Hurricane Abigale

Hei all!

Well, I have this little country that I created, called New Forest. And this is a piece about a hurricane that hit, Hurricane Abigale (I never thought about this but it's AbiGALE :P)

Enjoy, I hope! ;)

MIDI: Hurricane Abigale M.mid - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

PDF: Hurricane Abigale.pdf - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

P.S sorry for no articulattions in the pdf, too anxious to share it with everyone :P

7 up

Thank you. All comments welcome!

Terrible...but I liked your "Winds off Atlantic" piece..it was nicely done...but I didnt like this...

It would be nice if you write more pieces than WoA...it was so relaxing :cool:

(PS: I hate the piece, but its name was a bonus if you like...Abigale is also a novell written by Magda Szab

Wow. it was a lot to hear. intense. Interesting way to depict a hurricane. It took a while but the ostinato theme i realy going to swirl in your head.

But to my tast it was too intense. It took a bit to long ntil there was a point were my ears could relax. Ok, a hurricane isnt a relax thing, so maybe you sucseded in this, but as a piece to listen to it was to much for me.

I think... ;)

You're a very ambitious 10 year old, I must say.

I actually quite enjoyed listening to this. You definitely caught the intensity. The beginning ostinatos sound a bit to 'positive' to depict a hurricane, but I thought it sounded very nice.

Horrible midi, but there's not really much to be done about that.

The "eye of the storm" section sounds very nice. The main melody here (as well as the beginning ostinato) is very diatonic, and because of this sounds very "eastern" at times.

Well done, Heckle! I enjoyed listening to this piece very much!

Thanks for all your comments, whateverfin, Jc, and Norby =)

Yea the midi always sucks, but the mp3s just don't work!

Perhaps I should explain better. The beginning is actually the people getting ready for it, and then the hurricane hits, then the eye, then the other side, then the hurricane leaves and the aftermath is the final part, with the bass flute/english horn solo =)

Keep commenting!

Haven't listened to the piece yet, but I've taken a look at the score...you seriously need to clean up your score, man! There's collisions everywhere and some notation is not clear (you could use tuplets instead of dotted sixteenths and personally I'd have gone for 3/4 or 6/8 as opposed to 6/4). Also...you want THREE timpanis? I also suggest you add articulations before sharing with everyone. I'd have done articulations while I was writing instead of adding them later, don't you think? :/

Generally the critique seems positive, so I'll listen to this when I get some time later. :] Looks more interesting than WoA though, so we'll see.

Lol WoA :P

Thanks. I'm fixing up the score today or tomorrow, and about the timpani, it's 3 timpani, 2 players ;)

my son ^^

Hi!

I like how you manage the repetitive force of ostinato... But try not to resume your compositional capabilities to copy/paste technique. Maybe you've already done this, but try to play with your motifs (use inversion, recurrence, play anagrams with it... :P ). Also, I would suggest to pay a "little" more attention to your harmonies, especially to the dissonant ones.

I will not talk about playability... or about your score... At your age is a great thing that you keep composing, and your music is full of energy and life! You have enough time to organize and keep your scores clean! ;) (Just my opinion...) Although, if you plan to have your pieces played, you could pay more attention to playability!

Congrats!

Interesting, heckle... Looking at the score, mainly the string parts, I noticed something in about m58... Why'd you write those as E#? It seems to be kind of a pointless enharmonic change...

Btw, I like it!!! :D It really reminds me of a hurricane. The first part sounds like it could be in a movie.

Well, I'm really liking this one! :D

One thing though, you have a LOT of repeated measures. Try to vary them up some. I know I've told you this before, but, it never hurts to be reminded. ;)

Hey,

The piece really is too long.. I'd suggest dividing it into movements and focusing the different ideas of each movement more?

Okay, so I agree there are too many repeated measures. Well... you basically have to either cut out half of it or ADD something over the top. Because it's just like hearing only an accompanying line for over a minute. About bar 12 is where it starts getting boring. You really need to add something or change what's happening there. The change to the winds at bar 24 is a huge relief to the ear but then it's still just the same repeated quaver pattern!

