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Nice: I have listen a lot of pointers since this is a big-band piece. I am a self-proclaimed Basieologist and I love this stuff. This is all to help. Take my critiques with a grain of salt: Plunger is written with o and + , o = open), and + = closed. Think about doubling them with the trombone (makes it tighter). Also, we don't use "normal." You actually don't need to write anything, but if you must, you use "open." Also in Jazz, the "&" beat are played long. You'll be hard pressed to find a jazz band that will play the & of 4 short. It's just not jazz and it doesn't swing. Same thing for measure 24. It would be played as short long instead of long short. it's like saying "apartment."" We don't pronounce it "AYpartment" or "apartMENT." M56: It's better to write it as 8th Quarter 8th. That's the aforementioned of the standard swing feel. It is always played, ba-dum-BOW! M61: No need to write duples. Write "straight 8ths" Some of the piano part won't swing having those blocks go for so long. 6ths would work. But once again, You should probably have a chord chart OR write a guitar part so there is some chordal comp. You already have it in the saxes. No need to double. Let the piano swing and do its own obligatos. For the rhythm section, write the chord changes. NEVER write a specified note part for a jazz bassist, unless it's for transitions, setups, or melodies. M29 is a great example. Also, no need to double piano with the bass. here's an example of how laconic Basie's comping is but the saxes are still playing lines! I also attached some of the parts so you can see how the best ever did it. My $0.02 Basie Straight Ahead Alto 01.pdf Basie Straight Ahead Bass.pdf Basie Straight Ahead Drums.pdf
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Today
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Oh this is fantastic!! I don't have any critiques really, your dynamic contrast and harmony throughout the piece is very nice. And it moves very smoothly and logically. I would love a copy of the score if you do decide to share it - this is the kind of piece you start air-playing when you listen to it (you'll get it since you're a pianist).
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Nicely done...I would do some research into the form of sonatinas and their form/structure. Other than that, I think this is a great first attempt - I sat down and sight-read through it and it's very easy to read, which makes it more approachable if you were wanting to distribute the piece for educational purposes (sorry, piano teacher brain taking over lol!). If you add a second movement, please post it so we can hear both together.
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The name is very fitting!! Your piece has a playfulness to it that is refreshing and fun. It's easy to listen to. I wonder what would happen if you gave the tuba the melody at times and used the other instruments to harmonize above it, could be especially nice with the Flute, Clarinet, and Oboe. I will also echo what @maestrowick said - the tuba can do so much more! Use it's different registers and play with the rhythm some more. Tuba, Bass clarinet, Bassoon etc are used to the one note, barely moving bass lines in pieces, but you have a chance to let the tuba shine, so let it shine. Please update us if you make any edits to the piece - good work
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@maestrowick Thank you for the specific feedback. I'm not surprised with your comment on the C-section; I thought the same thing, and I added or subtracted a quarter-note here or there to help it along, but I do understand that's fairly subtle at the listed tempo, and its repetitive structure does lead it towards sounding like those variations are inadequate when it comes to keeping it interesting. I haven't thought about the rest of the content of your comment prior to my posting, but I feel like there's some really helpful information in there. I am relatively new to writing orchestration after all. I'll keep posting and implement whatever I can!
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Hey! You can just write "Tuba." Tuba transpositions don't work the as other instruments. Bb, F, C, Eb tubas all read the same part. This instrumentation is different. Perhaps consider adding the French horn so you would have standard instrumentation with a tuba. Also, the tuba can do way more. Since you have it here, think about adding more rhythmic variety with the tuba (especially in the counterpoint section)/ You could give the tuba part to the clarinet, and then write a virtuosic part there. My 0.02/
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Yes, the choir goes DIRECTLY above the orchestra and below everything else. That is just standard practice. Also, it s true, I critique the score. As for the phrase markings, assume nothing. In classical music, they initially won't play it legato. Also remember, they probably won't have but only one rehearsal to rehearse this. Finally, yes, I am big on score markings/notation. It's how the performers internalize what the composer truly wanted. I've learned the hard way to take nothing for granted when typesetting!
