icelizarrd

I'm interested in this endeavor! The A minor Rondo sounds like a good choice, too. It's perhaps not looking like there will be 10 people interested in this, though...? Might have to settle for a smaller group.

I run into a slightly different problem when I listen to a composition over and over again, although this may be something that only happens to me: it gets too easy to get "stuck" thinking about the piece in a certain way. That is, I get used to hearing it follow a certain path, and then it gets hard to even imagine it doing something different and still making sense.It's a similar problem, but has to do with losing imagination rather than becoming "deaf" to flaws, I suppose. As for the OP, I will repeat royreintjes' advice and say, try to write in larger "sections" instead of bars. You can work on separate sections independently as long as you check their transitions and their overall function in the piece to make sure everything's fitting together properly. Sometimes you can save yourself the time actually listening to a previous section if you can recreate it mentally--or, again like royreintejs said, the "feel" of it, if not the literal details of how it worked. Visual representations can be helpful for this--i.e., if you're writing on staff paper or in a MIDI sequencer, glance over the other sections and try to "hear" them in a rapid, summary sort of way without actually performing them or pushing play. Another strategy, which I'm really bad at myself, is to plan out how you want the piece to go ahead of time. You might draw a little diagram, maybe something as simple as a line that rises and falls to express tension building and release, and then keep that in mind as you write--think about where you "are" in the piece, where you've come from, where you're ultimately trying to go. (This doesn't need to be set in stone, of course you'll probably revise the overall plan as you write.)

Here is a book that I found very interesting, although I can't say I actually got too far into it before needing to return it to the library: The Thematic Process in Music by Rudolph R. Reti. It's somewhat on the older side by now, but anyway, he analyzes a great deal of well-known music and clearly points out melodic/motivic unity--sometimes in unexpected ways, such as where he attempts to show that all of Schumann's Kinderszenen themes are built from two initial motives in the first piece. Sometimes I think it's a little contrived and not always convincing; but some of the similarities are very impressive, and at the least it might give you interesting ways to think about unifying your own compositions.

Thanks for the tip! Reminds me of the NI Kontakt promotional freebie for the holidays.

Great, thanks for the link :)

Thanks for the replies :)

I really feel I ought to know the answer to this question already, but alas. What are the typically easiest/simplest keys for particular instruments to play and read? That is, what are the ones that you'd expect most somewhat-new-to-an-instrument players to be comfortable with? For piano, the obvious ones are probably the ones with few flats and sharps like A minor, C major, E minor, G major, etc. Does this apply to the transposing instruments as well, e.g., concert F for horn, concert Bb for trumpet, etc.? What about non-transposing instruments like flutes, guitars, trombones, and the violin family?

Weca, you might try LMMS. I don't have a lot of experience with it (at all), but it looks pretty solid. I agree, but at the risk of being pedantic, REAPER isn't actually free: it's just shareware/trialware without any limitations.

The Akai MPC series? Of course, those don't come preloaded with any samples, I think. To answer the OP, I don't think using prerecorded drums is cheating. The thing I would be concerned about is whether it will make the music sound too static, and whether it will limit your ability to make the structure of a piece flexible -- if you're the kind of band that might just jam out for an undetermined number of repetitions at the end of a piece, for example.

Absolutely feels right for a battle. Still, I kind of want more percussion throughout the entire thing; I think that would help add intensity and "epicness". Then again, I'm a percussionist :P

This is tremendous. And pretty ambitious. I'm going to agree with one of the earlier comments, the ending feels like it isn't quite... there enough for me. Also, I really like where it's going right before it cuts off--and I think it should continue doing that for some time longer than it does. Ah well. Overall it's a nicely unified piece, and, I think, well orchestrated. Hrrrmm, what do you think about the drummer's interpretation at rehearsal mark C? The instruction reads "double time feel", but to me it feels like the previous DnB-style had a quicker "feel". It feels to me like we're losing activity rather than increasing it at this point.

I'm sorry, I only listened to the first movement. I'll give my comments on that, though. Huh, yeah, taking your age into account, this is quite impressive. In m. 11-14, do you specifically want violas playing double-stops, or is that supposed to be divisi? I get the impression that the sound you probably want is divisi, but I dunno. In other areas, like m. 22-27, double-stops do make sense for a lusher sound.

Definitely pretty. I like that brief moment where piano doubles the clarinet an octave above, around 1:46 and 5:11. (If the overall form is something like A-B-A, I guess that's about 2/3rds of the way through either of the A sections).

Huh, yeah. Not what I was expecting. I sorta dig the glitchy techniques, though.

What about the lower end of the range? Right now I'm writing a piece where I want a pp for Bb clarinet at F#3 and briefly at E3. Is that feasible? Should I consider switching it to an alto clarinet?