The section between there and bar 43 has some really nice minimalist sort of stuff going on, but you need to balance it well for it to remain interesting. I know the midi file is a piece of crap, but make sure in the score you have dynamics in so that everything can be heard the way you want it to be.

At bar 43, something different needs to happen, it's really no good going back to just repeated quavers.

55 gets interesting again, even the harmony in just the repeated quavers gets more interesting. But as soon as you just go back to quavers with the occasional interrupting chord in other parts... it just loses interest completely. Then when you do a similar thing to what happens at 43, that goes too long, and it's too soon after it's pretty much already happened to basically repeat it again in full.

From 103 works well because even though it's material you've already introduced, it's in a completely different area of the ensemble AND you have a different background for it instead of just repeated quavers!

Then after that section I completely lose track of where the piece is going. (Possibly because you did! :)) You change material really suddenly... and then just return to old material after a few bars. Doesn't really work. Which is why I think you need separate movements.. to focus your material more.

Just some technical things, from bar 42 onwards and places like that in the winds... you need to remember that these people need to breathe! And repeated notes like that aren't going to be easy, either. I'm not a wind player but the lines in that part and others like it really don't seem to suit the instruments.

You need to indicate whether you want the strings divisi or non divisi in any places there are multiple notes in a part. Places like bar 64, is it really necessary to have the violas split into three? I mean... you already have the G played in various other parts, why do you need it played in that part, too? I'd suggest just leaving the violas with the D and Eb. You do need to think about things like that, balancing the notes in chords so the harmony is clear. And also consider that a section of violins playing one note of a chord compared to a section of violins dividing the chord amongst them is going to sound very different within the whole ensemble.

What does "going to near top of neck" mean?

From bar 178, I wouldn't use treble clef for the 'cello there, it's not high enough. Just use tenor, it would make more sense to a player.

Okay, just in general I think something that would be good for you to do is find all the themes/motifs in this piece, and figure out how often each of them occurs and what their purpose is. Just as an exercise.

Some things are just used way too much. The motif introduced in bar 30 in violin 2, for example, is used on and off for the majority of the piece.. and it's a long work and while there's nothing wrong with this motif... it isn't actually that interesting and it's one of those nagging things that will stop people from listening and make them miss anything interesting you are doing. You don't need to get rid of it, but just use it more sparingly.

I didn't have time to listen and comment on past about 8 minutes today, I can try to have another listen but I think if you make some of those major changes first then it'll be easier to look more closely at the detail of the piece. Overall... divide it into movements or at least draw up a structure plan so you can sort out your material in a more logical and less repetitive way. I suppose you're only a kid so you wouldn't be too familiar with essay-writing... but it's sort of like when someone writes an essay that has some really good points, but they get lost trying to express them and end up repeating the same thing over and over or adding in irrelevant points. You need to be concise and clear in essays, and you need to find this clarity in your compositional work, too.

Some really impressive stuff, you just need to really think about focusing it more!

Thanks for listening a TON Camilla!! :D:D Your comments are very helpful, and I'll take them into consideration! If only I could get that mp3 to work! :rolleyes:

what about the mp3 isn't working, heckle? maybe i could be of some assistance...i'll take a look at this and tell you what i think a bit later by the way...

what about the mp3 isn't working, heckle? maybe i could be of some assistance...i'll take a look at this and tell you what i think a bit later by the way...

Okay good. Ron (roflier) has sent me numerous sites to help me with an mp3, but it won't work! :blush: :angry:

For the love of God,

FIX YOUR SCORE

before you submit it. Srsly!!!

Some comments:

I shut it off after 2 minutes. It was too boring and unbearable to keep going.

Stop using copy+paste. If it's habit by now (which I think it is after listening to this), physically remove the control key from your keyboard so your not tempted. If I hear another motive go on for 2 minutes uninhibited, I'm going to...[insert your own terrible thing here].

Learn orchestration. You think you know it, but you don't. Your woodwinds are all over the place and there is NO balance whatsoever! You may know what an alto flute's range is, but certainly not how it interacts with Oboes an octave above it. Crack open the books and scores and get studying.

