Paladin (For Wind Ensemble)

This is the first concert band piece I've ever completed (not the first I've started though). The ending was unmercifully tacked on, I'm afraid, but it was due by the beginning of next week, along with my college application, and the school musical I have yet to practice for.

Anyhow, I'm very new at this sorta thing, so any suggestions would be very helpful. Thanks a ton!

~Kal

WHAT!? YOU MEAN THIS ISN'T JAZZ!?:O

_As usuall, the midi doesn't do it justice...

Paladin.MID

Paladin.MUS

I have absolutely nothing to say! I don't really have very much compositional training and therefore am not very much value to you, but I just want to congratulate on such a cool piece. Also, the ending didn't seem that out of place to me, actually, I liked it. Another thing that I liked was your use of rhythms, I think that it would be a fun song to play.;)

very good music

fun piece musically to hear, this seems like it would fit very well in a video game, dont know if thats what u were goin for but yeah. i love the percussive drive throughout the piece and the last minute or so was my favorite part. i was stuck with the dreadful midi but still nicely done my friend ;)

Loved the hemiolas, gave it a very busy feeling, like it was constantly in need to push on. Sax feature? You seem to neglect some other instruments a bit, but still a cool piece, and it works fine with the concentration on the saxes. Loved the sudden modulation toward the end, it really needed that.

I don't have very much time right now, I might come back to this and give a more detailed review later, I haven't seen the score yet, just the midi.

I actually the saxes didn't have quite enough to play...I believe there was one phrase. where the saxes shared the melody with french horn and some other winds, but that was it.

Glad you guys liked it! I was going for a more heroe-y sounding piece (not necessarily heroic, though). I will say that I have the most experience writing percussion, then woodwinds, then brass, and lastly, strings.

My high school's wind ensembles gonna being playing it tomorrow, I can't wait! It'll be the first time I've heard anything I've written played live. (other than a few tunes by a small jazz combo...)

~Kal

I'll bet you can already tell from my username what I think of this piece. :stoicjedi:

The ending doesn't seem tacked on to me, but I couldn't tell why you didn't just keep it in 4 for the last measure...

Also: This would be SO much fun to play with my high school band. Post a live recording asap! :thumbsup:

Hey Kal,

Very fast paced music here; masterfully blended mini movements of percussive and hastily energetic music. Nice work!

Michael

Thanks for the reviews, guys!

Yeah, I love things that aren't entirely in 4/4...You know, it's okay to throw in a 3/4 bar in there...or 2/4....or 7/8....or 15/8....

Anyhow, I'm not really sure why I made the last bar 2/4 either, except that I didn't know what the conductor would do with the other two beats (should I put a fermatta there or something?), so I just deleted the last two beats entirely.

Thanks for the reviews again, guys. I'm very open for suggestions- I'm particularly inexperienced when it comes to the ranges of brass instruments (tuba too low, french horns too high?) so any suggestions are extremely welcome.

~Kal

Very nice, I liked all the rhythmic changes/ meter changes, but it was kind of unisony. A lot of the time, people would play the same part, but at different intervals.

But all that makes for a really fun piece.

Here is a very helpful website for theoretical and orchestration questions.

Dolmetsch Online - Home Page

Michael

Alright, thanks! I'll go check it out...

Monkeys- Yeah, since it was my first piece, I didn't wan't to have to deal with things being unclear or detracting from the main idea, so I just decided to "Keep it simple, stupid!" as my band director would say...

~Kal

I listend to your piece a couple of times and I enjoyed it. Nice use of melody, counter-melody, and harmony. The contrasting textures of short and metric to smooth and melodic really worked. I wish the piece was longer. You have some great ideas here, I think you should further develop the piece. I would also recommend caliming it is for Symphonic Band. Wind Ensemble is defined was one person to a part. Many times, you have triads and diads on the trumpet, alto sax, and F.Horn part. If there are 3 parts then thats fine, just make sure you put that on the left hand side of the score and to add a2 "A due" when the parts come back together in one single line. Great work though. Keep it up!

Kyle

Thanks. Sorry, I'm not versed in the differences between Concert Band/Symphonic Band/Wind Ensemble, I just know my school's Wind Ensemble is playing it, heh.

Glad you guys liked it! And thanks for the feedback. I'm working on a 7/4 piece entitled 'Pulse,' so I'll throw it up here when it's done.

~Kal

This piece won the 2007/08 IMEA music composition competition in the Large Ensemble category.

And so did my quasi-blues tune "Blueskies" in the jazz combo category.

It was played this year at the IMEA state convention, and next year their Honor band will be playing "Paladin."

Thank you all a ton for your help/support/advice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~Kal

It's a really good composition, but the instrumention isn't great (obviously because it is your first completed wind ensemble piece).

First off, I think that it would probably be more for a symphonic band than a wind ensemble (middle difficulty).

Normally there would only be 2 horn parts, but there can be more.

Also, there are normally 3 clarinets, 3 trombones, 2 flutes, 1 tenor sax, and only one alto sax. Piccolos are optional but are almost always in symphonic/wind pieces.

The baritone part is pretty much the same as trombone/tuba, as is the bassoon. You did pretty a pretty good job switching it up with the bass clarinet. Baritone usually switches between trombones and horns/saxes (when they aren't playing too high). Measure 59 is a great example of when the baritone would do this. Also, oboes get offended when they are forced to pretty much play the same thing as flutes or clarinets. You need more variety in your instrumentation so that you can have a variety of timbres, which will make your pieces more colorful.

EDIT: Oh, cool! I didn't notice the page two, or the date. That's awesome! Great job!!!

Thanks!

I suppose, I didn't want to make the piece too busy-- my motto is "Keep it simple, stupid," so I tried to limit the number of things going on at one time.

I know as I write more and more pieces like this, I'll get better, though.

Thanks again for the reviews, I didn't know oboes didn't like playing flute parts, lol...

~Kal

Oboes are fine with it as long as it isn't the ONLY thing they get to play.

Alright, I'll keep that in mind next time...

I think there might have been a few subtle differences here and there...

~Kal

Excellent piece. Congrats on the win too!