Yesterday
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Not sure what you're referring to, the choir is evidently above the orchestra both in the score I first provided and the one I last uploaded before you made your comment. Perhaps you meant the choir parts should be placed between the string orchestra and the woodwinds? Again, not sure where you're getting this from. It doesn't take a full woodwind section of geniuses to figure out the general character of the piece based on the articulation of the string entries preceding them and play their own expected articulations in accordance. Which enharmonic notation ends up in the final part scores will be completely dependent on the contours and intervals of the main theme according to the requirements of the resulting key per each entry/transposition so as to avoid said cognitive dissonance allegedly present in the current version of the score. The latter, as the main score including all parts, is not meant to serve as a dedicated particella for each individual performer, but merely as a general visualization of the flow of counterpoint across all entries and transpositions. I could, but the mezzosopranos can reach that B natural just fine. Despite the voice crossing, which is to be expected in settings with this many voices, swapping their melodies in that specific spot, or any other for that matter, would most likely completely sacrifice the melodic contour in either case, not to mention putting the whole structural integrity of the coda into jeopardy. In my view, the detriments of changing it far outweigh the benefits, so it will stay as it currently is. Thank you for clarifying. It would have been exceedingly hard to tell otherwise unless you had included any technical commentary of note about the music itself instead of focusing exclusively on notation nitpicks pertaining to the scoring alone. Have a wonderful day.
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Amogus joined the community
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This is wonderful (and I'm not just saying that because I love the piece 😆). I think you've retained the character of the original piece, without making it sound muddy or too heavy. Your doublings and overall orchestration choices seem calculated and well thought out. I think the few notation issues are an easy fix, and would make the score more readable. Good job 👏🏾
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Greetings all! I present here my latest orchestration of Rachmaninoff's beautiful and haunting Prelude in B minor. It's a rough score (as usual), with lots of slurs yet to be added, and flute division that needs sorting. Some of the notational issues come from the original piano midi I used as my source. E.g. The places where I have two crotchet triplets followed by a minim sextuplet. (Obviously four triplets would be preferable.) Also the strange tempo change to 80 bpm, and time signature change to 5/4. I will fix these; though it's going to take a lot of work, as I don't think there's an easy way to do batch conversion of tuplets in MuseScore. (Unless someone knows different?) The big bombastic chords in the piano original were quite awkward to deal with; but I realised I didn't need to match the piano rhythms exactly. All I really needed were pulsing chords of some kind: so that's what I've tried to create. I haven't been able to find any other orchestrations of this piece: so mine may be the first? Anyway hope you enjoy. rachmaninoff-prelude-in-b-minor-op-32-no-10 (orchestration) #47.mp3 rachmaninoff-prelude-in-b-minor-op-32-no-10 (orchestration) #47.pdf
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Thanks for taking the time to listen and for the feedback! I think you made some fair points that I'll definitely keep in mind for future pieces. Since this was my first attempt at writing in a larger form, I tried to keep things relatively simple while I focused on the structure. Might write a second movement for it eventually. Thanks again for valuable feedback @TristanTheTristan
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HanselandGretel_unfin2.mp3 HanselandGretel_unfin2.pdf
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gooberro joined the community
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Last week
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Hello MinGry! I see that you have written a nice little piece, that i wouldn't describe as a sonatine. This is because a sonatine is Usually multi-movements Not ternary form, but instead Sonata-Allegro form, which has three distinct themes in the exposition, which goes from I-V (usually and you did that well) and also usually repeats. Then comes the development and reprise which you did well. You have a nice first theme, that actually seems to plain. The whole piece is basically just a mezzo-piano. You might have been able to develop the textures better by using more dynamics, and using more staccato maybe. You could have also had more layers of complexity. Good job on exploring a new style as a composer! Keep improving! Tristanthetristan
