Momento - Woodwind Sextet

I finished this this evening.

There need to be more articulations and dynamics, and less tempo markings, but I put those in for two reasons: 1) So the sound file will play back correctly, and 2) to remind myself what the put there, performance wise.


Comments are welcome.
Jamie Whitmarsh - Stage.FM

The score is in the second post.

Thanks!

Here is the present final draft.
I have my lesson next week, so we'll go over it then. I'm sure there are some things I'm going to change once I get it read in the fall.

Any comments are welcome.

Thanks,
Jamie

I like the beginning with the rhythm emphasis. Well, I sort of see the entire piece is based on pendulum motion of voices (back and forth between different intervals, in different note durations.) Which gives it a sense of togetherness. I like the abrupt cuts and pauses. Though, the whole "alternate between two notes" starts getting tiresome, even if you do make up a small "theme" with it, it still sounds too "in your face" so to speak. It's a little too obvious. You could've used even further variation on the idea (pendulum across voices, etc) and mixing things up a little more since you still always return to the pendulum motive.

But well, as it is it's not bad. I just feel that it's a little long considering that the repetitions don't bring much new to the table. You introduce the motive as a theme halfway through but don't do anything with it. It's just like a passing afterthought, it doesn't seem to have much consequence on the overall piece (and it's built out of the motives previously seen too, so...)

The score needs a clean up real bad. You have a lot of symbol clipping and that sort of thing.

Another thing that is a little weird is that it starts entirely different than what it develops into, when it starts it's actually got not much direction until the pendulum thing shows up, and then it just sticks with it the whole way. I get the impression you just kind of came up with it at that point and kept on writing with that idea in mind without going back to the start and making it match...

But well, that's just me. I don't know how you wrote this but just from what I'm seeing, it sounds like it was a sort of "write as you go along" kind of thing. Which isn't bad really if it's the case.

In any case, nice, but could use more motive contrast (rather than pendulum vs long notes.) Or just some way to not hammer the listener into submission with "Hey look the piece holds together because of THIS!" I mean, it's a little blunt. :>

About the score - It does need a lot of cleaning, I definitely just finished putting in what I had and uploaded it. I've been working on it non-stop this last week, so I was kinda like....done for now.

About the form of the piece - Initially I had the first few minutes, then some other, more rhythmic stuff in the middle, and then the ending (from 5:20 on). However, the 'B' section wasn't working at all, and I had to rework it a lot. I basically had three rhythmic shapes and motifs for this - the intro rhythm, which is present the most, followed by the eighth notes (up down up down, with grace notes) and then the theme that comes in the 'B' section (that sounds like it's in Dorian mode). The A section is the first two, the 'B' section is the third, and the rest is all three interloped.
I could see how it could get tiring. I think with actual performers it will be okay. Before I had finished the 'B' section I felt like I would need a more obvious return to the 'A' material, but having finished the 'B' section I feel that it feels complete on its own.
But I've also spent the last week immersed in the piece, so I'm a little biased.

Thanks for your comments man.

First of all, congradulations on keepingthis piece interesting throughout. I immensely enjoyed this, as you are now becoming in the select few composers I intentionally look out for.

I thought this piece was interesting, however it felt a bit disjunct in form. Now that I think about this, it is relatively minor, but the beginning seemed to be so good, then the middle seemed to be well thoughtout as well...and they DO go together...I just felt that they werent tied in as well. The rhythm for me was what made this piece, it just seemed as though you lost that in the middle and you never came back to it. (Keep in mind you are a better composer then me, so my advice may seem novice). If you maybe played with the themes from the beginning more near the end I think it would have more of a sense of coherency, but again that's minor and just me.

As a whole, besides my little quibble, You have fantastic imagination and the colors you provided for us are superb. Thanks for sharing this wonderful piece, hopefully a live recording is in the works?

Vince

Ooh, I like that piece. It's rhythmic and exciting, and I get a feel of pseudo-religious calm in the slow section, a la Stravinsky. That's my favorite part of the piece, with meandering harmonies and a kind of "sea" of textural effects. The faster sections are interesting, too, but the one that opens the piece seems to lack direction a little. Once you get to the slow section, the effect of the opening kind of goes away. The rhythmic motif holds it together well, though, and resemblance to the first section isn't all the way gone when you come back to a faster tempo. It's a very well crafted piece, overall. Good work!!

Jamie, you've got some on rhythmic notations starting around 116, specifically measures where you've got 4 8th notes notated on 3&4 and the middle two are tied together - I would change that to 8th quarter 8th instead.

The score needs a lot of clean up, there are collisions everywhere. You may want to go through system by system and make sure that no expression/sign touches anything else.

Also, I'm not sure if this is because you're a percussionist... but the eighth note grace notes need to have a slash through the flag, and each grace note needs to be slurred to the note it's affecting.

Other than the flute line I spoke to you about earlier this week, I don't have any other concerns. Nice piece!

Yeah, the score is a mess. I know how to fix that stuff, so it's not a concern for me.
Rhythmic notation I usually clean up when I 'proofread' the score, so to speak. I literally just finished it and submitted it. In a few days I'll have a cleaner version posted.

flynn: Didn't know about the eight note grace notes. That's good to know.

My main concern was with it holding together well enough. The first two and a half minutes, I feel are fine. I think the middle section is okay as well, and will sound good with performers actually bringing life to it. I also feel like the last bit, when the tempo stays the same for long period of time, to be okay as well. For some reason I just feel like it's missing something. I might look over it again tomorrow, as I haven't looked at it in a few days.

Thanks for your comments, and I'll post my revised, and more likely 'final' (not that any composition is ever 100% done) version later this week.

Jamie -

There were many things I enjoyed but I HATED the midi. I think the "missing ingredient" is hearing it played by live performers. I would advise tabling it. It is good work and my present experience with my woodwind quintet movement (thanks again for the comment on it) has led me to write another movement as whenever I try to "improve" what I wrote, it gets worse (I even reversed a tiny few edits to the version I had posted). So, I'd leave it, write something entirely different and then get back to it. I didn't have time to look at your score but you have received enough comments.