Welcome to Daniel Eng Music Production and Big Engband!
If you are looking for professional, high quality Big Band charts that are different from the regular stuff – both in sound and form – you have come to the right place. In the Web Shop you find information about the various charts, view extracts and listen to recordings of many of them. If you want to buy any chart, payment is easily made directly by credit card or a digital wallet (no PayPal or Stripe), and you download your purchase directly. Please note that all prices in the Shop include Swedish VAT.
My writing is deeply rooted in the jazz traditions, combined with my personal touch and voice.
If you have any questions, a contact form can be found under the header or in this link: “contact”.
Meteorologically speaking we have had spring for some time already where I live, but it’s only now that it weather-wise is starting to feel like spring really is here. Also; Saturday night this weekend meant setting the clock one hour forward to summer daylight saving time; which I very much prefer.
This March meant planning and scheduling concerts for Big Engband for next year, and since those apperances mean that the band will premiere the whole “Yokai” concert program, I now have to see to it that all compositions constituting the program quickly get completed and edited. Therefore I look forward to very soon finish work on my latest composition, the fast swing duet “Anonymous Anomalies” for a male and a female vocalist, in the next week and publish it here, and immediately continue with the next. Making April a month for creative work, which I always enjoy.
So: I’ll remember March, and eagerly await April.
I wish all of you visiting here a really nice March to April shift!
With some much needed time off, I feel blessed to have a place where I can retreat and just relax. Currently I spend some days at my country house, practising and composing at my own pace, while also taking long walks, reading and firing up the stove; all while enjoying the silence of the rural surroundings. With all the commotion and madness going on around the world, it is vital to me to get some time away from all the noise and ruckus, to sometimes solely be in the company of myself; my habits, thoughts and emotions. Refreshing!
The work on my latest composition in the “Yokai” project, a male and female duet titled “Anonymous Anomalies”, is under way in my newly furnished composing corner. This fast swing piece will, of course, be published here upon completion.
I wish all you visiting here a really nice and happy February!
The 2024 December sale, ended with the advent of January 2025 and now, close to the end of the month, all the mid-winter holidays truly are over. Making the January world grey, murky and colourless after the annual high season of illuminations and decorations.
Hitherto, the winter months – December and January – have been incredibly warm; eerily so. What litte snow has fallen, has quickly melted away, leaving a grey-brown world to trudge, where fog and rain make for the predominant precipitation, with some occasional downpours of sleet as a caricature of snow. The warming effects of human induced climate change seem to me to accelerate and take total prominence over the weather phenomenons that once was what I would expect this time of year: periods of snow and proper cold.
For me, this period in January without the real features of winter gets mentally tough and wearing, and with all that is currently going on in the world – with Russia still trying to ravage and devastate Ukraine after close to three years, a demented newly inaugurated president wreaking havoc on all conventions and relations there can be found while appointing unfit ignorants to important positions, Swedish politicians acting completely without visions, common sense and decency, and delusional tech billionaires openly curbing and controlling the lives of everybody else in favour of their profits, to mention some – it is all too easy to despair and get depressed.
One important thing to keep myself healthy, mentally alert and stimulated, is that I have begun work on a new composition for the “Yokai” project – a concert program primarily inspired by supernatural phenomenons of Japanese mythology and folklore. This new piece, titled “Anonymous Anomalies” and which is a fast swing duet for a male and a female vocalist concerning conceited, instrumental and exploitative love, is now under way, and will – of course – be published here upon completion.
I wish all of you visiting here some hope and some means to lighten up your January, and that you all can find those things that keep you from desparing when the times weigh you down.
From today, my latest composition “Demon Under the Bridge” is available in the web shop, and since the December Sale is under way, the chart is published at a reduced price.
