Never Finished

I’m busy editing a number of scores. What else is new?

It’s a privilege that I get to work with new works by other people frequently, in addition to my own writing. As I work through the editing process, I realize that the editing process is really never, ever finished.

Every score I ever touch in a pre-publication state has mistakes – typos, notational errors, changes made but not followed through in every part, any number of inconsistencies. And every time I think I’ve edited every mistake out, I find another. I finalized a score yesterday, but immediately caught two tiny things after I printed it. I know I’ll catch more in the rehearsal process.

It leads me to think of pieces as never finished. Even if I were able to successfully edit out every typo and inconsistency, there would be further revisions that could improve the score. (And create new typos!)

I try to edit everything clean, but I understand that that job is never finished.