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Nice work, I enjoyed this - just a shame the performance doesn't really do it justice.

I especially liked the (Philip) Glass-esque layered motives you set up. They work well, and even lead to a real sense of "epicness" when combined with the loud brass. Good use of thematicism as well.

Kudos to you and the band. Hope it went down well with the dedicatee himself. ;)

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^Isn't it kinda funny how that happens though? I know there was a piece we did with exposed off-beat chords in the trumpet section that they never really played together. The "drunken" feel of it worked very well for the style of piece though.

I'm having trouble getting your link to work. :(

The I Love Windows was very interesting. I'd never heard it played that way. It has a really nice middle the word to describe it is vanished from my mind but very nice.

Onward was very nice but the bad playing and tuning I thought, took away from it.

Bah, I can't play m3u files. Not fair. *raises fist*

In your score, trumpets go above horns in concert band writing. Only in orchestra do horns go on top. Also, add brackets to your instrument parts, there should be separate (smaller) brackets around the 1st to 3rd clarinets, alto saxes, horns, trumpets, and bones. Horn 3 plays higher notes than horn 2. Horns 1 and 3 are high parts, 2 and 4 are low parts. Keep that in mind. So all you have to do is switch your 2nd and 3rd parts.

Watch for collisions between elements like dynamics and slurs. Measure 15, your dynamic should be right below the first note in glockenspiel, not somewhere after. Pianissimo in first measure is a little bit low for bassoon, should just nudge it up a little closer. Measure 5, you gave cues to horn 1 and 2 to alto sax 1, but not to alto sax 2. Go ahead and add the cues for horn 3 and 4 to alto sax 2. If a director wants the saxes to play the saxes, at least there will be full harmony. Measure 14, euphonium doesn't get a dynamic... the poor bloke. =[

Measure 15, piccolo and flute collision, eek! Measure 19, saxes. Simile. Simile what, exactly? Looking at the clarinet parts, I'll bet you want them slurred... but write the slurs. It's unclear what you are similie-ing in the saxes. Honestly, I wouldn't write a similie in the clarinets either, just keep writing slurs. Measure 15 and 16, low brass... slurs colliding with tenuto markings. Urrgh. Fixy, fixy! Ohh, I hope the 1st clarinets know the alternate fingering for B natural at letter B... otherwise they could never play those sixteenths slurred. I don't know about you, but I usually write my key signature in the timpani part. Just a preference, I think, though. I'm not sure I'd bother writing that clarinet cue in euphonium, especially with the clef change. Might confuse them, might not.

Measure 59, flutes. Put flute 1 and 2 on top of each other, not displaced or offset. Also, beats 3 and 4 are just generally a mess. Maybe expand to two staves, the way you have it is just ugly. And you've had a single flute part this whole time... and suddenly decide to split parts. Odd. Measure 60, trumpet 2/3... nasssty articulation collisions. Are those clarinet tremolos at E supposed to be in time or not in time/counted?

Letter G... holy crap that will be loud. Gong and ffff bells and everything, bloody hell... Wheee, difficult clarinet part at H. XD . . .

Just keep an eye out for the collisions all over the place - sweat the little stuff. ;)

Enigmus said a lot of what I was going to point out, but I'll add a few points:

Your score is sloppy. You need more white space so the elements won't collide. You've only got two staves for the percussion, while it looks like you really need about 5.

When you have instruments divide, be sure to indicate when they are to play in unison again. Use "div. and "a2". For the horns, indicate which horns are playing.

Your bassoon parts often go too low for the dynamic you've indicated. The pppp low Bb in the last measure is fantasy.

You've got trombones on pedal tones. Bad. Acceptable maybe on the bass trombone, ugly on tenors, ugly and unmanageable in a band setting with multiple players.

Starting at 127, the low brass part is too muddy; it's scored too close together and too low.

The background parts are boring... you've got too much block rhythm going on and nothing really there to draw the ear. You need to add some interesting counter motion. Adding a tremolo to block chords doesn't make it interesting.

Most of your cues seem out of place or unnecessary.

Your woodwind 'noodles' starting at letter B quickly become tiresome. Break it up, change notes, vary the rhythm, ANYTHING... but don't repeat measure after measure of slurred 16th notes.

The 32nd notes (staring around H) seem out of character with the rest of the piece.

Harmonically, I feel the piece could stand some interesting dissonance. It's too bland for my taste.

Are those clarinet tremolos at E supposed to be in time or not in time/counted?

For woodwind instruments, it's almost universally accepted that the indication would be an unmeasured tremolo.

The pppp and ffff are excessive.

Congrats on the rehearsal/performance! With some additional work this could be good.

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I liked this piece in spite of the tuning issues with the ensemble. Even though there are a lot of Phillip Glass fingerprints in it , it manages not to sound like a takeoff. I thought you made the minimal techniques part of your own voice which is difficult to do, and combine it with some interesting music ideas.

My only reservation about this piece was the tempo which I felt was a bit slow or a bit the same throughout. Maybe this was the conductor or the limits of the performers but I thought it could be played a bit faster overall to give it a little more punch. Even of pinch isn't what you are aiming at I found the tempo started to get a bit sleepy by the end of the piece.

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Play measure 127 on the piano. Does it sound muddy? I don't think so. If the ensemble was attacking and releasing more clearly, I think that issue would be remedied.

That is your problem right there. You cannot translate that sound from a piano to an ensemble. The only reason it doesn't sound as muddy on a piano is due to the nature of the piano itself. It's not your ensemble's issue, it's yours. It will simply always sound muddy due to the register and the instuments involved.

Yes, I know the background parts are boring. I have a few good reasons. Firstly, they aren't supposed to draw the ear because they are background (duh). Honestly, I prefer it that way.

You want your music to be boring and two-dimensional? You may want to re-think that idea. Writing interesting backgrounds is an important skill and an important facet to composing interesting music. Because let's face it, if the only interesting part is the melody, the music becomes boring!

As for the 32nd notes...how do they not fit in? If I wrote two whole notes tied together, would that be out of place? As far as I'm concerned, it's a simple straight rhythm, just like the rest of the piece.

I'm saying that suddenly your woodwinds go into "double time" and while the rest of the ensemble doesn't change. That sounds out of place to my ears.

As a matter of fact, if I had written more dissonant harmonies, I'm sure you would criticize them for being inconsistent with the rest of the work.

Not if you incorporate them intelligently. Dissonance doesn't necessarily mean jumping from Bach to Stravinsky. Simply adding added 6th's, 7th's, 9th's, or even passing tones would be more interesting.

pppp is excessive, I'll give you that. ffff is not. It gets the point across. I can promise you that if I had ff or even fff written there, that section wouldn't sound as good as it does.

Well, I disagree. I've never found that exceeding ppp or fff has ever been effective or necessary. Feel free to disagree, though. Personally, every time I've been in an ensemble and there has been a written ffff, the ensemble simply plays unmusically.

Although I appreciate your criticism, the last line is patronizing. You cannot congratulate someone on something and then basically call what you just congratulated weak.

It's unfortunate you felt that that was patronizing, that certainly wasn't my intent. I certainly stand by my statement and think that you could truly improve what you have written with changes.

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