Symphonic piece part 2

This piece has yet to name itself. I know it goes along with what is tentatively called "Invasion of the Universe". This one took a little longer to complete at around 15 hours. I am not totally satisfied with the ending, but will let this suffice for now.

Here is the mp3

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Here is the score: It is not completed but gives the main idea. I know there are parts where the wind players go too far and that will be fixed in time.

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Any suggestions, criticisms, insults or comments are highly appreciated.

Here is the link to "Invasion of the Universe".

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/invasion-universe-w-score-midi-11330.html#post183629

sept10,07.mid

I think this may be one of the more tonally centered pieces i've heard you compose, which surprisingly is a nice contrast. I love how you work the two or three (it sounds like) motives through out the piece. the contrast between the parts where you go out of the tonal area is a great effect, sometimes i hear in my head the main motive being used in that tonally ambiguous context. at the end where you bring the oboe and clarinet back with the same idea from the beginning you might want to think about putting it in different voices just to change the tambre of the piece. Is the piece finished? and is there a way I could see a score. I also like the call and answer effect you use towards the beginning of the piece, it works nicely as a transition tool. Hope to see more, if I can see the score i'll be able to comment more.

Thanks for the comment. I was working on getting the score up and now it is.

It's to late tonight to work on cleaning up the score and fixing the odds and ends, but I will get to it. :thumbsup:

When have you ever done a piece you know is finished? :toothygrin:

There are still things to be done and I agree it might work better with the different voice towards the end, again just not tonight. :D

Thanks again

Ron

Hey Ron, I'll keep it short since I have replied about this work already. I'm really starting to admire your themes in this one; especially the "da-da- da____" , "da-da- da____" "da-da- da____" , motif. (Did that make sense?:toothygrin:) I looked at your score and, in general, looks very clean with nice articulations. As I looked at your score I noticed how rhythmically vertically aligned everything is. Which is not bad by any means just reminds me of your mathematical mind. As I wrote you earlier about the triplets, triplet quarters, and dotted rhythms, and ties, help to blur this type of compositional architecture.

Anywho, great work again Ron! I'm honestly appreciating your writing.

Michael

Hey there,

just listened to this piece twice and wanted to share my impressions, for what they're worth. I had some difficulties forming a unambigous opinion, because on one hand I'm impressed by your motivic handling, on the other hand I sometimes felt lost in trying to follow where your piece was headed tonally (or harmonically, don't really know how to express this). However, I'm not really used to listening to atonal-style music (and it gets better with successive listens to your piece), so take this with a grain of salt.

All in all, I think the recurring motives really help maintain interest over a longer period of time, I particularly like the cello ostinato that introduces the piece and the motif from measure 22.

The ending, as you said, comes off as quite unmotivated, took me completely by surprise at the first listen... I think you may definitely want to develop the ending a bit more so the transition gets smoother.

Otherwise, really interesting piece, I think I'm going to look for some of your less tonally centered pieces (as JazzyKendall put it) in the archives when I have the time. :)

So long, Andi S.

Michael, looks like I didn't get what you had said. That' s why I said I maybe followed your suggestions. Thanks for the listen.

Andi, Thanks for the listen. I will fix this ending in time once I figure ouyt what to do with it.

Thanks again guys

Ron

Great piece! I really enjoyed the harmonic depth, the melodic passages, and the dissonance. Keep it up!

Great piece! I really enjoyed the harmonic depth, the melodic passages, and the dissonance. Keep it up!

I do appreciate the reply. This was a fun piece to compose.

hi

i think .. the begining is not usual ... and the accompany seem like ... theme or both ,, the character of the part cannot be ... identify

Hi rolifer,

It was great. I liked the developement.

hi

i think .. the begining is not usual ... and the accompany seem like ... theme or both ,, the character of the part cannot be ... identify

I can see English is not your 1st language....but I do appreciate the attempt. Thank you.

Hi rolifer,

It was great. I liked the developement.

Thank you very much

Ron

once again you continue to amaze me with your endless creativity. keep up the good work!

