A Winter Overture

Hi there! My name is Koen, and I'm new here. One of my hobbies is composing music with Finale. I'd like to see your comments!

My first piece is called ''A Winter Overture''. It's a piece with a winter feeling. Instruments I used are: piccolo, flute, trumpet, french horn, tuba, timpani, tubular bells, glockenspiel, piano, harp, choir and strings. Let me know what you think of it!! :)

A Winter Overture

First, I want to commend you on undertaking this endeavor. It's always nice to see someone so young compose for orchestral music. Your ideas are very nice here - and you didn't fall into the trap of adding to many ideas in one piece. That said, there are common mistakes here made. First, you have instruments playing out of their ranges. Second, you have balance issues. Your horn parts are loud and high enough to drown out the entire ensemble you have playing! Most of these are orchestrational issues. One suggestion would be to browse through our orchestration masterclass here on the forum - trust me, its very VERY helpful. Thanks again for sharing this and I hope you enjoy the forums.

First, I want to commend ... you enjoy the forums.

Thanks for your reply! Orchestration is something I know not much of. I've never had lessons or something and I only use Finale, my inspiration and my ears :P . But it's good to know I have to work on this. Thanks again, and I will listen to some other pieces on this forum.

Woo! :w00t: You cant imagine how many boring, meaningless, and forced pieces I review every day. I have to tell you that this wasnt like that! Very good, I enjoyed every second/minute of it. Please write more! And provide a normal score in PDF please, since I cant open .MUS . Keep on composing! :thumbsup:

Woo! :w00t: You cant imagine how many boring, meaningless, and forced pieces I review every day. I have to tell you that this wasnt like that! Very good, I enjoyed every second/minute of it. Please write more! And provide a normal score in PDF please, since I cant open .MUS . Keep on composing! :thumbsup:

Harsh words, amigo!

Koen - In my experience the best thing you can do is work with actual musicians. Don't worry about this piece (I haven't listened to it yet, so don't take that personally) - it's going to be hard to get that many people together. Get one or two musicians that you know, and write a short piece for them, making it as detailed as possible, and as musical as possible. Think about what you expect to hear, and then get with them and see what you actually here. This is just one method of achieving the acquisition of the skills needed to orchestrate well, so don't think you have to follow that exact route. But you want to start filling in the gap of what you think you're gonna hear, and what the instruments actually produce, as soon as possible. You can learn from books, and I highly suggest getting a few. But hands-on experience has been my greatest teacher.

It has seemed to me that once you get going, most orchestration seems fairly self-explanatory. However, my orchestration may just be boring....

Hope that helped a bit!

Very Cool. Winter is personally my favorite season and you described this season very well. (But, the best work ever written that describes winter to me is Tchaickovsky's 4th) Nevertheless, this is very good piece and it sounds like you were taught professionally (Not that I think you weren't) Very Good. 9/10! Keep Composing. - Jared

Well Done! Very Christmassy, atmospheric, colourful orchestration and with an unexpected twist just at the right moment!

You certainly got your money's worth out of the main theme.

Very enjoyable!!

Interesting, very nice, wintery piece. I'm guessing your used one of your Glockenspiel staves as you chimes, your trombone as your tuba, and your tenor as your entire choir? (Just so you know, you can change the transposition and names of different staves with the staff button...) Also, your choir may be a tad bit confused without words/syllables to sing, but no big deal.

Like many others, I'd encourage you to take a look at the orchestration manuals on this site and others ( http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/77-Principles-of-Orchestration-On-line is also very helpful!)

For example, you have some notes in your oboe line that are a couple notes too low (the range of the oboe is only down to a Bb below the staff) and your horn part is very high much of the time. (the horn extends further below the staff than above!) While playable, this might present some balance issues because the high register of the horn can be rather loud. And your poor violist is going to sit there through the entire song and not play a single note! :(

Either way, I can tell you composed this for sound rather than looks, which is fine. Music is more for the ears than the eyes.

Very nice, happy, simple, elegant piece.

Hope to hear you improve and continue composing!

-MF

Could you post in pdf so all can see your score?