Band Piece: Enigma

Hello, I just joined this forum today, but I have been looking at it for the past few days. Having this website for young composers is exciting, it's nice to see other people with my passion for composing.

I hope you guys don't mind me just jumping in like this, but I was wondering if my band piece could be reviewed. I don't know how you people will like it, but people the few people that have listened to it liked it.

This piece was written for a concert;you had to write a piece for a wind essemble. The contest was the Hennagin competition and was for all aged and I wrote my piece with the person Hennagin in mind.

The piece is called Enigma, mostly because I had no idea what to call (I'm really bad at naming my pieces) and beacuse I had a deadline to beat. I tried to use many new and different ideas(to me) in my piece, but still tried to keep it simple. I also called my piece Enigma becasue it has a certain mysterious atmosphere I was trying to show. It was written in about 18 hours in a period of a month and a half. It was diffcult to put everything I wanted together, I had a hard time on this piece.

Note: This piece was composed using a program called Harmony Assistant(made by a small French company called Myriad) I don't know if any of you use it, but I'm not sure if you can use Finale or whatever with the mid of it. Anyways, it might not sound right, because I used a differnet program.

Also, I was wondering if I can post with any other type besides .mid's(maybe Mp3). I was hoping I could post a better sounding type.

Thanks!

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I was going to enter that Hennagin competition, but marching band prevented
me from getting a score done in time.

MP3's are not allowed to be uploaded, but you can post a link if the MP3 is on another
server. You can post finale and sibelous (sorry, can't spell) files if you like.

I will review your piece when I get to my home computer.

Ok. You have some good melodic material in this piece. I have to tell you that I hate
midi files...I think they sound horrible but I tried to listen beyond the terrible sound and
to your music.

I do think some phrases might have been repeated too many times. I do like your
use to melodies and countermelodies playing at the same time. Good job on that.
It's hard to judge this piece without looking at the score and a better recording...so that
is about all the comments I have on the piece. Good job.

Thanks for the comments,
Almost all the pieces I write are different from one another. I do that so I can gain experience and try new idea on different things. Like I said, this piece was a struggle. I did try to connect idea though. Like the beginning with the flute and clarinet section later on and the middle slow section with the end. Besides that I tried to write using emotions more than a melody. The middle slow section is pretty much the climax of the whole piece and it grows from there and then slows down around the end.

It's hard to judge this piece without looking at the score and a better recording...

I'm pretty sure that's why this forum uses mid's, you can open midi in any notation program you use. So you can look at the score. You can also see how finale would play my piece.(even though I don't use Finale)

I think they sound horrible but I tried to listen beyond the terrible sound and
to your music.

I think they sound horrible but I tried to listen beyond the terrible sound and
to your music.[/b]

I also think midi files sound bad, but you can see my score with it. I have a mp3 of it and it sound much better. For example, you can't hear the trumpets or horns at all in the music. I had to make the trombones, the clarinet, and the flutes louder. The only thing I didn't change were sax's. If I can get my website back up, I would post my song on there, but is there a good site to use to hold my music files?

I do think some phrases might have been repeated too many times.

I don't quite understand that statment. I had parts repeat twice in a row, but they never repeated again. Are to talking about the low brass section at the end or the slow woodwind and brass section in the middle?

I do like your use to melodies and countermelodies playing at the same time. Good job on that.

Thanks, I tried to do that. If you noticed I made the low brass very important in this piece. I gave them a lot of moving lines, and they pretty much play the whole song.

I don't know if it so much repeating, but it kind of sounded like it. I guess what
I meant about that was that I don't think there was much change in the piece. It
all matched well, but there wasn't much change or development. Do you kinda get
what I'm saying?

Hmm...I guess I never thought of it as boring, but more "perfect" theory wise. I see what your getting at, but you have to remember this is one piece, not a symphony. It has one main idea and I tried to stick to the main idea, instead of using a melody. Like I said, if you look at all my other pieces they have some type of melody, so maybe my inexpeirence is what was the problem?

So, did you not like the piece then? What could be done to fix it? Do you think the midi was the problem?...you couldn't hear any trumpets could you?

I think that the midi was a big problem, but I think there needs to be some diversity in the piece.

It was a nice piece, don't get me wrong.

Oh...ok...well, again, I tried to make this piece different from any other, and I know I did that. Remember, if you listen to many classical pieces, you mostly likely will be bored at some point.(or maybe that just me)

For me, listening to Mozart's older music like his 16, 18, 21st, I find it more poppy? and more enjoyable than his later stuff, but then again, his later stuff seems to be better writing from a classical stand point. I guess composer have to find a balance of what people want a what they want.

Your point about it needing some diversity is well taking, but I won't fix this piece, as it is already done. I guess I will try to fix that problem in the future.

Are there any more people that want to give their opinions?