News and updates

October 2025

I have just been teaching and practicing over

the last little while.

More to follow.

ARCHIVED UPDATES

September 2025:

I am back living in Ottawa once again and am gradually building up my teaching studio online as well as finding various opportunities to perform.

Still going back to Niagara (usually one weekend a month) for some legacy gigs.

I find myself doing less arranging than I have in the past, but am getting some commissions as a result of the work that I have on sheetmusicdiret.com and other similar sites.

August 2025:

Played the "Olde School Restaurant" in Brantford ON. on Aug. 15/16/17.

Completed the move to Ottawa in the week of Aug. 18-22.

Continuing teaching lessons online and in person

Played Bethel United Church Sunday, Aug. 24th

June/July 2025:

I have been doing much more practising (but less arranging) than usual. I have also been busy with online teaching including writing lessons and exercises for (mostly) beginner adult piano students. Link HERE.

Completed '10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)' Lead Sheet.

Also completed 'Friend Like Me' from Aladdin: WW Trio - Fl., Ob., Bassoon Brass Trio - Bb Tpt.1/2, Tbn. String Trio - 2 Violins, Cello

Night and Day - Practice Recording

Night and Day seperate drums mix.mp3

May 2025:

I am working from my Ottawa-based studio for the summer. I hope to return to creating new arrangements after settling into the new space. I am continuing my online teaching and piano practicing throughout the summer.I finally updated my arrangement of Mendelssohn's "3 Selections from Song Without Words" (I reworked the piano accompaniment and added a few 'touch-ups').

After a 3-day marathon, I completed a lead sheet for the Eagles' "(There's a) New Kid in Town". It has always been a favorite tune to play and I am happy with how it looks on the page.

Finding myself in a bit of an Eagles 'groove', I ended up creating a lead sheet for "I Can't Tell You Why", another Eagles hit. I spent some time transcribing the Guitar solos and included them (in standard notation) in the lead sheet.

April 2025:

This month, I have been spending most of my studio time practicing piano as well as some teaching both online and in person.

I am working on re-learning and memorizing as many 'standards' as possible. I have been working on tunes like:

Where or When It Could Happen to You A Foggy Day Corcovado "A" Train

All the things You Are Lady is a Tramp Let's Get Lost The Days of Wine and Roses All of Me

No More Blues I Wish you Love How High the Moon Cheek to Cheek I Love You

... and many more.

I recently re-published my "2 Plaintive Themes" for WW quintet (fixing the Oboe part, mostly), while adjusting keys and improving playability.

I also updated my arrangement of Mozart's "Allegro from K. 387". Changed the score orientation to portrait, changed the key, added articulations and dynamics and created a title page,

Apart from that, the nicer weather has started to arrive and I have been spending a bit more time outdoors, getting fresh air and exercise, etc.

I am also very excited to be moving my studio to Ottawa for (at least) the summer.

I am on a sabbatical from my Music Director commitments and hope to get an opportunity

to have some of my pieces performed while I am there as I have contacts with local musicians.

March 2025:

I recently published my anthology "Easter Season Hymn Sing" for Brass Quintet and Congregation (unison or opt. 2-part). I also created a Lead Sheet for "I've got a Crush on You".I have just completed another medley, this time of 3 Easter time Hymns - "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”, “Praise to the Lord, The Almighty” and “Crown Him with Many Crowns” for solo instrument with Piano/Keyboard accompaniment with optional Voice/Congregation part. Most instrument versions are up and available.

February 2025:

New arrangements this month included: An Irish Hymn Tune Medley - for solo wind/brass instrument with Piano accompaniment as well as 2 works for Brass Quintet: "The Water is Wide" and "2 Irish Folk Songs". I have also updated my arrangements of Schubert's Ave Maria and "Gabriel's Oboe" (from the soundtrack of the motion picture 'The Mission'). I also created and published a Lead Sheet for 'Solsbury Hill' by Peter Gabriel.

Finally, I was able to acquire some Audio-Technica Studio Reference Headphones for late-night mixing.

January 2025: Happy New Year to all!

New studio monitors have given me the ability to more carefully revisit the accompaniment recordings that I have made over the past year.

By importing these audio files into my DAW I can access tools that allow me to create more polished sounding recordings. This is a time-consuming process, however, and i'm hoping to balance this work with creating new arrangements.

I have also been reminded that learning to use Dorico would be very helpful moving forward. So I have lots of work to do in many areas.

My sales are coming along quite nicely, with a bump before the holidays. I continue to be motivated to create more work as many of my arrangements are selling well.

December 2024: After just over a year of creating arrangements full time, I have definitely learned a lot. I have learned more technical details on how to effectively write for winds, brass and piano, as well as learning how to better engrave music to make it easy to read. My sales are increasing every month and I am getting a much better feel for what musicians are looking for, especially on the particular retail websites where my music is available.

