Enthrall - Concert Band

That is correct, I am posting more music now.

I wrote it in a couple weeks, because I was exciting to do something that my school band could play. I realized that my school band has its limits, so that probably won't happen, but I continued to write anyway.

It's called Enthrall, simply because it's exciting. When composing it, I was trying to keep the energy constant. There is a slower section in the middle, but the energy starts up again immediately after.

There are a couple little ideas keeping this whole thing together, so it's a bit more coherent than most of my music. You'll be glad for that I'm sure.

No PDF. Not until someone asks for it, because frankly, you'd be relatively better off without the despicable mess that NWC makes as a score.

Enjoy this. It's possibly my best music to date, and you get to hear a brief bit that reminds me of the music I used to write.

I really enjoyed it. I was reminded of playing Celebration by Philip Sparke. The theme was reiterated well, although at some points the harmony that the overlaps of the theme created was a little harsh...I'll give that up to bad midi sounds.

Nice job !

Can you please post a score? My mac can't run NWC.

I will later. But you have to promise not to eat me for its terrible quality.

I understand NWC doesn't have the best score producing quality. It's part of what stood in the way of me getting in the composition program initially.

Maybe I was lying. I'd pretty much have to delete all the rest of my files to fit a PDF on my account.

You could get a geocities or angelfire site. It's not optimal, but you could host it there.

I'm just reluctant to critique anything unless I have a score, because something could sound fine in midi but be incredibly impractical.

Sigh. If only NWC had a port to Mac...

It's written for a school band, I made sure everything is practical.

I don't have the patience to make a PDF, then get an account on whatever, and then posting it here.

Sorry.

It sounds like video game music, which has nothing to do with the MIDI quality. The ostinato, and the use of Lydian mode both contribute to that.

It's a rather jarring stop around 50 seconds into it. It feels like you were just like "Okay, section one, done." as opposed to trying to make a more cohesive switch. I think it works okay how it is, but it could be done better.

One of my concerns with band music is that they do not utilize the percussion section. Percussionists spend so much time sitting, when you could really help them grow as musicians and enhance the music by using them better.

This feels like the middle section was unnecessary. It was "ostinato, slow section, ostinato". I didn't really feel like it was held together superbly. The last section especially sounded tacked on. If the piece were a few minutes longer, it might feel like a 'piece' as opposed to a few cool ideas.

Just my thoughts.

I concur with Jamie about his general comments of your piece. You start with a good idea and one that sounds like the band would have a lot of fun playing but the following sections entrance starting at 50" feel too sudden due a lack of preparation. You could easily have a transition made of you opening theme juxtaposition a portion against newer material as if the music wants to continue full speed to a premature conclusion but is interrupted by a new motive (or an alteration of the present one). You could create also a new melody with some of the the opening motive and its inversion or a chorale like section - deriving the harmony from various permutations of the melody (eg, inversion in bass, melody in tenor/alto and retrograde in top) and then alter the chords so they have a harmonic/melodic flow.

Also the ending harmonies are a bit strange - something I would hear from Granados or Albeniz but in this case it doesn't jive with what preceeded -- although I do like your idea to have the opening melody somewhat stray and migrate to in the lower voice in the end.