Sorry... I would have posted on this much earlier, but I didn't realise you posted it. :P

I like the work with the woodwind. You did a good job at developing this one. This is much more tonal then some of the other stuff I've heard of yours, but that isn't a bad thing.

Near the end when you reintroduce the main melody I think it might sound better if you climaxed it there and then entered the next section with the woodwinds. Just a thought. To be honest the ending didn't satisfy me. I'm not sure how to give you advise on it however. Maybe intensify the build more before releasing the tension. Or justify the build by bringing out the horns from the background.

Overall, I think it is a good piece and is developed well. So, regardless of what I have mentioned it still could be left as is and stand on it's own. Good job. ;)

once again you continue to amaze me with your endless creativity. keep up the good work!

You make me blush!!! Thank you much!!!

To be honest the ending didn't satisfy me. I'm not sure how to give you advise on it however. Maybe intensify the build more before releasing the tension. Or justify the build by bringing out the horns from the background.

;)

Thank you Bob.... You found it and that's all that matters.

I have been thinking about the ending since I posted this. Actually even before I posted it. I have yet to come up with an idea that really works the way I want it to. I can almost hear it, but everytime I try to put the notes down, it disappears. So at this point I am still stuck with this ending all the time knowing it isn't right yet.

Thanks for finding it and commenting. I keep an eye out for yours as well and if I haven't told you before, I will now. If I miss one of yours, do not hesitate to PM me and let me know. I really mean this!!!! Commenting on each others works is what makes this site work!

Thanks again

Ron

This is quite an interesting piece. I'm a fan of the pizzicato opening, and I can sense the kind of mood you're shooting for with the motifs and progressions, but the piece is let down by theoretical transgressions such as unprepared and unresolved dissonances.

I've listened to enough of your other stuff to know that you aren't the most tonal of composers, and we all know that when dealing with atonal material, "unprepared and resolved" means about as much as a single Yen, but here it's more noticeable. Repeat listens cause my ear to prick up less.

Do you have any experience of species counterpoint? This is pretty much the most basic of theory that will allow you to construct music more effectively. You have the ideas, the talent and most definitely the inclination, but the end result doesn't come off as polished as it should, purely because you don't happen to have formal training.

I hope that's a help, and that you won't misinterpret my remarks as being any brand of dismissiveness. In the meantime, keep up the composing!

Thank you for taking the time to comment on this piece. I have no formal training whatsoever, just years of listening to music.

but the piece is let down by theoretical transgressions such as unprepared and unresolved dissonances.

Do you have any experience of species counterpoint?

!

I do have the score posted as well, so any chance you could specically point out one of the unprepared and unresolved dissonances?

This winter break I hope to study Piston's Counterpoint. In the meantime, no, I have no experience of species counterpoint, in fact I have never heard of it.

Thanks again for the listen.

Ron

Well, pointing out individual incidences of unprepared/unresolved dissonance would probably be fairly unhelpful without proper contextualisation, so I'll let you know of just one example so you can see what I'm talking about, then I'll attempt to contextualise it somewhat.

Have a look at the interaction between treble (violin I) and bass (pizz. cello) in bar 3, inside beat 1. You have Eb moving down to D in the violins. The cellos are playing a C. Initially, this forms a consonance, since it's a third. Then you move down to the D in the violins. That's a dissonance, a 9th. Given the idiom, my ear wants it to resolve - let's say it can either go back up to the Eb, or down to the C. But, you instead move the bass down to an Ab. That forms up Ab and D, which is a diminished 5th, a more serious dissonance than the C and D.

So you've ended up following your dissonance with another dissonance. Beat 2 is OK because even though it begins with G and C (a 4th, strictly speaking a dissonance but in the 20th century wouldn't strike most people as such), you move the treble down to a G as well, making an octave, which we all know is consonant.

By way of a correction just for this little example, I would propose amending the third C in the bass to a Bb. Both C/Eb and Bb/D are consonant, so the dissonance-forming Ab that follows does not matter. You still finish up with your 4th, but like I said, it's not hugely important unless you're writing super strict counterpoint, which generally speaking nobody is nowadays. I actually like stacking 4ths in my own music (quartal harmony).

