will do that.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Hi Orselina,

Congratulations on completing a major project.

Of course we cannot offer comments on the opera itself unless you are comfortable posting an excerpt here. As for the next steps in getting it performed, it would be a good idea for you to separate what the OPERA needs from what YOU need as a developing composer. You, the composer, probably would find it useful to learn to read and write music, or at least to develop some familiarity with a computer synthesizer that is more flexible than your iphone recorder. Music theory etc. would reduce the amount of guess-and-check you have to do when you compose. And so on. If you do aspire to write more than this one work.

The opera doesn't need to wait for you to educate yourself. It is already done. For now, don't worry about the chore of writing it down. The next step is finding a group to perform it or at least to be willing to do a couple of sing-throughs with you first. I do not know where you are or who is in your community, but you could approach local companies, maybe a community light opera group if you've got one, schools/colleges. Or you could just approach some of your choir-singing friends to see if they'd like to sing through some parts of it with you. For a performance, working with an established group has a much greater chance of success than forming a pickup ensemble. If the opera is any good, someone will be interested, although it will probably not be the first someone you ask, and they might be able to do a sing-through or workshop but not be willing to commit to a full performance, or it might be a lone soprano somewhere who just loves Aria XYZ and wants to add it to her performing repertoire. Bear in mind that opera is a large and complex art form and it takes more doing to get an opera performed than pieces for smaller groups or individuals.

Once you've found a group that is interested in your work, you can then discuss whether they are willing to have you teach them the parts using recordings or whether they need written scores; at that point, a choir-singing friend or a helpful volunteer who likes your music (you might get lucky and find some on this forum) could help you transcribe the score if needed.

You're right that some people will think it odd to work with a composer who does not read and write. Try not to let that bother you when it comes to sharing the work itself. Luckily you have a recording. It won't make much difference in the quality of the work whether you write it down or whether someone else does. What you do to educate yourself as a composer beyond this point is up to you.


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## Orselina (Mar 16, 2013)

Hreichgott, thank you so much for your advice!!

I'm in a bit of a small town area, but am not terribly far from a few cities. Also, I'm tethered to this area for another year or so, but after that, I don't have anything keeping me from moving anywhere I please (to my benefit, I'm single, child-free, pet-free, and a minimalist materialistically).

So, my plan, then, is to spend the next few months or so really fine-tuning everything - harmonies for choral parts & duets, tidying up a few sub-par lyrics, and start thinking about orchestration. And even though I needn't wait to educate myself first, I would like to go into it with *some knowledge.* By then, I'll be more equipped to know what I'm doing 

As for the opera itself, I don't mind divulging some details, but it is a hard to explain. It's about the Gods of Egypt during the dawn of man. I jokingly refer to it as being "grand" in style, but "verismo" in content. It focuses in, not on the grandeur and grandiosity of the Gods, but of their most human qualities: resentment, jealousy, fear, lust, inner-conflict. It's the idea that if Gods walking on Earth and communing with man influenced us to be more God-like, then surely it was reciprocal. The myths are famous for vaguely listing off all the actions: "Then this happened, then this happened..." but spend little time talking about what the Gods were *feeling.* So, it's me trying to fill in the blanks.
*sigh* The reason I tend to not talk about much to people anymore is because people hear "Egypt" and immediately start with the whole _pyramids, mummies, pharaohs, gold, animal heads, etc etc_ thing, which has *nothing* to do with the opera. Aside from taking place long before any of this was standard, it's a story about Gods who *happened to be* worshiped in Egypt. It's not *about* Egyptian culture or people. It's not Aida, in other words  It seems to be a big mental block for people who really want give me suggestions for "cool Egyptian costumes." Ergh.


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## JamesPauls (May 29, 2013)

Something to be proud of if you like it.


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## rborganist (Jan 29, 2013)

By all means, do take some music lessons, especially piano. Once you can read music, it is easier to get it down on paper. If you can get to a MIDI keyboard, play the score, and save it on a zip drive; maybe a friend who has more musical training can help you get it into one of the many music notation softwares out there, then print out copies of the score, and assemble people for a sing-through. Be sure that your piano teacher also teaches you the basics of music theory (why we use certain chord progressions rather than others, how to form chords, and all the other things you will need to know). Then listen to operas from all periods starting with Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice and going forward to John Adams' Nixon in China with a bit of Mozart,Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner along the way. As an amateur composer myself, I believe that listening to good music and trying to identify what makes it good (and memorable, not to mention why people are still listening to it a century or more later) is the best way to improve your compositional ear and thereby your skills. And of course, just like the way to get to Carnegie Hall--practice!


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

A word regarding copyright:

In today's day and age, there is absolutely no need to "register" copyright with any government agency. It does, of course, depend on your jurisdiction, but in the US, copyright is automatic _when the item is published_. In the past, registering your copyright would give you extra ammo in case of a copyright infringement suit, but nowadays, posting it to the internet with a copyright notice should be just as good, as everything on the internet has a virtual date stamp on it.

If you'd like to be a little more permissive with your work as far as allowing distribution and remixes and such goes, might I suggest looking into Creative Commons? They offer a free selection of various restrictions to license your work under, including all the legalese to make it official (CC licenses have been upheld by courts in all cases so far).

(Disclaimer: Just giving friendly advice. I am not a lawyer.)


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