This latest chart is a part of the Japanese themed concert program I’m working on, and brings up the issue of how both scaring and fascinating people displaying mental health problems act and behave when watched from a safe distance, and how easy it is to wonder about one’s own mental status when meeting someone in poor mental health. In this piece, the lyrics allude to the old Japanese myths about supernatural beings, very often female demons, inhabiting important travelling features, like bridges, fords, road forks and crossings, and draws the parallell to how people with mental illness can come across like they are possessed or supernatural – since mental illness can seem like a haunting.
Other than that, the December Sale is under way! The reductions are 30% off on all compositions and 25% off on all arrangements. Take the opportunity to buy great, interesting, exciting, fun to play and challenging charts at reduced prices. Remember that payment now can be made directly with credit card!
An explanation of the pricings should also be made: The compositions are mostly in two price categories: 160€ and 120€. The higher price means that that very piece is not publically premiered or recorded, while the other is to be regarded as a regular price for a premiered and/or recorded composition. Compositions that are short or simple, are priced lower to reflect the fact that they represent less playing time and effort.
The arrangements are for the most part priced at 80€, regardless of if premiered or recorded, but those that are priced lower are, as with the compositions, easier and/or shorter than a common piece.
I wish all of you visiting here a great and happy December!
As usual, as every year, there will be a December Sale! Between December 1st and 31st the reductions will be the now usual 30% off on all compositions, and 25% off on all arrangements.
There is a lot to choose from: Fast swing charts with or without vocalist, many different styles from funk via jazz to folk, meters between 3/4 to 17/4, many variations in the reed section, or features for different soloists – to mention some. Pick your choice and most likely there is something suitable to find.
Take the opportunity to buy great and unique charts at nice prices; maybe as a Christmas gift, or to give your big band something fresh, new, challenging and rewarding to play, come the spring rehearsal season!
This autumn has been warm, very warm. It’s not until now, at the end of October, that attributes of the normal automnal processes fully show and manifest; leaves turn yellow and red and fall in droves, the weather turns rainy and grey, with interspersing clear days of frosty mornings and low trajectory sunlight, and migrating birds cross the skies in long stretched v-formations. Finally, autumn is setting in, and I love it.
My composing work continues on the Japanese-themed concert program. A composition, titled “Demon Under the Bridge”, will soon be completed for editing, and it will be intriguing and exciting to delve into the new notation software Dorico, after the announcing of the termination of Finale. I have to learn the program from the ground, but I hope I somehow can apply my expertise in Finale to smoothen up and facilitate the transition – and that I can produce equally good layouts.
For now, I have a few days of light vacationing, which means some practising, some composing and raking of heaps of leaves.
I wish all of you visiting here, a really nice and happy October ending!
The Summer Sale ended together with August, but summer itself is only now finally giving in, albeit very slowly, to the colder, murkier and rainier weather of autumn. In Sweden we have had an unusally warm September, and although you can see the leaves reddening on some trees, much of the over all foliage where I live is still dark, late-summer green. Remarkable! I believe that various weather and climate monitoring services, like the European Copernicus, say that their statistics show the summer of 2024 to over all be the warmest ever measured.
What also ended with August, is the product line, the development and support, of Make Music’s notation software Finale. I have used Finale since around 1996-1997, and I am so used to it and its functions that the news of its cancellation shocked me. Over the years I have developed routines, settings, short-cuts and processes that have made me very fast in editing full scores that produce many separate parts, that I now wonder how long it’s going to take me to get used to a new notation software. The cancellation of Finale came as a total surprise to me, and I guess many, but with the cancellation I got a deal and an offer to migrate my notation work to Dorico, which I, after some agonizing consideration, in the end did.
Finale was the first and only notation software that worked properly as a typewriter and “blank-sheet” editor at the same time, and its functions to adjust literally everything and anything, made layouts, once adjusted, visually the most clean to be had. I am fully aware of that every software – and for sure, Finale had its quirks and flaws – has its lifespan, and that at some time every software’s possibilities to develop, adapt and adjust inevitably come to an end, and I hope that the transition to Dorico will be smooth and dynamic. That I quickly and easily can develop the same speed in editing and layout as I had with Finale. Still I will, most likely for sentimental reasons, miss my old notation buddy.