I have been playing Piano quite a bit lately and have spent more time practising and performing than I have arranging and publishing new works. After a break to visit family and friends before Christmas, I plan to be back in the studio arranging full time by later in December.

Added a pair of Yamaha HS8 reference monitors and revamped the studio configuration during the Christmas break.

November 2024: I got the month started by completing "The Christmas Blues" for Piano and instrumental solo (with lyrics). An underrated tune made popular by Dean Martin - I was reminded of it when I watched "A Very Murray Christmas" on Netflix and was impressed with Paul Shaffer's subtle arrangement. My version includes brief elements of both versions along with some original ideas.

I also created a lead sheet for "Song of Bernadette", a beautiful piece from the Famous Blue Raincoat album featuring the songs of Leonard Cohen sung by Jennifer Warnes. I used it for a church service with a singer and the congregation found it to be very moving and meaningful.

In other news, In October I had my best month and my best day so far on ArrangeMe. I try not to let my sales affect my motivation, but good days do encourage me to sit in my studio a bit longer than I would otherwise. Human nature, I guess.

October 2024: Over the past few weeks most of my energy has been devoted to creating a new arrangement, "A Jazz Waltz Christmas" . Finally completed in early October, this one went through many, many revisions and there were times that I thought it might never get completed. It is written with a swing feel in a gospel/jazz style. I have published sound recordings of the accompaniment tracks in the hope that instrumentalists will try it without having to find an accompanist.

After finally finishing "Christmas in Three Quarter Time" I decided it might be fun to convert one of my solo instrument/piano accompaniment arrangements to a Woodwind Quintet piece. I chose my arrangement of "Christmas Joy". This conversion process was actually quite fun but surprisingly labor intensive. It can be found HERE.

September 2024: DRAMA! Finale has decided to fold their operation which means future OS upgrades won't be supported. There has been a lot of 'chatter' in the newsgroups, etc. and it looks like many composers/arrangers will be purchasing 'Dorico' - a product made by Steinberg Labs which should be supported for the foreseeable future.

I am personally in no hurry to change over, but I have purchased Dorico, so sooner or later i'll have to start using it and face the inevitable steep learning curve.

But, for now, I am polishing my existing arrangements using Finale.

While I may not be experiencing Dunning-Kruger effect I can attest to the fact that there is much more to this type of work than 'meets the eye'. Almost every one of my existing arrangements can benefit from a revision of some sort - either musical choices that could be improved or (more commonly) aesthetic page layout choices including dynamic markings, articulations, etc. that can make the scores more readable, accessible and polished. For now, I am slowly revisiting much of my work to address these issues.

I created another Christmas arrangement - "Christmas Joy" in the middle of September.

August 2024: So there have been a few changes on the 'business' side of this endeavor. ArrangeMe has revised their pricing and now have increased the minimum price that composers/arrangers can set for their work. For the bulk of my arrangements it is now set at $5.99 USD up from $1.99 USD. Prices vary by currency/location.

There's also a new product being offered through Muse Score which works on a subscription model - not unlike Spotify, only for sheet music. The Facebook chat group has been very active with members who are unsure how these changes will affect them. I am trying to reserve judgement but i'll admit I had a bit of a knee-jerk negative reaction when I first heard about these changes.

ArrangeMe/Hal Lenoard offers worldwide exposure of my work - something i'm not sure I could hope to achieve in any other way. Knowing that other musicians will inevitably be looking at my stuff is a great motivation to continue to put in the hours honing my skills and improving my work. Ultimately, I am trying to create a body of work that I can be proud of and ArrangeMe gives me the 'push' I need to go into the studio every day and try to move myself another inch towards my goal.

Over the past few weeks, Instead of writing more charts I have been focused on trying to improve the playability and the appearance of the over 300 arrangements I currently have online. I figure if I am asking for 6$ for a 4-minute arrangement, it needs to be as polished as I can make it.

It is encouraging to look back at work that I did only 8 months ago and immediately see areas for improvement - I look at some of these arrangements and ask myself "what was I thinking?". On the other hand, there are many arrangements that have only minor edits needed.

July 2024: As the days get warmer and warmer I find i'm quite enjoying spending time in my air-conditioned studio during the heat of the day. I have been playing piano more at home - the new P-525 still calls to me on a daily basis.

I continue to survey the literature for suitable pieces to arrange. Sometimes it requires a lot of digging, other times great pieces just appear on my YouTube feed. The Beethoven 'Bagatelle' is a good example of this.

I remember hearing that Mel Tormé wrote 'The Christmas Song' during a heat wave in Los Angeles in an effort to distract himself. This is probably the best time to work on Christmas arrangements as they'll need to be available by early autumn.

Here's what I have come up with so far: "A Contemporary Sacred Christmas".

I have also noticed that the lead sheets tend to sell quite well so I am searching for tunes to work on. I have a few listed as 'coming soon' in the Lead Sheet section of the site.

As of early July, there are now 62 individual titles completed with over 300 arrangements available for purchase.

