Pillars and Swarms

Hi everyone!

I know I very rarely post anything on here - not because I don't want to but because the recordings I have of things are copyrighted by the performers (and they'll set me on fire if I put them online). However, as part of my finals I had to write a piece for Wind Ensemble and Piano solo that as yet is unperformed so all I have is midi. Originally it was intended to be quite a short piece, but it ended coming close to 5 minutes.

It's quite different from most of my other pieces in that the starting point was essentially gestural. These two gestures were deliberately contrasting - chords that expand from small clusters into wide spacings (with a swelling dynamic that is then cut off and swells again) i.e. 'pillars', and 'swarms' - restless contrapuntal material that is based on a single idea/motive. I worked out how these two musical ideas would interact largely as a graphic score before writing any music at all, which helped to give me a sense of direction in the work.

Although I feel that the work is finished for now, if it's ever going to be performed (which is vaguely possible) I'd be looking to go over it, and perhaps introduce some new material at some point to prevent it stagnating too much and perhaps spend more time making the piano 'crashings' a little bit more sophisticated towards the middle of the piece. The ending could do with a little bit of slowing down also.

I'm happy with the energy it has however and like the overall feel even if there are parts that could be enriched and more detailed.

All comments appreciated.

pillars and swarms.pdf

pillars and swarms.mid

Really quite a nice piece; i enjoyed the layering and dovetailing, and the use of the piano's extremem registers. A lot of light and shade. Well done!

Thanks zephyr - especially for noticing the dovetailing - this was the first piece I'd written for wind ensemble and one of the things I spent ages on was getting the instrumental writing right. For someone used to writing for piano and strings in general it's a real challenge to create continuous sounding textures.

Any other comments? Good/bad/ugly?

dear matt,

ah, it sounded like er, too modern for my taste. haha, well, sorry, i quit after the first few bars, it just bled my ears.

very sorry. :/

thanks for that... Anyone who doesn't need hospitalising after hearing the rite of spring got an opinion maybe?

Personally I found this pretty and evocative, in a very primal, textural sort of way.

If you could get a sound file posted, I could offer better commentary. I have only been able to read the score. :)

Matt,

I really don't recall another work of yours, but I do remember you posting about my music! :)

some random thoughts and some other ideas, etc...

Notation

Now this is a beautiful score! I like it very much. As a person, I would probably clutter things a bit, and save a few pages (I always tend to do that), and not leave the space of half a system between systems, but that's just me.

Everything is very well laid out, you have given very precise directions to your players (hope it DOES get performed), and the piano, is very well laid out as well, with the 3 staves where needed.

There are a few things that clash, for example bar 21 Cl 2 the mp with the notehead, bar 24, the 8vb sign with the duration dotted note on the accel beam. etc.. cannot see them all, too tired right now, but have it proof read, although these ARE details indeed.

I would expect to see bar numbers in page long systems, at least on the piano, since it's a fair 'walk' away from the first staff to show bar numbers.

Other than that, wonderful!

harmony

I really liked your harmonic ideas and the coherency in which you stood in! I will admit that, even me, I'm not a full fan of the full dissonance all the way, and the few distinct places where the woods were not so dissonant gave me pleasure. Since you did mention the word I will say that it may turn a bit 'stagnant', possibly to the lack of new material, although ideas are flowing there! Could be the midi file as well, of course, and I'm sure that a live recording will do justice to the piece!

Composition elements

No matter the above, and no matter that I liked it, I have to say that at some point I felt it a little 'directionless'. I like very much the idea of a graphic score as a guide to the final one, however.

Still at some points (again could be the midi), I was left wondering. It certainly is a work that deserves more than one listens but:

Rendering

My sound card and many pro ones do NOT have GM synth inside. This means that I actually CANNOT listen to midi files! So I actually had to import the file into Cubase and in a hurry I added piano sounds (pianoteq) to all the staves to have a listen. My imagination did the rest. Hardly a cool way to listen to such an elaborate piece of music! :(

I'm suspecting that you're using Finale, and possibly an older version. Old Finale versions have a bug that keeps notes hanging till the end and this HAD happened to your piece. could be mistaken.

If, however, the version is somewhat new, or anyways it is Sibelius, with some decent sounds, it would help to toy a little and create an mp3 for us poor poor little people who won't get to listen to it live!

BTW, why on earth are you NOT allowed to post your own music? I'm assuming you're studying since you mention 'finals', so I'm also assuming that your music gets played in workshops, etc. In which case I'm fairly sure that nobody will 'hang you' if you post the mp3s here! You cannot sell them, sure (although it depends really), but showing to a few friends won't hurt now, will it?

Please?

Pretty please?

With sugar on top?:)

Either way, thanks for sharing and thanks for posting such a well crafted and most probably (damn midi) wonderful music. (Patterns work very well I find!)

dear matt,

ah, it sounded like er, too modern for my taste. haha, well, sorry, i quit after the first few bars, it just bled my ears.

very sorry. :/

Then honestly I think there's no need to comment.

Anyway, I liked the textures very much. The structure seems very clear, the contrast between "pillars" and "swarms" sounds very direct and they are both powerful sounds. I almost wished there were clearer contrast... or if not, more blending between the two. Most of all, I wish you had a live performance to show us! The pillars sound especially bland on MIDI; I know in a live performance they would be much more interesting. Thank you for posting; keep sharing your music with us.

Thanks a lot nikolas and echurchill. Yeah I agree the midi is terrible - I'm using sibelius but it seems to have some trouble exporting audio at the moment.

Nik - sadly, but yeah Lontano (you probably know them) are REALLY strict about what you do with recordings of their workshops, and the other recording I have from this year is also strictly not supposed to be put online...

Never mind I'm doing a Master's at the Guildhall now so hopefully there'll be music to upload soon.

As for the music seeming directionless at times - I have to say I don't disagree, I think I was worrying way too much about unity when I tried to get so much out of the same material - it could do with an injection of some fresh ideas...

Thanks very much for listening. I will try to get a decent mp3 when I get the chance.