Holocaust Suite

I'm working on a suite of songs inspired by my Holocaust Studies class. I've included a sketch of a piece that's supposed to be the opening movement, entitled "Fanfare for a Demagogue" and it's supposed to be a typical fanfare for Adolf Hitler that dissonance will slowly be inserted into, foreshadowing the grim reality of what's to come. I'm eventually going to get to work on a piece about Kristallnacht, the Warsaw Uprising, one of the Concentration camps, and a piece on the massacre at Babi Yar. I wa shoping I could get some opinions from people, as this will be my first large scale piece.

Sketch of "Fanfare of a Demagogue"

Audio (http://www.box.net/shared/h12mq30qdy) - UPDATED

Score (http://www.box.net/shared/ox6cq4apec) - UPDATED

Also, I know it's late, but you probably all know how hard it is to sleep when you've got ideas flowing forth. :lol:

At first I didn't understand where this was coming from (but I realized that I didn't read your intro very well.. :D)

The melody in seems very sporatic... Perhaps use less skips?

I do like the percussion lines--> very "march"-like. :D

In measure 8 I would bring the flute part out more---> it is almost completely covered by the brass lines.

Nice start!

Joshua

When you learned how to ride a bicycle, you did it one step at a time. First thing you did was learn how to not fall off of the bike. Then you learned how to stop and slowly your skills got better and better. Doing jumps and backflips with the bike did not happen on the first day.

The same has to be true when learning how to compose. Begin simple and then slowly progress to the more difficult aspects of composition. Doing a poly-rhythmic piece so early can become very frustrating. I suggest you do a number of pieces using strictly 4/4 or 3/4 time and then as you feel more comfortable, begin messing with varying time signatures. The same can be said about trying to tackle a huge project about a topic such as Hitler and Genocide.

What I am trying to say here as diplomatically as I can, is that IMO this rhythm as is, doesn't work for me. Now that doesn't mean much, as one man's opinion means no more than another's. But if you are able to take the same rhythms and expand the material in them, then the piece might become more coherent.

Good luck

Ron

You seem to have a good idea of where you want to go with your fanfare. My only suggestion thus far is that you haven't really shown us enough to sort of get the "grasp" of what you're trying to tell us with your music. It's hard for me personally to comment since there's not that much that you've shown us. But I am curious as to what you plan to do when you say you're planning to add more dissonance as your work progresses. Is this something that you see sort of taking over gradually, or will it sort of just "happen" by use of the proverbial sledgehammer?

I agree that the melody has a good number of skips in it, and it doesn't make a seamless and catchy melody, so hopefully that's something that I'll be able to fin over time. The flute part is buried because it definitely needs to be brought up in volume. Quick question, is the flute part notated in the best rhythm? I have a strange feeling it could be notated easier... <_< I do like the mixed meter rhythm that I threw in, and I don't believe I'll be changing that, unless of course I do become frusterated, but so far I really enjoy it. I think it adds to the feeling that eventually something will go awry in the piece (i.e the dissonance signifying the evils of Hitler to come). As for the dissonance, I was originally planning on having a second set of instruments come in from ppp playing the melody a tritone above, but I think that that would just sound awful and not give the feeling I'm looking for. I love the use of dissonance like Stravinsky and Ornstein use, but I'm unsure how they do it, and I know it's certainly more difficult and structured than just a tritone harmony. Is anyone familiar with how they used dissonance so effectively?

As for the topic, it's a huge topic with so many things to be done, but I enjoy the challenge, and I'd like to see what I can do as it inspires me greatly.

I plan on having Fanfare for a Demagogue, a piece for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a piece for Auschwitz, a piece for Babi Yar, a piece for Hitler's suicide, and then an ending piece for the liberation of a concentration camp, most likely a happy piece ending on a reverse piccardy. (I know, very rarely used.)

I reupdated the song and score. It's still mixed meter, but the 7/4 has been ousted for two of 4/4, and the 6/4 has been simplified to 3/4, and even though it sounds the same, the rhythm doesn't quite fit 3/4. The woodwind part in the middle almost sounds like a lullaby and wasn't quite what I was looking for. In future sketches it might be gone, but I love the brass part that follows. What do you all think?

Hi, Josh. To be honest, I didn't care for your changing your 6/4 meter as I had some trouble following the beat from time to time. Of course, I don't know if you're going for a disjointed look or not. Going back to your earlier desires of using dissonances, I don't know how you can make it work into this piece other than by gradual insertion.

Also, and these are just nitpicks, watch your scoring. You have fermatas in place in the horn and snare at mm.8, but none of the other voices have that marking in their part. Yes, it is a bit tedious particularly for instruments that are resting, but it needs to be done!

Keep writing. :)

That's actually very important, I can't believe I forgot to add in fermatas for them. It completely slipped my mind. As for the 6/4, I'm pretty sure that's how I want it to be, and I don't think I'll be changing it, but if the beat is hard to ascertain then I should probably head back to the percussion and make the beats stronger.

Also, I think for the dissonance I'll add in more instrumentation playing against the theme...sort of similar to how The Beatles Day in The Life works. I suppose that's the best way of describing how I'm trying to acheive it.

Also, does anyone have any tips on how I can provide atmospheric effects through instruments? Like...I'm trying to think of what instruments would be best fro mimicing real world sounds, like you'd hear in a war. That's more into the other songs into the suite, but it still needs to be thought about.