Symphony No. 2, Op. ? (The Plague - Humanity)

Let me know what you think. The whole first movement is in a major key, I think it's about 6 or 7 minutes long, I can't remember.

You'll know when the second movement starts because there will be a pause, then cellos come in a minor key and the tempo drops dramatically, then some pizz. strings come in over that.

The second movement doesn't flow really well because I'm still working on what I want to do with it.

Anyway, the idea behind the piece is as follows:

Symphony No. 2 - The Plague - Humanity

• Movement No. 1 - "Before Man"
  
• Movement No. 2 - "Plague Rising"
  
• Movement No. 3 - "Pernicion"
  
• Movement No. 4 - "Lamentation"

The Plague - Humanity will take you on a journey from the peace before man (Movement No. 1 "Before Man"), through the ascension of man (Movement No. 2 "Plague Rising"), to his destruction of himself and his world (Movement No. 3 "Pernicion"), and finally ending on the aftermath and mourning of what's been done (Movement No. 4 "Lamentation").

Music File:

Is a .mp3 it should stream. Hosted on FileDen

Score File:

Is a .PDF and hosted on FileDen so you can view in browser, don't have to download. Hosted on FileDen

You might want to check out box.net to upload your compositions. You will find that you may get more feedback/critiques when people can just stream your music without having to download massive attachments. :D

You might want to check out box.net to upload your compositions. You will find that you may get more feedback/critiques when people can just stream your music without having to download massive attachments. :D

Thanks, I'll upload it to a third party site now...

Hosted on FileDen - should stream...

Ok, you have some great stuff in there. I have no where near the talent you have in composing, just check out my "master of garbage" title and listen to my stuff and you will understand.

However, this first part suffers from excessive repetitions of the same theme (I have the same problem). It got quite boring before the clarinets (?) came in. I really liked that part, gave a nice scene of tranquility and the trills from the flutes (?) had my mind set in a garden watching birds and butterflies dance around. Then you go back to the theme which repeats unchanged with different instruments playing. I was hoping for something more during this part, perhaps a derivation of the theme or some development. When the snares (?) came in, it gave a nice new theme and then segued into a darker tone which was nice. Then the section with the strings and the brass (?) towards the end of the first movement was quite good.

I liked the beginning of the second movement, the pizz gave a creepy feeling of some dark, foreboding force coming. I am eagerly waiting what you do with this one. I love dark pieces :)

Overall, it was a great piece to listen to, but the repetitions really took away from this piece. Keep at it!

My apologies if I came about a bit strong...

Ok, you have some great stuff in there. I have no where near the talent you have in composing, just check out my "master of garbage" title and listen to my stuff and you will understand.

However, this first part suffers from excessive repetitions of the same theme (I have the same problem). It got quite boring before the clarinets (?) came in. I really liked that part, gave a nice scene of tranquility and the trills from the flutes (?) had my mind set in a garden watching birds and butterflies dance around. Then you go back to the theme which repeats unchanged with different instruments playing. I was hoping for something more during this part, perhaps a derivation of the theme or some development. When the snares (?) came in, it gave a nice new theme and then segued into a darker tone which was nice. Then the section with the strings and the brass (?) towards the end of the first movement was quite good.

I liked the beginning of the second movement, the pizz gave a creepy feeling of some dark, foreboding force coming. I am eagerly waiting what you do with this one. I love dark pieces :)

Overall, it was a great piece to listen to, but the repetitions really took away from this piece. Keep at it!

My apologies if I came about a bit strong...

No you didn't come off as strong at all. I actually agree wholeheartedly about the first 3/4 of the first movement being to repetitious. I plan to fix that later. I just haven't decided how or what I want to do to fix that. Thank you though. I am very proud of the last 1/4 of the first movement, the part right after where the snares come in, as well as what I have thus far for the second movement.

I'm glad you got a sense of "garden tranquility" with small animals dancing around - that is exactly what I was going for. The darker part you mentioned was supposed to evoke feelings of larger and more majestic animals such as deer coming into play. It pleases me very much that you actually envisioned what I was trying to show.

I still have writer's block on this piece... it's been almost a month now since I posted it, 100's of views, no suggestions.

By the way, I updated the post today to include the .pdf - I changed the beginning so it was shorter, removed some of the repetitiveness, however the .mp3 is not updated to reflect that change.

Could really use some help here please...

They there Sardine. :P

I liked this piece, and it sounded good. It had a very dark feel in the 2nd movement that I liked.

I found your piece very minimalistic... Maybe it would help even it out if you added some more layers in? The second movement has the basses running through the whole background, but it sounds very thin.

Also, I'm not sure what to make of you percussion... You do know that you notate a roll with tremolo markings, right? That just stuck out to me.

Try changing up the different themes and add variation to it!

I liked this piece, and I think you've done a great job with it. It just feels like you need to relax a little bit and let it flow more when you write it.

-MF

Right well the first movement is supposed to be a little thin, though there is a part there with some layers. The second movement is supposed to be even thinner at the beginning, but slowly build up. The whole second movement is just a build up to the third, will will be really thick and chaotic. I'm still working on the first movement though, I am going to end some of the repetitiveness, but for now the problem is that I am stuck on my second movement. I think I have an idea though that just came to me. The bass is going to continue on, but I'm going to use baritone instruments to kind of build in with a diminished third and 5th in the treble instruments. I think I know what I am going into though.

P.S. I don't know anything about notating percussion actually. I've never notated anything for percussion or seen percussion notation.

