When the Great Owl Sings - Symphonic Band

Greetings,

This is the third piece of mine that I've posted on these forums. Well, this is a piece I had been working on for quite sometime and I was finally able to finish it back in September. It is my first completed piece for concert band. So, hopefully you all will enjoy it as much as I do.

Program Notes

In Maya mythology, Ah Puch was the god of death and the King of Mitnal, the Underworld which was the worst of the nine levels of Hell. Ah Puch was feared by the Maya people and he still is to this very day. It is believed that the screech of an owl signifies imminent death. The following saying, in local Spanish, indicates: Cuando el tecolote canta

When the Great Owl Sings - Conductor Score (PDF).pdf

When the Great Owl Sings - Conductor Score.mus

Good Day Carlly Clabby,

You're the first one I comment here on the forum. :)

I really enjoyed your piece and I personally believe you captured the mood you described quite admirably. I must say the faster paced parts were my favorite and I also enjoyed the Oboe solos.

One thing about your score and the structure of your piece that drew my attention majorly is that you seem to have a very very similar style to a concert band composer Steven Reineke. The slow foreboding intro leading to the quick paced B section with a slow 3/4 section in the middle followed by the random clarinet murmurings back to the driving section is really how Steven Reineke operates most of his pieces (e.g. Goddess of Fire, Symphony No.1: A New Day Rising, Mvmnt. 3: 'And the Earth Trembled,' The Witch and the Saint etc.). The way your score is set up also bears great resemblance to his scores.Also the use of "soar!" in the French Horn parts is a Robert W. Smith thing I noticed (and I quite enjoy seeing, for some reason, in scores).

Overall you have an awesome piece here and I wish you the best with your publishing endeavors. :thumbsup:

Good Day Carlly Clabby,

You're the first one I comment here on the forum. :)

I really enjoyed your piece and I personally believe you captured the mood you described quite admirably. I must say the faster paced parts were my favorite and I also enjoyed the Oboe solos.

One thing about your score and the structure of your piece that drew my attention majorly is that you seem to have a very very similar style to a concert band composer Steven Reineke. The slow foreboding intro leading to the quick paced B section with a slow 3/4 section in the middle followed by the random clarinet murmurings back to the driving section is really how Steven Reineke operates most of his pieces (e.g. Goddess of Fire, Symphony No.1: A New Day Rising, Mvmnt. 3: 'And the Earth Trembled,' The Witch and the Saint etc.). The way your score is set up also bears great resemblance to his scores.Also the use of "soar!" in the French Horn parts is a Robert W. Smith thing I noticed (and I quite enjoy seeing, for some reason, in scores).

Overall you have an awesome piece here and I wish you the best with your publishing endeavors. :thumbsup:

DJVista,

Thank you very much for your criticism. When I began composing much about two years ago, I was heavily influenced by Steven Reineke and Robert W. Smith. So, you comparing my style to those two talented composers is very great. I'm still trying to develop my own style, but thank you for your compliments. I hope to hear your music around here sometime soon.

Peace,

C.L. Winston

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Honestly, I was kind of doubtful when I read your program notes for this piece, and I wasn't sure if I was going to like the way it sounded or not, but, after listening, I was astonished. I found myself captivated by every moment of it, and I couldn't predict at all what was coming next. I have not heard any of Reineke's works, so I can't compare you to him or others like him, but I feel that you could easily edit a couple of things in this piece and get it published.

I don't like being nitpicky on a first post on a work, so let me know if you'd like to hear a couple of very specific and critical comments. I had to dig deep to find something I could comment on, but they're honestly very trivial.

Overall, very great work on this piece, thoroughly enjoyed listening.

M. Carter

Let's just go over your use of percussion... maybe this will give you some things to think about.

I don't quite understand why you have Timpani tuned to F - Bb - C - F when you're not really making effort to tonicize the key of F. I like the lick at the end, I just don't think you're really going to hear what you want out of that in a live performance at that low of a register in tone. You might as well leave those C's as Bb's because no one will really hear much of a difference between the two drums. It's overly complicated.

Now, you could tune that C to a Db to keep the Bb minor triad you've got going on there... or you could leave it as a C and just change the C's in the lick to Bb's. It's a lot of effort for virtually no differentiation in pitch (considering the overtones), if you understand what I'm saying.

While I'm on the topic of Timpani... that neat little extended technique section you have near the end would be even cooler than it is already if you used some extended technique on the Timpani head. A cool technique I like to hear on Timpani is a 'Thumb Roll' with a pedaled glissando... which would work really well as imitation for the extended glissandi material in the trombones. Using some standard wax, just barely coat your thumb and rub it across the head. Use your foot to adjust the pedal and hear the tone that results. Just be sure to offset the sound from anything loud because it loses its effect if too many instruments are playing over it.

On the Conga, you can do something quite similar to imitate the glissando in the trombones as well. Instruct the player to press into the head to raise the tone of the drum during that accelerando figure in mm 123-4... have him slowly release the pressure to reverse the tone. For even greater effect, get a second player to imitate a similar figure on bongos. The similarity of timbre between these two instruments is remarkable, but the range of tones is even better.

The metallic sound of the Tam-Tam goes great with a rainstick... but generally not when you 'bow' it. You're kind of mixing a few different timbres that don't seem to quite fit. A good way to get that metallic sound out of the Tam-Tam (kind of like raindrops on a tin roof sort of thing) is with a standard acrylic or brass mallet softly, lightly striking on the edge of the Tam-Tam. Bowing it is only going to make it sound like a UFO just landed on the Owl... or something.

Contrast this use of bowing to that of the vibes, where you're bowing for those intended pitches that sort of imitate the theme... that's a better use of bowing a percussion instrument in this section, at least in my opinion.

Finally, that Tambourine part needs to be in Percussion 2... I see no reason to have the Timpani player playing it. There's nothing technically -wrong- with having the Timpani player play an additional instrument, but as a general rule of thumb to go by, the Timpani player is kind of a "last resort" if you need another player. This is all up to your discretion, of course, but I can't tell if you know. You have a dedicated percussion player not doing anything while another player (the Timpanist) is doubling up on another instrument. It just doesn't make sense.

Okay. Good job. Gosh, I wouldn't have had much to comment on if you hadn't put so much effort into the percussion parts already. Very well done.

Thanks to all of you for commenting on this piece. I'm glad that you guys seem to like the piece. Antiatonality, thank you for your very constructive criticism of the percussion. You present some very great ideas that I had not thought of before; thank you for that.

Peace,

C.L. Winston