Big Band Swingy Song

I need to think of a better name for this piece, that's for sure. But anyway, I'm just looking for some preliminary feedback on a new piece I'm doing. It's supposed to be quite straightforward and clich

swing4.pdf

swing4.mid

Dude,

I love it - it's got a great sense of energy and direction. The writing is very idiomatic yet keeps a hip and loose vibe about it. Bound to be a SUPER fun chart....

Structure is solid, the form feels well thought-out and the overall effect is quite listenable.

I'm concerned about your lead alto part, a tiny bit of it goes off the horn (which isn't to say they're impossible notes, and any serious player should be able to get them, but be careful) I.e. measures 52-53.

Don't hide the middle of the bar!! Rhythms like measure 28 are REALLY tricky to read. dotted-quarter, 8th-tied-to-quarter, quarter PLEASE!!!! If your players are anything less than stellar, they will screw that up! Quarters (dotted or otherwise), no matter where they fall LOOK like ON-BEATS, a single 8th makes it clearer that it's an OFF-BEAT!!!!

Orchestration is cool - the traditional sectional writing works well with this sort of thing. You might want to further delineate that by having call/response sections (at "B" for example) a little more segregated. Get the saxes out of the brass shots and it'll clean up that sound!

Either way, it's a solid tune. Well done. :)

Hey-

Bouncy, fun, active, energetic-everything that a good big band song needs! Keep it up!

-jdrcomposer

That was fun. Nice arrangement and the midi actually sounded good and balanced!

My one critique is with the piano part. First off, unless you really want this, the left hand part is unnecessary. It's only playing the roots which are already covered by the bass.

More importantly, you need to eliminate the written out quarter note chords. If you leave the arrangement, the pianist will get bored and will stop caring about the piece. If you give them a little more freedom, they'll be more interested in the music and will contribute to making your piece feel more organic. To do this, replace the written out chords with the chord symbols and write slashes to represent the quarter notes for when you want the piano to play.

Listen to the piano part on Blue Skies with Ella Fitzgerald. It's a minor blues like yours except the pianist is having a lot more fun with the chart and thus is breathing life into the music.

Otherwise, solid work, Onearmedbandit.

Peace on Earth,

-John

Hey all, thanks a lot for your responses.

Robinjessome - you're totally right about the rhythms. It's something I try to avoid but unfortunately I'm in a bad habit of doing it! I'll look at that alto part you mentioned but I'm not sure there's anywhere else it could go at that point, except maybe down the octave, as those notes are covered by the 1st trumpet anyway.

jdrcomposer - thanks :D

doovongeman - I agree with your critique. It was never my intention for the piano part to play those notes. It's just difficult for me to notate what a pianist would actually play. Do you think I should notate a more improvised-sounding piano part with instructions to ad lib?

You could do a more improvised-sounding piano part on the recording. Do this as comments to the melodies of the other sections. The piano should also comp on the recording.

Your piano score should look like one of these two images. The first one is a little expert advice from the Gordon Delamont Modern Arranging Technique book. Very handy.

This a piano chart showing you how you can specify when you want the pianist to play more specific rhythms. Note that he has dotted half note at the beginning when he wants the pianist to hold the chord or how he uses eighth notes to specify that rhythm.

Here's some good comping rhythms that you could record. The L R L R at the top means you play the Left hand (the root) and then the Right hand (The chord). The LT, HT, O, R is slightly different. LT means the tonic of the chord. HT means the note an octave above of that tonic. The O means origin or what note the chord in the right hand starts on (make sure it's not tonic again). R simply means the Remainder of the right hand chord.

Other simpler rhythms are here. The eighths note mean the chord you're playing. The 8th note on the and of 4 in the first bar is the chord in the next bar. There's also the upbeat charleston. You can also do the regular charleston where it's chords on beat 1 and the and of 3. The last example is just playing the note above the highest note in the next chord.

Peace on Earth,

-John

Thanks for that. Very useful stuff :) My 2 biggest scoring problems in big band (or any jazz band) has always been piano and drums. Hopefully this should help!

Out of interest... your "peace on earth" signature - Dr. Strangelove?