June 2024: It is definitely the beginning of the 'lazy days' of summer. I have been busy doing things outside of the studio pretty much the first half of the month. I was out of town for over a week - I had another great visit in Ottawa.

It never ceases to amaze me at how many excellent pieces of music that I find are just waiting to be made available to wind and brass soloists. I am mostly focusing on late 18th and early 19th century works for solo piano. I find myself stumbling upon on one amazing piece after another. I am becoming familiar with so much great music that I never really appreciated before.

In other news, I sold and replaced my older Yamaha CP-300 stage piano with a new Yamaha P-525 digital piano. I am extremely pleased with this instrument so far!

May 2024: With the nicer weather outside, I have been out cycling many days, but still trying to spend time in the studio as much as I can. I have been sidetracked a bit lately - I have been doing some audio recording using my DAW setup. I've been relearning the software, rearranging the studio and making demos for an upcoming performance. It will be nice to get out playing with good friends in a relaxed (i.e. licensed) venue. I hope to be able to continue doing this every once in a while.

I still have lots of work to do to polish older arrangements that are already on the site and have already updated a few.

I am very pleased with how my arrangement of Mozart's Rondo from K. 494 turned out. It was challenging to adapt such a 'pianistic' work for solo instrument. I dedicated the Bb Clarinet arrangement to my good friend, Chris Alfano, on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

My latest public domain arrangements have mostly been collections of short and easy-to-play compositions by well-known composers. Lately I have noticed that I haven't always paid enough attention to the playability of some of my piano accompaniments and am now more aware to pay closer attention to this. Previously, so much of my attention went towards ensuring that the various solo instrument parts would be playable, idiomatic, etc. for the solo instruments. But, like in most things, a balance has to be maintained.

April 2024: I have spent most of the past few weeks reviewing and updating all my work to date. There were some layout issues that I needed to address as well as important information that was inadvertently left out of some of my initial scores. I have also updated some of the descriptions of arrangements as well as including performance notes where needed.

As I become more and more comfortable using Finale, I find that I am able to get desired results much more quickly. I believe that sitting down and using the software on a daily basis is helping me to become much more efficient and I am developing a work flow that helps me maximize my time.

Slight redesign of the home page - linked section for lead sheets directly (previously: nested under 'copyright').

I am putting a renewed focus on creating easy-to-read lead sheets for a few copyrighted songs. I am mostly choosing songs that I enjoy performing myself and are often somewhat complex harmonically. I am trying to create clear, bare-bones, no-nonsense versions to read from in performance. Creating these lead sheets is a good exercise in page layout, as I am trying to present the essence of a song in the clearest way possible. Melodies are simplified in order to reduce 'clutter'. I figure that vocalists have already listened to the recording so they will imitate what they've heard rather than relying on the lead sheet for rhythms.

My sales have started to pick up and i'm hoping with more and more titles to choose from I will continue to see a steady improvement in this area.

December 2023 to March 2024: It has now been 4 months since I started making a daily effort to create musical arrangements. In that time I have expanded my library of arrangements from 15-20 or so to over 200.

I am learning that creating playable arrangements can be painstaking and exacting work. While I still enjoy finding new music to arrange, more and more I am looking back at my existing catalog. I regularly revisit arrangements to polish and improve them, with the intent of making them better sounding, easier to play and more attractive to look at. The more time I spend creating new work the more I am able to look at my existing work and recognize areas for improvement. I suspect that this is a process that will continue well into the future.

Currently my focus has been on creating arrangements for wind and brass solo instruments with Piano accompaniments - based on Common Practice Period compositions - most often solo Piano pieces by the great masters. I also adapt my work for use at church with our Cello soloist.

While I am fairly well versed in the specific strengths/weaknesses of wind instruments I have also been relying on the expert advice of the following friends who are also gifted performers:

Bassoon - Katie Legere
Clarinet/Flute/Saxophones and even Oboe - Chris Alfano
Trumpet - Ken Baldwin and Kazimier Samujlo
Violincello - Marcela Lagunas

There are still a few pieces in this style that I am interested in working on but after 4 months of this type of repertoire I am considering a change. I know folk songs are always great fun to work on and there's always copyrighted stuff available on ArrangeMe to do.

Thanks to all for the encouragement and well-wishes that I have been receiving over the past few months.

November 2023: I have decided to realize a lifelong dream to spend a significant amount of my time and effort in my home studio creating musical arrangements. My plan is to spend some time every day in the studio.

After many years of teaching Music in publicly-funded school systems and being active as a performer as well as having family responsibilities, I am now able at a place in my life where I am able to devote the majority of my time to my 'craft'. I have a comfortable studio and all the equipment needed to engage in this work.

There is the potential to earn income from this activity, but my primary motivation is to develop my understanding and skill in writing useful, attractive and playable music. I do hope that my work will be of use to other musicians and, therefore, have a monetary value but I am under no illusions that this activity will become a primary source of income, even though it is taking up a substantial portion of my time.