Good bye, dear Finale! We’ve had a really good and long lasting run, we two, and you have been an invaulable asset to my note work. Thank you for everything!
The 3/4 meter is – to me – a tricky division for composing. In higher tempi the meter can feel cramped and confining, and the bars go by so quick that it takes much concentration and focus to get a grip on the overarching form and timespans. In lower tempi, it can be suggestive and expressive and be so captivating that it gets hard to restrain all the ideas that spawn from it’s seemingly simple, but enticing, three beats per bar. I have not done very much composing in 3/4, though that which I have written mainly is in lower tempi, or as tag-bars to smooth out lyrics or phrases.
Therefore it is with some satisfaction I now announce that my latest composition is a medium jazz waltz for a female vocalist, with Swedish lyrics, titled “Strax Efter Nyår” (translated “Shortly After New Year’s Eve”), and that it from today is available in the web shop. I have since long had a plan to compose a four movement suite about the annual seasons, depicting them more from a psychological and emotional viewpoint, rather than a programmatical descripitve, and some years ago I composed two pieces intended to be the second and third movement in that suite, but did not then label them so. Now when this new piece, which is the first movement, is published, I will label them appropriately and as originally intended. When finished, the suite will consist of the following pieces:
Movement 3 Summer: “Den Första Juni” (The First of June”) and the fourth, which is not yet composed:
Movement 4 Autumn: “Regn Klockan Åtta På Morgonen” (Rain at Eight O’clock in the Morning”)
Because the Summer Sale is on until August the 31st, this new composition is published at a discount. Take the opportunity to buy great – fun, interesting, fantastic sounding, stimulating, fresh, groovy, innovative, and so much more positive – Big Band charts at nice prices. The sale means a discount of 30% off on all compositions, and 25% on all arrangments. Jump on it to give your band an invigorating addition to its repertoire for the autumn rehearsals; to give your vocalist(s) something new to phrase and interpret and your rhythm section some new grooves to swing! The genres, the meters, the grooves, the lyrics, the compositions and arrangements found here have a hard matched span of diversity, so there is something for everyone. Remember: Now, payments are made through credit card, a digital wallet, or – from Sweden and Norway – with Swish and Vipps!
I wish all of you visiting here a really nice and happy August!
The Summer Sale is still on for more than a month! Until August 31st all charts in the web shop are at a discount of 30% off on all compositions, and 25% off on all arrangements.
The big news is that I have taken down the options of payment with PayPal and Stripe, in favour of direct payment with regular credit cards, digital wallets and Swish – the latter the local Swedish equivalent of Venmo (whereas Venmo for now isn’t possible to use with the payment services provided from my bank). However: Visa, AmEx or Master Card – to mention some common examples – are now all accepted!
Other than this major change in the functionality of the web shop, I work on editing my latest composition. A piece that I’ve since long planned on writing to create a four movement suite out of two already composed pieces, this is the first movement in “Årstidssvit” (“The Seasons Suite”); four movements for Big Band and a female vocalist with Swedish lyrics, that picture the yearly seasons more from a psychological and emotional viewpoint, rather than a descriptive. This first movement, titled “Strax Efter Nyår” (“Shortly After New Year’s Eve”) will – of course! – be published here upon completion.
I wish all of you visiting here, a really nice and happy July, wherever you are!
Now, summer has firmly established itself here in Sweden; with sudden, intense showers, towering afternoon thunderclouds, blindingly blue skies and heatwaves. Equally established, but without all these traits, is this year’s Summer Sale – by now into its fourth week. Take the opportunity to buy great big band charts at reduced prices until the end of August! The discounts are 30% off on all compositions, and 25% off on all arrangements.
I will, on my part, have one more week of light work before I take a much needed vacation and I wish all of you visiting here a really nice summer (or winter if you live “down under”) and may you all have great vacations whenever they come!