EDIT: P.P.S. How do you notate/do this in Finale 2010? The Finale help files and everything like that are practically worthless. On a side note, Finale is starting to royally piss me off.

Edited April 11, 201015 yr by anathematized_one

Since I use '09, I doubt they changed how to do it for '10. Find your articulation tool. Assuming it's still the same, you should see a button you can click that looks like a whole note with a standard accent mark over it. When you click that, it activates the system so you can add articulation markings. Click on the note (or highlight a group of them in a row if they will all have the same marking) and it'll bring up the massive list of markings. Pick which one you want and hit ok and it'll add it.

For rolls like the timpani, you'll want to look for the ones that look like heavy slash marks (one, two, three, or even four) that start in the top right and head to the bottom left. These function as rolls for percussion, similar to how some music uses slash marks on eighth notes to indicate repeated notes (adding a slash means adding a "flag" basically, so for a whole note with a three-slash roll marking, it'd be approximately equivalent to a 4-beat roll of 32nd notes).

Trills, such as what you had in the Flute part, can also be made the same way. For something short like what you had in measure 24 (first measure of page 4 of the score), you could just use the trill in the articulation tool. If you wanted to draw the trill out (with the little "squiggly" line) you'd need to go into the tool where you'd draw crescendo and decrescendo hairpins (and slurs, and the tool is shown as a button with a slur marking). There's a "tr" in there, and when you double-click to add it, you can extend it how long you want (by clicking twice but holding down on the second click, you'll see it start drawing).

Finale is powerful, and I think there are lots of tricks that can be used to get around some of the more "technical" things you may want to do. But I've used Finale for almost six years, and I love it (someone once said Finale had a steep learning curve but once you got past that you'd be golden).

Since I use '09, I doubt they changed how to do it for '10. Find your articulation tool. Assuming it's still the same, you should see a button you can click that looks like a whole note with a standard accent mark over it. When you click that, it activates the system so you can add articulation markings. Click on the note (or highlight a group of them in a row if they will all have the same marking) and it'll bring up the massive list of markings. Pick which one you want and hit ok and it'll add it.

For rolls like the timpani, you'll want to look for the ones that look like heavy slash marks (one, two, three, or even four) that start in the top right and head to the bottom left. These function as rolls for percussion, similar to how some music uses slash marks on eighth notes to indicate repeated notes (adding a slash means adding a "flag" basically, so for a whole note with a three-slash roll marking, it'd be approximately equivalent to a 4-beat roll of 32nd notes).

Trills, such as what you had in the Flute part, can also be made the same way. For something short like what you had in measure 24 (first measure of page 4 of the score), you could just use the trill in the articulation tool. If you wanted to draw the trill out (with the little "squiggly" line) you'd need to go into the tool where you'd draw crescendo and decrescendo hairpins (and slurs, and the tool is shown as a button with a slur marking). There's a "tr" in there, and when you double-click to add it, you can extend it how long you want (by clicking twice but holding down on the second click, you'll see it start drawing).

Finale is powerful, and I think there are lots of tricks that can be used to get around some of the more "technical" things you may want to do. But I've used Finale for almost six years, and I love it (someone once said Finale had a steep learning curve but once you got past that you'd be golden).

Yes but these are the problems I have with it.

Like, what if I want the roll/trill to be of 1/16th's instead of 1/32nd's? How do I notate that? Also, how do I specify which note I want to be the trill note?

Yes but these are the problems I have with it.

Like, what if I want the roll/trill to be of 1/16th's instead of 1/32nd's? How do I notate that? Also, how do I specify which note I want to be the trill note?

The number of "flags" on a note matches the number of slashes. In this case, if you wanted 1/16s, you'd use the marking with two slashes, because there are two flags on a sixteenth note. So:

1 slash = 1/8 note rolls

2 slash = 1/16 note rolls

3 slash = 1/32 note rolls

With percussion like tympani and snare drum, you obviously don't require a pitch (tympani of course has pitch, but unless you are getting creative and having them alter the pitch mid-roll, leaving it on a single note is the usual order of business).

Trills generally go one full tone up. Without any changes. So, if you set that trill from C-D in measure 24 up to playback, you'd place the first note as a quarter note on the C. You'd then place the trill articulation marking on it, and it would trill from C to D.

Unless they added the feature for selecting which note to trill to in Finale 2010 (and I'd refer you to your manual to see if they did), I'd highly suggest going and grabbing TGTools. It's a set of extensions that add on to Finale's base program, and they are extremely powerful.

In TGTools, there's a version of selecting which note to trill to. Head over to http://www.tgtools.de/overview.htm to see. In the left side of the screen you'll see the link for Trill Notes, and it'll describe it much better than I can. Finale only trills up one full tone, but this extension will allow you to choose which notes to trill between.

I think I'm totally going to just scrap this work, it's nothing but garbage.

I wouldn't scrap it completely. Save it, and pull ideas from it. I find that many of my original drafts of pieces turn into two or three pieces down the line. Never destroy anything! That's why I work in pen.

No I suck at writing music, it's not worth it. I have no motivation to do it anymore anyway, I don't even have the motivation to keep living anymore.

No I suck at writing music, it's not worth it. I have no motivation to do it anymore anyway, I don't even have the motivation to keep living anymore.

What the hell now? Anath, don't let yourself down like that. Living is a gift, it's very akward of you to bring suicide into a music forum.. You were given a life, use it to produce music!