A Fool and His Horse

GPO 4, Sibelius 6 - Horn in F and string orchestra.

About 1:16 long, sketch.

This one came rather quickly to me as I was walking to work one morning last week. I had to write this down as quickly as possible lest I forget it all. I managed to remember parts of it and will continue trying to resurrect the forgotten parts eventually. Please let me know what you think, etc. The idea behind this piece was Don Quixote and Monte Python's Holy Grail. I envisioned a young foolish person gazing out onto the open plains and then going to get his horse. I originally had the 'soaring' violins in my head for the horse part but I can't seem to write that part down because I'm a crap composer, but the violas and cello's movement will suffice for that. Also this had a few more instruments (especially brass) but I severely lack any confidence in writing for brass (James, you might have hunted me down and killed me had I written for more than the horn.) The horn carries the main motif ala chariots of fire titles, and was hoping that the quick hack of strings would carry a bit of what I had in my head. Overall, I am pretty pleased how it came out compared to how it sounded in my head (obviously it is much better between the ears) but it is a.) much too short b.) too simplistic c.) more advanced people will wince listening to this Thanks for listening and let the critiques begin!

A Fool and His Horse

Edited April 30, 201016 yr by CheeseLord
Merged a double post

First of, I must inform you that we discourage double posting, all that you have said in the last post could have been put in the first topic post.

The piece itself sounds very martial and regal, haven't really got a horse and a fool impression, more of a king appearing in the castle courtyard. You know, if you keep telling yourself that you're a crap composer, that your piece is not good and stuff like that, that is never going to change. And when you present a piece to someone telling its yours, but you're a scrafty composer and the piece sucks, guess what the person is going to think about your piece...

hey there , as phantom of the opera said , you should never sa that ur piece sucks! or that ur a bad composer. you should always think about getting better , even the most talented composers try to get better by every piece they write , and by time you'll get better . <img src="http://network.youngcomposers.com/elgg/ipb/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif" alt=":)" /> .

now for the piece itself: its very simplistic , you should give the doublebass more things to play , as it gives a whole new feeling to the piece , the piece gets boring near the end , you should variate in it . add more verses, change the way the melody is played , i think you should have re-made the main horn melody in the final parts , and let the violin play it , and increase the tempo and let the cello play an arpeggios in the background . i dont know its ur piece , but im having a feeling that its a bit empty and not finished .

If you have time please review my latest piece : http://forum.youngcomposers.com/t24713/finally-in-love/

There's this thing called marketing. If you present your piece as a piece of crap — the "worst VG song ever" — then guess what? No one's going to want to listen to it. Why would they? You've already given them an opinion about it. If you don't like your own work, then don't bother posting it. Take up quilting or something. If you do like it, then present it neutrally. Tell us what it's from, how you made it, if you had something particular in mind with it, etc. Then we'll listen and draw our own conclusions and try to help you improve or encourage you if we think you're doing fine.

Although this is IMHO a slightly harsh post, its points apply here. The piece itself was actually fairly decent - it was harmonically correct. However, as you said, it's fairly safely done. Remember, at your (and my) stage, don't worry about turning out a good product. Focus on LEARNING how to make better ones. Soaring strings will sound lame in Finale - only a DAW with good samples/real orchestra can emulate that effect well, so the chances are that it's not your compositional skills. Trial and error will bring you surprisingly far, and the more you compose, the better you get.

I apologize for the double posting, but the forum had a hiccup and I decided not to rewrite the entire post again for the third time...

Anyways, yes, I will work on it more. I just really had to get all that out as soon as possible so I wouldn't forget it or have it tainted by other music sources. I always get great ideas at the most inopportune times :(

Hey you saved me the trouble of finding that post, Cheese, thanks! xD

Sergio, it's thin right now, as others have said, but there's a good structure set up here that you can work with, so keep adding to the orchestration until it feels complete and you've got all those parts back, and then perhaps add a contrasting section in the middle or something else to give you a different way of developing the material. Right now it's fairly static...doesn't exactly progress or move anywhere, it just sort of "is". Give us a sense of progress, of motion, of travel — some pieces don't need this, but especially since this is meant to depict a fool and his horse...

Anyway, nice start, keep going! :)