"Neumation" is built upon the word Neume, 15th century notation that proceeded five-line staff notation.

The suffix -ation denotes the result or product of action.

The combination of these implies the progression of music from the past to the present to the future. 

 

Neumation Music started from a deep love for film music. It may be more appropriate to say "media music," because not all of our publications will be from motion pictures. Most will originate from some form of media such as television, radio, or record.

In the coming years, it is our goal to expand our catalogue to include a wide variety of genres and styles, including important music by non-traditional and non-Western composers.

 

Neumation Music is based out in Northern California. Our collaborators come from around the globe.   

How we work

We follow a three phase process: identify, procure, and produce. 

For the identification phase, the Neumation team spends quite a bit of time determining if a particular score has enough musical breadth to make it suitable for publication. Some great scores just don’t have enough going in terms of orchestration, structure, or cultural impact to make a book financially viable.  We place emphasis on music that is culturally significant and/or historically important.

For the procural phase, we conduct research with the rights holders to determine if the written manuscript and/or parts exist. Some scores are lost (see: "MGM holocaust”) and some require a considerable amount of bureaucracy to access. Film scores have a long history of either  being discarded, being logistically inaccessible, or disappearing.

After we have inspected the materials, we apply for the publication license. At this point, we then move onto the production phase. We use Sibelius for  engraving and Adobe InDesign for layout. The presentation of the overall package is very important and we spend a lot of time ensuring that aspects such as typeface, layout, and formatting are aesthetically pleasing and easy to read.

 

Archival Services aka "Music Archaeology"

Neumation Music offers a variety of archival support services to ensure that  music materials are preserved for the future. Music Archaeology is the term we coined to represent the variety of activities involved in preserving music assets. These activities may range from recovery of archival materials, to research of copyright records, to digging in dusty boxes.

As Indiana Jones said, "It belongs in a museum." 

Please view the Archive Services page or contact us for more information.