Some sort of Overture...

Here is the first part of the first large-scale work that I've attempted... and actually have plans to complete. I have attempted many such things in the past, though suffice to say, for some reason or another, I've never been able to actually complete anything.

On to the work... I'm honestly not that great at describing my own things; I can analyze others' works well enough, but when it comes to my own stuff, my brain just kinda freezes. So, in brevity:

This is a rather short Overture of... I'll say late-romantic or early-20th century influence. Throughout, you may or may not notice a tendency of mine to use rather thick pentatonic harmonies around the rather... uh, simple... melody. I also admit to drawing a lot from Gustav Holst in the way I treat the brass and lower strings, as well as the placement of the chordal harmony in the coda section.

Speaking of sections.

This piece doesn't have a very concrete form; in fact, each motif is only introduced here to be further developed later on in the suite. That said, there are only two overtly distinct themes, and you'll know which is which. The first theme is a very simple, leggiero melody focused on a repeating motif which I invert once or twice... and the second theme is the polar opposite, being pesante and based almost entirely on the pentatonic scale.

Oh, one more thing: I break all kinds of rules. I say "based on" this and that because I never really conform completely to all the aspects of something.

Anyways, my (unhelpful, I'm sure) spiel is over. That said... don't be too harsh? >.< I know it's not the greatest thing ever, but hey. What can ya say?

Oh by the way, as soon as I get the CutePDF thing downloaded, I'll provide a PDF score. Until then, all I have is a NotePad '09 version. Sorry, mates. And I would post the Midi... but uh... it FAILS really really hard.

1 Overture.mus

1 Overture.mid

I think it sounds good. A very nice start to something that has the potential to be great. It'll be worth waiting to hear the whole thing.

Thank you very much for the responses, both of you.

I should go ahead and say that, after getting some feedback from QcCowboy, I have noticed a few things that I could've done better on... and finally realized a few things that were bothering me to begin with! So there will be a revision of this shortly. And perhaps a GPO-enhanced recording, who knows. >.>

Bolanos, yes, the pentatonia isn't for everyone. I'm not really sure where you're coming from with the Texarcana stuff, or the Copland, because I have like, no exposure to either. But! I'm going to take them as compliments. :D

Thanks again, you guys.

~Dallas

wah .. so cool it sound like dream

dark-happy

I absolutely loved this overture dan! Sounded like the wii theme music..or atleast, that's what it reminded me of. Anyways I absolutely loved it from the harp in the beginning to that awesome finale. Great job..and btw, can you post a score?

Sounded very cute and energetic! I wanna see the score of course, since I don't have finale I'll have to wait for the .pdf thing :D

I liked this. Very bright and enjoyable.

It's linked together quite well, in terms of motives, although some of the joins could be a little smoother.

I did love the pesante theme, but I would have enjoyed more use of minor etc. throughout this, as contrast.

Some very nice dramatic touches, and colourful scoring. Not sure that harp would always come through though.

Anyway, nice work - it cheered me up. Some lovely ideas. :) Waiting for more!

I might sound a bit critical in this, but it's all in the interests of helping you :)

The introduction: Ok, the introduction was a little weird to me in terms of orchestration. I don't have a score, so I'll assume that you have trombone/clarinet/horn doubling... which might just overpower that harp part, but the piccolo part would stand out, yeah.

The main body: yes it was very light and playful. I loved the background/foreground stuff that you did here! After the string re-introduction of the themes... it gets... I don't know... a bit video-gameish, what with those brass march lines.

Of course, you tie it all together and I thought that the last 50% was very nice and light.

Overall, I'd say that it's a bit short given the theme (but don't take that from me, because I write 18 min long movements haha). Great work and work on orchestration more!

Has a very upbeat feel to it, yay for captain of the obvious on my part xD

Reminds me winter . I personally think it has that snowy feeling to it.

Everything seemed to flow together perfectly to me .

Nice!

I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of the pentatonic scale-just because almost every melody created with it seems to sound the same. This being said, I think you did a wonderful job proving me wrong. I quite enjoyed the piece, particularly the ending. I can't wait to hear the rest of this project!

I hope you don't mind but I've been putting the midi file attached through some plugins and a worthwhile result has been appearing.

The volume needs equalizing but here is what i have as of the time i'm about to head out to thanksgiving with the grandparents.

Link

Can I get a PDF score?

Dude, Oica. I know this is like three months late but I was just passing by to upload the PDF and MP3 files that I've created, when I noticed your little thing there. Need I say, HOLY COW. That was a really interesting take on it. What exactly did you use for that? I -loved- the timpani sample, and want it badly, lol. Whatever you used to create that rendering gave it quite the ethereal feel. An interesting breath of fresh air into one my dusty old pieces, lol.

Anyways, so it's obvious I'm not grave-digging, but rather updating...

MP3 - http://www.box.net/shared/static/y1a4id4tsc.mp3

PDF - http://www.box.net/shared/static/z6gho6sskq.pdf