Mvt:I Army of Angels

Hey guys,

This piece was originally suppose to be entered into the Heaven and Hell contest here but because of school and other obligations I wasn't able to finish the other movements before the deadline.

But had I entered the description would have read:

I think angels should be passive in nature, meaning I dont think they really care for fighting in battles and things like that. (I'm not sure if you've ever played the game Super Smash Bros. Brawl or if you know who Pit is, but he was the character that kept coming to mind as I was writting this, here is a picture)

Smash Bros. DOJO!!

During this opening I pictured hundreds of angels (or Pits) stumbling into position. All of them racing to figure out where they're spot is, tripping over their own feet as they do so. Since angels are quite harmless they really haven't practiced how to set up for battle or anything. But once they jump of that cloud in the sky and start soaring, look how majestic they can be!

MP3:

Mvt 1 Army of Angels.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

It's a nice one. It would have been nice if you could finish it!

Very cool.

M

Haha I know. I would've liked to finish it too but it just wasn't meant to be ha. Ah well maybe next time.

Thanks for your comments

Its very nice. I love your harmonic language, it is very whimsical and playful. There are however a few notational errors and some idiomatic errors that you might want to consider that I noticed.

First, the opening line for the flute is a bit low for a any flute player to play well. What written is at the lowest part of the flutes register which is hard to play well and as fast and as loud as you want it to be. A suggestion would be to either change the instrumentation there or change the octave.

Courtesy accidentals would also be very good there as well. (Mainly between the Eb and the E natural in the next measure. I would save a lot of headaches.)

The score also needs to be transposed.

There are also a lot of clashing and messiness in the score. You have slurs in one line overlapping the notes of another line. This is all just spacing issues that are an easy fix.

Another thing I spotted happened in measure 19 in the clarinet bar. The stems in the second clarinet need to be pointing down, and the rest do not need to be that far above the staff.

The biggest thing I had with this score is the percussion. Traditional orchestral scores that most conductors are use to reading have the percussion and harp lines in between the strings and the brass, so I dont really know what your thought process was when you placed the percussion on the bottom of the score. And for that matter why there are so many percussion lines (you could have really consolidated at least two of the percussion lines)

Was there any particular reason why you had the percussion on the bottom of the score?

You have a great piece here and I wish you would have finished it. I would love to hear more.

hehe I usually post the persuccion lines on the bottom of the score too. I know where they are intend to be but it's a bad habit :blush::D. It's because the most important parts in the score (I think) the woodwinds, the brass, and the strings sections. The percussion is auxiliary. So when I create a new score I focus on that parts the most and the percussion is only for maintain the dynamics.

Its very nice. I love your harmonic language, it is very whimsical and playful. There are however a few notational errors and some idiomatic errors that you might want to consider that I noticed.

First, the opening line for the flute is a bit low for a any flute player to play well. What written is at the lowest part of the flutes register which is hard to play well and as fast and as loud as you want it to be. A suggestion would be to either change the instrumentation there or change the octave.

Courtesy accidentals would also be very good there as well. (Mainly between the Eb and the E natural in the next measure. I would save a lot of headaches.)

The score also needs to be transposed.

There are also a lot of clashing and messiness in the score. You have slurs in one line overlapping the notes of another line. This is all just spacing issues that are an easy fix.

Another thing I spotted happened in measure 19 in the clarinet bar. The stems in the second clarinet need to be pointing down, and the rest do not need to be that far above the staff.

The biggest thing I had with this score is the percussion. Traditional orchestral scores that most conductors are use to reading have the percussion and harp lines in between the strings and the brass, so I dont really know what your thought process was when you placed the percussion on the bottom of the score. And for that matter why there are so many percussion lines (you could have really consolidated at least two of the percussion lines)

Was there any particular reason why you had the percussion on the bottom of the score?

You have a great piece here and I wish you would have finished it. I would love to hear more.

Hey thanks for your critic!

About the flute line, if worst comes to worst I'd probably just put the melody up an octave, I don't really think it would fit in any other instrument, do you? Maybe Vibes but thats already occupied with something.

Accidentals would totally help here haha. To be honest, though, I didn't even think about putting any, I was just trying to get everything down before I lost something.

The score being in concert pitch was just for my benefit ha... I took the weak way out.

And the only reason the percussion is at the bottom of the score is because for a long time whenever I picked the instruments for my piece, Printmusic would put the percussion on the bottom of the page and for a long time I thought it was correct so I just stuck with it. Now its just habit for me haha, it looks weird any other way but I'll fix that soon!

Thanks for commenting!

And by the way, I was totally looking at going to SFA because I really liked how they have all the film music classes... well at least somebody told me that. But I was also told they only take 5-10 comp. majors a year.

That scares me ha. I'm also of course looking at UNT which is probably where I'm going but I would really like to have that film music aspect.

hehe I usually post the persuccion lines on the bottom of the score too. I know where they are intend to be but it's a bad habit :blush::D. It's because the most important parts in the score (I think) the woodwinds, the brass, and the strings sections. The percussion is auxiliary. So when I create a new score I focus on that parts the most and the percussion is only for maintain the dynamics.

We can break this habit together! Stay strong lol

Hey thanks for your critic!

About the flute line, if worst comes to worst I'd probably just put the melody up an octave, I don't really think it would fit in any other instrument, do you? Maybe Vibes but thats already occupied with something.

Accidentals would totally help here haha. To be honest, though, I didn't even think about putting any, I was just trying to get everything down before I lost something.

The score being in concert pitch was just for my benefit ha... I took the weak way out.

And the only reason the percussion is at the bottom of the score is because for a long time whenever I picked the instruments for my piece, Printmusic would put the percussion on the bottom of the page and for a long time I thought it was correct so I just stuck with it. Now its just habit for me haha, it looks weird any other way but I'll fix that soon!

Thanks for commenting!

And by the way, I was totally looking at going to SFA because I really liked how they have all the film music classes... well at least somebody told me that. But I was also told they only take 5-10 comp. majors a year.

That scares me ha. I'm also of course looking at UNT which is probably where I'm going but I would really like to have that film music aspect.

Yeah both schools are very good. I have met with the composition professor at UNT (Dr. Cindy McTee) at a composer conference at held here at SFA. She is one of the top ranking composers of Texas so studying under her would be very beneficial. However they do not have a film scoring as part of their required teaching.

SFA not only has film scoring, but its required for all composition students, and the films are not little shorts, they are full length feature films that are shot by the film school here. Dr. Lias does keep his studio really small, but that is just to make sure that everyone gets something of their played on a concert and a part in the film scoring process.

Both schools are really good (Im more partial to SFA of course) and you will have no problem getting into either school with quality music such as this piece. Like I said, just do a few of those changes and you can most likely place this piece into of performers and get a decent reading.

Keep up the good work.