a new hope

this is a piece ive made a few months ago but ive been very busy in university and i hadnt had the time to finish it completely till now .
a new hope

Your ideas here are quite nice. I love the main theme of the work. My biggest criticism here is in your orchestration - in particular the strings. You have the poor viola section either do 3 part divisi or a triple stop. Yes, in the opening passage you have second violins and first violins doing nothing. I would recommend rewriting this section. Also, around the 60th measure... you have the second violins doing whole notes - why not make that line more interesting by having them do 8th notes - to match the main accompaniment pattern. Aside from these things - I think you have a good start here. Why not work on this some more and polish it up for us.. let's see how good it can be!

thanks for the review jawoodruff , i havent noticed these issues till now , ill try to edit the violin 2 in the places you are referring to. and maybe ill add some more riffs to the viola .

abd_zibdeh, on 09 January 2010 - 05:38 PM, said:

Well, I wouldn't add to the viola. I would take some of the viola passages and remove two of the notes and assign those to some of the other instruments. For instance, the triple stop.. give the highest note to the clarinet's lower register - staccato. Then give the middle note in the triple stop to the second violin. That would be a much more richer scoring of that triple stop.

I agree with Jason. The orchestration needs work. The passage at ms 29 is a bit odd spaced. It could work, but maybe spread the chord in v2/vla/cello to something wider. (I wouldn't double vla and cello btw) I would suggest a 3 part accompaniment under the 1st violin melody. You filed this work under the orchestral section. As a concert piece the harmony tends to be too much of the same. As game/film music it could possibly work. The idiom and rhythm sounds a bit more popular.

Okay, so I really like the theme. There are some issues here that are quite minor for me and a couple that are pretty major.

The most obvious major issue I have here is that you seem to have copy/paste syndrome. That viola part is really just a copy/paste of the part, which repeats itself over and over again. Another big problem you'll find with an actual orchestra are how thin and thick your textures will be from your orchestration. Consider taking some of the more exposed areas in the piece (especially when just the F Horn section plays with the Violin accompaniment) and developing a thicker texture with either added low brass (Trombones are missing altogether, why?) or with your existing Clarinets with added Cellos and Viola. The other big thing to mention is that you need to come up with another idea to compliment the theme you're using. It could be a more bombastic section or it could be slow and melancholy. It really doesn't matter what you do so long as there is something that takes us -somewhere- with your piece.

Now, onto some of the more minor things: Instrumentation. Even a small orchestra includes trombones and even tuba. You'll also see quite often the inclusion of a piccolo and english horn. These are definitely wonderful colors to bring to the table. Another is the harp, which I think will add a great deal to some of these brighter moments where you reintroduce your theme. Additionally, you could consider additional percussion instruments like tambourine, triangle, glockenspiel, snare drum, bass drum, and so forth. Remember that you can also bring out some percussive effects in the strings (pizzicato comes to mind). Next thing that comes to mind is Notation, particularly rhythm. Your theme is notated in 4/4 meter as follows: Dotted Quarter, Dotted Quarter, Quarter. This is more correctly notated as Dotted Quarter, Eighth Note tied to a Quarter (beat 3), then Quarter.

Why? Intuitively speaking, 4/4 meter is a subdivided metric representation of 2/2 meter. Your pulse in 2/2 time is two half notes. In 4/4 meter, the standard form of rhythmic notation is to maintain the 2/2 pulse. So, we group beats 1 and 2 together and beats 3 and 4 together when using dotted quarters, but almost never in orchestral music do we notate that rhythm the way you're notating it. This is a minor thing, but it's important to understand that for performance reasons, your rhythm should be notated in a more intuitive way to make reading your music easier for performers.

That's all I have for the moment. Hope it helps.

- AA

I like the theme as well, but you have to be careful of the orchestration. There's the atypical ensemble, which is fine if it's what you want, then there are viola triple stops that don't work, a lack of slurs in the sixteenth notes of the violins that would give a more fluid sound... Notation is such a huge part of the battle. Keep in mind that you will not write trills for most percussion instruments. Instead use tremolo markings on the stems of your notes for things like the cymbal and timpani rolls in measure 42.

Are you using Sibelius? The engraving style has changed a bit since I last paid attention to it...

sorry for the late reply but ive been really busy with my finals :S . anyway Black Orpheus yea i used sibelius .

Antia and jawoodruff , thanks for the very helpful comments , im going to try to improve my upcoming compositions and ill pay attention to the orchestration faults i did in this piece .

I can tell you are very in tune with your chords! I agree with woodruff here, the string parts need more to them, they can take this piece from interesting to outstanding!

Nice work!