Leaderboard

It's very sweet and well written.

Yes, I feel like there's a little bit of metal percussion overuse. I've played pieces in band where there were cymbal rolls all over the place and that annoyed me a little - I feel that overuse of these percussion effects can lead to them losing their effectiveness. I think in particular, the triangle notes in bars 24 through 29 felt superfluous. The glock was also starting to feel overused by bar 53. Changing the role of the instrument can help. I liked the glock at bar 74, for example, because it was clear that it was a supporting role. Doing that gives the piece more variety of colour. I stopped noticing the triangle later on in the piece because it too became part of the texture, and it became a welcome addition instead of feeling old. Using a particular percussion instrument all throughout a piece isn't always necessarily a bad thing. John Mackey is one composer who tends to rely on the same percussion instruments quite a lot. His 'Aurora Awakes', for example, makes extensive use of the vibraphone and marimba throughout its second movement (about 6-7 minutes worth of music). I think the reason it works there is the reduced attack of those instruments, and the fact that the piece only draws attention to them when they first come in, before then fading them into the musical texture. A glock sticks out a lot more. Having said all that I did enjoy your piece, and there were some really nice unexpected colours in there!

It's generally a very good piece. I don't think you use the upper percussion too much. If there's one thing I was to gripe on majorly it would be the overall pitch (as opposed to pitch class) range of the band; it's very constant, even if in different dynamics, and it makes the piece sound a little static. I get that support in the bass or upper voice is pretty standard orchestration practice, but I hate it when it's taught that way. But for a normal band who doesn't care about this stuff, it's a really good work.