"Baykus" - Duet for the Vibraphone and Trombone

That has been so long that I did not attach a piece here.

This is a short duet that I wrote for the Vibraphone and Trombone. "Baykus" means Owl in Turkish. I hope you'll enjoy it.

I'm attaching also a MIDI file, but it cannot play the trills and the tremolos. You may see those parts on the sheet.

Waiting for your comments

Firstly, besides the music, the score is a mess.

1. On the rolled chords, there are some alignment issues with the marking designating that and the actual chord stem. The marking seems to be higher and to the right of the stem consistently for some odd reason.

2. Some of the ties seem to be unnecessary or odd, like in measures 5 and 17. You might want to make that clearer.

3. Some of the gliss writing in the trombone part seems to be oddly notated or unconventional.

Now on to the music:

1. Some of the vibraphone writing seems to be a little clunky. The rolled chords go at an awfully fast rate in measures 19 and 23. Do you want them rolled? I don't know what kind of musical effect you are trying to create with that.

2. Why limit the range and effects of the vibraphone? You don't pedal at all... you might as well be using a marimba or xylophone. You also don't take advantage of the higher range of the vibraphone or the unique timbres it has to offer. I did not check the range for the trombone, but your writing seems to be more focused on that.

3. I like some of the syncopation ideas going on in both parts, but mostly everything moves together with the vibraphone like some chordal, radio, music box for the trombone. I'd expect at least some rhythmic interplay, and maybe some harmonic interplay. Some of the harmony was a bit odd, in a good way.

4. This piece is brief. Too brief.

Now, think about some key questions while you improve upon this or anything:

Where am I going?

Am I using the instrumentation effectively?

What is actually going on musicaly?

Is everything notated correctly?

I think you could write something quite interesting for these instruments. I've actually been exploring the vibraphone a lot recently. Use everything to the full potential you have as a composer and stretch some mental muscle!

Thank you for your comments! I will consider them for sure!

Everything corbin said was basically dead on, For my comments I didn't really get the piece , It just seemed a bit random and The melody seems a bit out there., I have another question what was your motif chord-wise?

blm's question was the same one I had.
This seems more of a single musical idea, not a piece.
Expand, develop, sure - voila, piece.
I did not really 'get' the piece. Just the musical going-ons...
For some reason, when I think of owl, I don't see trombone and vibraphone.
I did, however, see some good little bits. Expand upon those little bits...and you will have yourself an excellent duet for the oddest pair ever. =]

Brian