Hello! I'm 14, and this is my first attempt at writing for an orchestra. The piece is about a person dreaming at night...as you might have guessed with the name. He has 4 different dreams, all about different things. It isn't totally finished yet, but this is mainly it. i thought I would submit it up here before i start refining it so I could get some advice, and ideas on how to make it better.

About 20 seconds into the piece, where the clarinets first play, they shouldn't, so (if you can) mute them, unmute them when that section repeats.

In the second dream, when the clarinets repeat the theme of the first dream while the other instruments are still "playing the second dream". This is kind of meant to show his restlessness with all the images all twisted up... if you know what I mean :P . Its so hard to express what i mean here... Well here are the files

Oh yeah, and at the end, the big ending is the ending of the dream, and the piccolo is the guy waking up. The piece has taken me about 3wks to a month so far

Freehold_Fight.MID

Song_Starter__26_Darkness.mid

Dreams.sib

Dreams.mid

Hi, wish I was composing like that when I was 14. Anyway, nicely done... I liked your explanation of your work before I even listened to it. You sound like a romantic composer. Although, I didn't hear too much chromatic harmony in your piece, it had a nice dreamy flow to it. The end was big and done well. Appreciated the change of moods with the themes... kept my interest.

Good job... keep it up.

Some part sound out of harmony. But for I guess good enough for the first orchestral piece. Good Job.

Hi, wish I was composing like that when I was 14. Anyway, nicely done... I liked your explanation of your work before I even listened to it. You sound like a romantic composer. Although, I didn't hear too much chromatic harmony in your piece, it had a nice dreamy flow to it. The end was big and done well. Appreciated the change of moods with the themes... kept my interest.

Good job... keep it up.

Thanks for that... I like romantic music :) What exactly do you mean by chromatic harmony? Like accidentals?

Some part sound out of harmony. But for I guess good enough for the first orchestral piece. Good Job.

Thanks for replying, but where exactly do you mean? I agree some parts are bad harmony, but in order to imporve my piece and compositional skills, I need to know where specifically, like a bar number or what time it happened

Chromatic Harmony can get very complex but in short - take the Key of C Major. And now add in Augmented 6ths, Secondary Dominants, Chromatic Mediants and Submediants, etc....

For Ex. the Augmented 6th in CM would be: c , f# , a(flat), e(flat)

Basically your building chords on accidentals that don't exist in the key your working in without compromising the key. You can also use Neopolitan 2nds, in Cm it would be: d , f# , b. BUT you must understand how to resolve these chords so you don't lose the listener. The Neapolitan would usually resolve to either a I or V.

Hope this helps...

That is a very well orchestrated and instrumentated piece. i like how it sounds more contemporary than classical. most people wont agree, but i've listened to a lot of contemporary composers and music and this is right up there.

I also wish I could write like that at age 14. I envy anyone who can write orchestral, because I can't!

The transitions are a little shaky, but it certainly is obvious what the 4 parts are.

For some reason this piece reminds me of the Nutcracker.

Some of the dynamics are just too loud, but I know there's not a lot you can do about it with a computer composing program.

I'm actually kind of surprised this isn't in the major works forum.

It's accomplished all right - keep it going and you'll do great!

Don't be afraid to keep your orchestration under review as you progress - study a few scores of works you like. The problem with midi/computer sounds generally is you can get deceived by the balance - you can tweak the balance to sound ok when it wouldn't work with live players. In your work there's a repeated frilly trumpet figure just before it pauses and the guy wakes up. Bear in mind that in loud passages the brass can drown out the rest of the orchestra. Experience will tell you all this in the end but what a great start you've made.

I can't open sib files so I can't see the score. Never mind. I enjoyed the music.

:)