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for around 5 to 6 months
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Well, thank you. 😊😇😊 Many have heard my music. To answer your first question, it was a mixed bag: some say it was their "most favorite" of all student compositions, while others said "don't give it to an orchestra". (Flattery much? Ha. 😏) In a three-judge panel at my university's blind Spring Competition for Composers, the first threw a.... kind of.... thoughtless textbook criticism at me, one which I've heard countless of times being used on composers. It does loosely align with your own sentiment, only worded less positively (almost sounding as an insult dressed up as constructive criticism; backhanded constructive criticism, if I may): that my music was a "plethora of ideas that didn't develop". He felt that my music was "meandering without a sense of direction"; that my "future focus" can be on "where the music goes and why". (I don't think you yourself had mentioned anything about lacking direction and development overall; just that my flight-like move from one point to the next made it hard for you to really know what the motifs were; but was overall a joy to listen to. Correct me if I'm wrong, which I can be, but I'm guessing that you at least realize some decent sense of direction and why it went that way, correct?) What irritated me about this judge is that he completely distegarded just how much effort I had spent developing and honing the very items he says my music lacks (direction and development); dismissing it as if it was another sadly-advertised unseasoned student piece. He had three weeks and a half to look at 5 scores; the other four of which are not nearly as long and nearly as hard as mine. (Believe me: we student colleagues share our music during comp seminar. I saw the files they uploaded the hours before the deadline!) And, the best thing he could come up with is "plethora of ideas that was 'meandering' and 'didn't develop'." (Thanks much for actually taking time to assess my music?) But then, the second judge from this competition was on the complete opposite end of the opinion spectrum: she "absolutely loved" the "unique and innovative" techniques in my score that "haven't been devised before." Her companion compliments focused on my use of harmonic progression; and how everything invoked a massive mythical imagery. She was only concerned about the way I deployed irregular rests in my 5/4 measures: that it could produce a lot of visual "clogging" in the individual part scores. (She wouldn't have known that, in the part scores, the irregular distribution of 5/4 rests was only on those first measures of exposure; any proceeding measures in that same musical period were given multi-measured rests; as I trust my performers got the beat down, after seeing the first measure of said-irregulsr rests.) Above these, she was very intrigued and eager to learn what the programmatic narrative was. (There was no word from the third judge; which I found suspicious. He/she may have "disliked" my music so much, the potentially aggressive comment in it could not have been forwarded to me by the composition chair; who told me that the third did not respond. Why wouldnt a judge response?... This is what I predict had happened to my third comment.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I think, over all, one main common consensus among (almost) everyone who had commented so far had zoned in on the "moving too quickly from one idea to next". (And, again, wofn it's a stream of consciousness type of composition, that's one element that should be anticipated.) After that, it's all up to individual biases. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ All that aside, in regards to your second point (which addressing it was enmeshed into my addressing thr first: You didn't answer my questions regarding the definine motives that I stated were the Tone Poem; nor did you answer my question about Stravinsky's "Rite". 😁
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Hello everyone! I come to you with my first piece produced on my new Acer laptop that runs Musescore smoothly! I have taken the opportunity (before I always had a school chromebook so I couldn't do this) to download Cakewalk Sonar DAW which allows me to open all my old .wrk project files from back when I was using Cakewalk Home Studio over a decade ago. So, if you can't tell by the title, this is one of my juvenilia that I dug up from way back when I used to compose into the sequencer. Back from around 2008. I intended it to be a mix of styles between classical and jazz, hence the corny title 🤣. I use blues scales, extended harmony, altered chords and polychords - all in a way that is intended to be "classically jazzy". I hope you enjoy this piano trio and let me know what you think! Thanks for listening! Jazzical Piano Trio.mp3 Jazzical Piano Trio.pdf
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