Symphony No. 1

Symphony. No. 1 (rough draft)
-
My main concern is providing interest (where there is none), and whether or not I need to revamp Theme1 (taking a new route), or fix the existing...

Where does it start to bore?


There are a few issues with crackling audio/tutti. (please excuse :P) Exporting audio from Finale.
Looking into better production...though my Sonar fatal errors when I upload MIDI data...bleh.





Flute 1 is actually a piccolo.
Interested in feedback.
Symphony No. 1

Hey, thanks for posting. This is a really great work, and I really enjoyed listening. I absolutely love the syncopated rhythm you use. It has an eerie feel, yet it has motion which is missing from so many pieces. I also like your development.

I think I would've liked to see more of a climax. You have really nice development, but if you expanded the climax a little bit I think it would add a little more depth to your piece.

Also, you have lots of difficult rhythms in your piece - Often it helps to use more ties. It's less confusing for the performer if you keep the beats exposed.

Thanks for posting!

-MF

Pretty good professional piece.

I knew the end of the development was unsatisfying, I will fix that now.

After cleaning up the score a bit, should it be good enough to present to people in hopes of a performance? I would not want to jump the gun

dscid, on 18 April 2010 - 05:31 AM, said:

I love the opening of the piece but truthfully I began to lose interest half way through. I think the piece became too string heavy and had too many spaces where it felt like something more should be going on. How about some counter-melodies? This is a very solid start, though.

If you clean up the score you could certainly present it to an ensemble, but there is a lot of cleanup to do. Aside from the collisions, there are places (like m. 150) where you use "0vb." I've never seen that before. Either use a line on the 8va to show where it ends or use "loco" instead of "0vb." When you have divided string instruments use "divisi" and "unis.," but for divided wind or brass instruments you use "a 2" or "a 3" (depending on how many instruments are playing the same part on one staff), and it's unnecessary to say anything when the instruments split apart again.

Thank you Orpheus, I didn't know about wind a#, and had forgotten about loco. I was also afraid of being string heavy for that matter Though, I probably will leave that the same, as that doesn't bother me so much.

I've fixed several issues with places where I felt there wasn't enough going on, and worked out a climax for the development.

Thanks for listening, and helping

I think the timpani part is not easy to play. The octave jumps seem to me to be difficult. At least it's going quite high (ms 27) Your melodies seem quite flowing. But when its so often octavated with the celli it gets tiresome to the ears. the melody is looking for a more gentile orchestration, like a single woodwind. I think the piece moves quite slowly. Has some highly expressive moments, you seem to use the brass in an epic way. Good. On the harmonic side the slow moving has negative side-effect, it gets boring... Thats a real pity because you have some beautiful material... On general remark; I wouldn't divide the viola's, they are usual already outnumbered by the 2nd violins alone. Dividing will create a gap (because of the violas being too thin) between the violins and celli/cbasses

Yeah, I knew I needed to make sure my ranges weren't off the chart on the timpani, I haven't read much into percussive orchestration...I will now

In the recap, as of now the only variation I have going on is a total switch on the roles of string/wood, so the orchestration lends to a more gentle feel on the second half.

I'm still pretty unhappy with just change in orchestration over the same material, so I'm trying to write out a coda, and then I'm going to go back and see about making some changes to the recap material to hopefully add interest.

Could anyone point me in the direction of what is boring? Like jrcramer said, it is a pity, because I really enjoy some of the material, but apparently some of the transition is boring? Are you thinking there should be more ornamental gesturing going on? Counter-melodies - I was afraid of making it sound muddy, so I just used the orchestra for coloring instead. For this piece I'll probably just keep it simple, and spice up the coda in that manner.

Thanks again for the tips, I really want to polish this up.

Hi There,

I have to agree with the above posters that the piece starts exciting, but then the melody gets boring/confusing. This shouldnt be necessary. Try to tell a story. What story are you telling? What is happening? I think your music later on in the piece needs character. I need to see something happen in front of my eyes, just like many people "See" everything happen when they read a book. You might should try to listen to other symphonies and think why those are so good, and why yours isn't yet. It looks like I am really saying your music is bad or something like that, but seriously, it is not. I am just trying to help you to get the feeling you are expressing over to here, to the listener. If you ask for specific things you want advice on I might be able to help you further.

I would really appreciate it if you could listen to my latest piece too and comment on it to (link in signature).

Kind regards,

Hugo

Here is an update - I haven't overhauled anything, I kind of got in a writer's block, but things are cleaned up, fixed some markings, and added on to the developmental climax. The recap, as last stated was to be string/wood orchestration flipped. Then finally a coda...

I would really like to know where it starts to bore. I'm -very- unsure about it at this point. I can't decide if I need to scrap a lot of the first theme, and add a lot of drama...or just fix up what I have.

I don't intend on leaving the recap as is, I want variations...but I'm on the fence with scrapping. Seems though, as I'm writing this I'm falling to scrapping and going more dramatic....

What do you think?