Overture of Oregon

This is my first piece I've written outside of piano or solo instrument. It is an overture to my first musical.

Here is tyhe original version before my cousin wrote the drums.

Oregon.MID

I assume you live in Oregon? I too live in Oregon.

I don't know much about musicals, but this piece seems all over the place. I don't understand what you are trying to do with the drums... they seem rather random. I think changing them quite drastically would help make this piece flow/sound a bit better. Overall, I am sorry but I didn't enjoy this piece. I think it needs quite a bit of work.

What is the musical about anyway?

I am sorry you didn't enjoy it. The drums were added because m best friend came in and changed them midi file before I changed it to a .wav file. drums were NOT supposed to be one there (and my best friend does not write music.)

I will now go back and take out the drums and revise it so that it makes more sense.

The beginning was pretty good; at about :36...yikes. :P Would be a lot better without the wacky drums :( I'm going to have to agree with cavatina on this one.

- Jen

Topics merged. Please do not post multiple topics for one song :) If you would like I could merge the posts with the midis for you. Let me know.

Thanks

- Jen

Could you, PRETTY PRETTY PRETTY PRETTY PRETTY PRETTY PRETTY PRETTY

PLEASE???????

Thanks!

It is 100x better than with the drums! Oh my gosh it is like a completely different piece!

Would you like me to get rid of the midi with the drums, or leave it?

That said, good work :)

- Jen

Get rid of the drums please. And thanks for the comment.

No problem ...done, drums are gone :)

- Jen

I'm not sure if you used the right words in your post, but if this is an overture to a musical, I think you need to segue between themes a bit better. I'm assuming you wrote this with the other songs in your show in mind. If it's a prelude to the show like in Sondheim's score to Follies, I think you should spend more time developing the theme played at the beginning and forget the middle section. There are quite a few good musical ideas in this overture, but they are either not fleshed out enough if they are based on songs in the show, or they should be based off of the main theme you started.

I would love to hear other songs from the score. Another thing you might think about is that this is the first thing people will hear when the walk into the theater. It iis here that the composrer makes his biggest impression (and if the composer didn't write his own overture, he better haved watched over his orchestrator with a large stick.) It is here that your show should really grab the audience. But that's really if you opt to have one. I would listen to the rest of the score and see if where you start really even needs an overture. Many shows don't have overtures. Some have an overture that segues into the opening number. You should sit down and look at the dramatic texture of your opening and see if you really need it.

From the title of your show, "Oregon" it would seem that the main theme you displayed in your overture to be quite fitting.

hOW ABOUT THIS.

SONG09.mid

I like how the main theme is used more, but I think it might be a little short. The ending doesn't seem to finish as grand as it seems it wants to be.

I'd hate to tell you to be cliche, but maybe you should try one of the commonly used "buttons" to finish it.

it actually segues into the opening, the last chord of the song is the first chord of the next.

You seem to get stuck on the three pitches of the theme. It was like 20 seconds of three notes. This problem can be mitigated by changing the harmonies for the three notes, rather than having the same three harmonies for the same three notes.

Not to invalidate your efforts, but the pre-show overture in musical theatre is dying out. The majority of modern musicals (not including most of this past year's Tony nominations) don't use an overture. If they have anything like an overture, it's usually a 30-second segue into an expositional song, or the overture occurs after a scene. Examples: Sweeney Todd, Wicked, Assassins, The Secret Garden, The Last Five Years, Sunday in the Park with George, Rent, tick, tick... BOOM!, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Floyd Collins, Bat Boy, Falsettos!, Songs for a New World, The Phantom of the Opera, Aida... the list goes on.

Recent musicals with overtures: Beauty and the Beast, Urinetown, Thorougly Modern Millie, The Light in the Piazza, Spamalot, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - the majority of musicals of this sort either try to get back to "classical" musicals or parody them.

So really, it's your choice of where you're coming from. But what I said about the three notes still goes.