Also, it didn't sound like a hurricane AT ALL! It sounded like a county fair dance! Where was the ominous clouds darkening the sky? Where was the warnings? None whatsoever.

100% agree with Tokkemon. :thumbsup:

Also, it didn't sound like a hurricane AT ALL! It sounded like a county fair dance! Where was the ominous clouds darkening the sky? Where was the warnings? None whatsoever.

Hurricanes aren't like that.

Heckle my main man, good job on this piece. Floridians know about these things all too well...

I'm not going to comment on the score cause, c'mon, you know it's sloppy, and I know it's sloppy, but the fact is I've seen WAY worse. With someone your age notation will come, making good clean scores and having fine-tuned orchestration skills can be learned. IDEAS and and CREATIVITY can not be learned, as is a sense of time, space and shape. Composers who post on this board (and composers I've known personally) twice your age, in college, who think they're hot shots, they can't even handle the things you're exhibiting pretty well in this piece. I'm just gonna talk about what you did well, again, no sense in whining about how the score is messy or other pedantic crap. Let's talk about the sound and whether or not you achieved what you set out to do...you know, composing stuff :)

I thought the overall shape of the form was very effective, don't listen to what anyone in this thread says about length. I think this sort of Post-minimalist aesthetic is very effective in what you wanted to portray, in this case a hurricane.

For you guys who have no knowledge of Earth Science for whatever reason, or have never lived in the Florida peninsula, you might want to just read a wikipedia article or something before looking at Heckle's piece and judging it. You know some people might say, "Oh man this doesn't sound like a hurricane at all, where were the wind noises and loud music for no reason and other stuff I would hear in a movie!!" These are the people who are truly devoid of ideas and creative or abstract thought. There is no universal rule for how a composer should aurally depict a hurricane. You know, instead of brainlessly bashing Heckle's piece while licking the chicken grease and Hostess snack cake icing from your fingers maybe you should actually think about what a hurricane IS.

Heckle's "Hurricane AbiGale" is essentially a 1-movement tone poem in three sections....pretty similar to how a hurricane will make land fall and then traverse whatever land it's going over. The first section is chaotic and there's a lot of building anxiety. The middle section reaches a point of stasis and calm, you know, the eye of the storm. Then the back half of the storm shows up in the last 3rd of the movement, but slowly dissipates away leaving us with a bright new dawn or whatever poetic crap you want to think of it as. It doesn't give you the typical "beefy" orchestral textures to represent the "might/beauty" of the Planet Earth or whatever, the story of the hurricane and its survivors is told completely through the shape of the form and orchestral textures.

Hey Heckle, if anything, I think the movement needs to be LONGER. I think the way you get into the 3rd section is good, but you need to sustain it more: think of the form as being more symmetrical, so the 3rd "stormy" section should be commensurate in length to the first one.

As far as pacing with in the form overall I thought it was really good, the "Eye" was especially effective. You stayed there just long enough that, like a real hurricane, the beginning of the 2nd half of the storm sort of takes you by surprise. If you go back to edit anything that's another thing you might want to keep in mind.

I hope all that helps, you're definitely one of the better composers on this board. You've got ideas and ambition, and those are the things that help you and make you a good, no, GREAT composer, not reading a god damn a book or copy/pasting a mediocre Tchaikovskian band symphony or whatever. College composers who think they're good because no one ever told them otherwise are intimidated, even threatened, by people who have ideas, whether they're 10, 22, 57, or 100, some people just don't like *ideas*.

Hurricanes aren't like that.

haha, true :P I beleive he ment a tornado? But this isn't tornado Abigale ;) If you read my "let me explain this better" post, you'd know:

to recap:

Perhaps I should explain better. The beginning is actually the people getting ready for it, and then the hurricane hits, then the eye, then the other side, then the hurricane leaves and the aftermath is the final part, with the bass flute/english horn solo =)

P.S my score is fixed up. I'll post the better version soon :D

Hey! It's really cool! There's heaps of things to work on, score-wise and compositional-wise, but I liked the overall sound of it. :)

Hey! It's really cool! There's heaps of things to work on, score-wise and compositional-wise, but I liked the overall sound of it. :)

lol Thanks :)