It took me that long just to go through one example with you - I know it sounded very anal, but there isn't really any other way.

Clearly, you aren't going to go through the whole of the piece amending things like this. What works contrapuntally is subconsciously drummed into you through boring training exercises, so you can use those techniques in the "real world" (i.e. real pieces you write). It becomes second nature after a while. And once you become sufficiently skilled, you begin to take home not arbitrary rules, but "principles" instead. So you can easily break the rules of strict counterpoint, yet still be left with something which is effective.

Here's a link on species counterpoint: Counterpoint - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hope all that helped. I also hope I avoided making any errors...

Thank you for taking the time to reply to me. I am not going to ask you to go thru this piece by piece, so you can relax now. I understand exactly what you are saying. I printed out your comments, opened the score in Sib. and played around with your suggestions. I did not know that I was doing what you were saying when composing this, but the idea of going from a little dissonace to a greater dissonance is exactly what my "ear" said I wanted to happen without knowing what I was doing. There are a lot of advantages to being formally trained and I wish I was. However, If that means I would not be doing this type of movement in 1 measure, then I am happy in my ignorance. With that said, I still wish that I had the formal training. I have to constantly move notes around to find the sound (chord) that I want. Those of you that have the training, you hear the sound in your head and know where to put the notes. Of that I am jealous!!!

I am fully aware of the fact that some of my music is not for everyone. I am finishing up a very dissonant piece now that I will post once this one has run its course. Now that I understand a little more of what you are talking about, I know that my new one has dissonant beats followed by ever increasing dissonace. If you understand what I mean. This is what my "ear" likes to hear from time to time. Each generation of composers seem to get more and more dissonant, so let's make a deal that in 400 years we have this discussion again and base it on the music of that time and see where we stand. Although, history has a habit of repeating itself, so the new fad in 400 years might be Gregorian Chants.

Thanks again for the lengthy reply!!!

Ron

Trusting your ear only really helps you as far as the craft you have to complement it. If you've never studied counterpoint, bar 3 may not jump out at you. It's that way for everyone, bar a few rare exceptions.

Given the tonal opening, and the fact that your treble line is descending diatonically, again in a perfectly tonal manner, the ear doesn't "want" to experience an unresolved dissonance.

Keep in mind I'm making a big deal of what happens in the first beat of bar 3 simply because it's the example I chose. In and of itself, it isn't a big issue. Doing the same thing repeatedly throughout the work spread amongst multiple instruments is where the real problem lies. There still remains much to like about this work, of course.

As for the reply, you're welcome. :)

I think you are missing my point. I like bar 3 the way it is, simply for the type of dissonance it is. The baseline can not be changed as that would change the entire point of the base. I chose the dissonant notes for the reason that they are dissonant. Granted it may not fit the rules, but it fits what I had to say.

I also think that this piece will make more sense to you when you hear the other parts with it and once I complete the last part, all of it will (hopefully) make sense.

I say parts instead of movements here, because I don't really see any breaks happening between the 4 parts. Although each will be a standalone section, their will be no rests between most of the parts. So far the composed 3 sections run about 15 minutes, so the complete piece will be around 20-22 minutes.

I have never been very good at following the rules in any aspect of life. I may as well keep up the same in my music.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to comment!!!!

Ron

Greets again, Ron! This movement, I enjoyed even more. There's more coherence in this movement, while retaining the Ron-esque feel.

If I may comment, knowing the rules is not only about following them, but, mostly, knowing when and how to break them. Some work in counterpoint would do you a world of good, I believe! As long as you retain your Ron-iness, such knowledge can only reinforce it, not diminish it.

I am waiting for the completion of this.

Very fun song to listen to! I really enjoyed the melody, it's still playing through my head! Also, I really liked the chords that you used around the middle of the piece. I think it would be a fun song to play. Another thing that I really thought was cool was the way that you led the music back into the beginning melody after all the slow stuff in the middle. Overall, a very enjoyable piece--it makes me want to go practice writing some more so I can write something fun like this!:D