How to Support my work! ASE+ released!

Creating musical scores at a professional level is an ART. It requires an enormous amount of time after the initial stage where basic notational elements are typeset.

Software defaults, no matter how detailed, can bring you only so far.

• Each slur needs to be carefully designed, and then checked in separate parts to account for different page and staff sizes.
• Each beam needs to be checked for angle as, even if we have general rules, specific condition will apply.
• Every fingering, each playing technique, each line or symbol has to be placed so that it avoids all collisions and gives the clearest reading experience to the player.
• Special symbols and dedicated techniques must be designed one by one outside the notational software.

The result of all this is a score that is both crystal clear to read, beautiful to hold, and that breathes life into its music!

Most modern publishing houses would rather not invest into this level of quality, as they are aware that, even without these details, musicians will just play the music until it’s barely readable. I won’t surrender, though, I will fight to make this right until I have even an ounce of strength in my body and mind.

To let you help me towards this goal, I am announcing today my new support program: ASE+ (from Artistic Score Engraving). It would have been easy to just set this up and let you bring the money, but I wanted to find something unique into it, something that you may bring with you forever even after supporting for a single month. The inspiration comes from more than 12 years ago, when I visited New York, USA, and attended Giuseppe Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at the Metropolitan Theatre, on the night when Placido Domingo was making his debut in a baritone role. Browsing the program booklet, I noticed how many pages were covered with names of supporter. The first page was for those who gave more than a million dollars (!), the second page for those who gave between one hundred thousand and a million, and so on and so forth.

I realised that it would have been a great idea to give my supporters a way to see their name recognised in the pieces of art they helped to build. Therefore, every supporter from the second tier up will see their name written out in the Contributors Page of every edition I will publish in a month since their last monthly payment. This is optional, of course, and I will contact each supporter to know how they feel about this. Since this will appear on print material as well, it will have the potential of being seen worldwide, which, I believe, is spectacular.

Here is how it will work: it will be divided into four levels of support, and each tier of support will get:

• an ascending degree of discount on all scores
• a choice of free scores up to the amount stated in the tier’s description after one year of continuous subscription, or after the payment of the yearly amount
• the name in the contributors’ page
• Some extra detailed in the tiers below.

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The first tier is dedicated to Dotzauer’s first cello teacher, Jacob Kriegk (1750—1814), and gives you the following perks:

5% off any digital item in the catalogue; know you are contributing to the creation of the most beautiful scores in the world.

Get one digital score/product up to US$ 10 for free after one year of subscribing, or if you pay 1 year up-front

The second tier is dedicated to Dotzauer’s second, and possibly most influential teacher, Bernhard Romberg (1867—1841), and gives you the following perks:

10% off any digital item.

Get your name in the CONTRIBUTORS PAGE of every score that gets published while you are subscribing.

Get US$ 25 in digital scores/products for free after one year

The third tier is dedicated to Dotzauer himself, since he is the focus of most of my editions. This tier is, in my opinion, the highest in value, and provides you with the following perks:

15% off any digital item

Your name in the CONTRIBUTORS PAGE as above, with a separation between tiers of support.

US$ 60 in digital scores/products for free after 1 year.

Monthly group Zoom call with me & others of Dotzauer Tier (ca. 30 min) to discuss what’s coming next and help shape the future of ASE community

The final tier is dedicated to my pedagogical grandfather, the teacher of my teacher, André Navarra (1911—1988), and is the ultimate support tier for value and for what you get. Given its nature, it is, by now, limited to a maximum of four supporters. If there is demand, I will expand it. Here are its perks:

25% off any digital item;

Your name in the CONTRIBUTORS PAGE as above, with a separation between tiers of support.

US$ 200 in digital scores/products for free after 1 year

Monthly 1-to-1 call with me (1 hour) with optional cello or music engraving lesson

Every discount code will be created ad hoc when you subscribe so that I will know immediately if the code is being used by someone else. In that case, I will block that code and contact you to inquire on what may have happened.

Every tier of support will also get my music paper for free when they subscribe, and will gain access to all the posts published for the mailing list recipients only.

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Please let me know what you think of this and if you would like any of these tiers to look any different from how they do now.

To get started, please proceed here.

In case you do are not already part of my mailing list, please consider joining now. An always up-to-date catalogue of all my products is available here.

Thank you to all those who will decide to support my journey!