A Major State of Ebb

Everything in my musical life has had its ebb and flow. My most exciting period of "flow" happened in my very early 30s, after I made my definitive switch from flute to violin and viola, because I suddenly had all sort of musical opportunities and challenges to keep the musical parts (i.e. the non maternal) parts of myself occupied and stimulated out here in the "hinterlands." The next exciting period of "flow" happened for me when I started making arrangements for string quartet of pieces people wanted to have played at weddings. Once I became competent at making arrangements, I started writing music of my own, and 100 or so quartet arrangements and another 150 or so original pieces later, I have a pretty hefty body of work for lots of different instruments and voices.

For at least a dozen years the wedding quartet work was plentiful, but thanks to gig master (which encourages musicians to compete with one another for work), as well as the economics involved with wedding planning (something I'm starting to understand more clearly these days), only a scant handful of people seem to want string quartet music at their weddings in my area. That part of my life is in a major state of "ebb."

My arrangements aren't doing anyone any good festering on my computer, and publication is logistically out of the question (much of it is popular stuff--or once-popular stuff), so I have decided to make my string quartet arrangements available on line to anyone who wants to play them. I have loaded them into a dropbox folder to share.

Why do I share my work like this?

I do it to try, in my own small way, to make up for some of the terrible imbalances in a largely greedy and self-serving world. Its also a way to be involved (even if it is only passively) in more lively musical communities (wherever they happen to be) than the one I find myself in.

Please send me an e-mail message (elainefine [AT] gmail [DOT] com) if you would like to be invited to join this dropbox folder. The arrangements are entertaining for audiences, and they are a lot of fun to play.