Marimba Strain

More an exercise that a piece, this plays around with repetitive figures and the like. Comments appreciated!Per request, a fadeout that works smoother has been added and is now updated in the score and mp3. Thanks for the comments!

Marimba Strain

There should be way more repetitive music on this site...

You got a pretty cool Reich-esque thing going here, which I definitely like. Good luck getting 6 marimbas though. It might be interesting, and also more possible for performances if you have other mallet instruments. I do like how the unified timbre gives a very smooth effect - the entrances are never too shocking, and when all the instruments are in it builds to a nice mass.

Right off the bat, if you want it to ring like that, you shouldn't have rests, the player might think they're supposed to mute it. You also have some weird cross-sticking stuff, but as I look closer I don't think it's too bad-just somewhat awkward at a few points.

I found the section at B to be a little overly predictable for this style, maybe if the harmony evolved slowly, it might be more stylistic. You should also just mark those notes sffz, you won't have have to have the mp every time.

The ending was way too sudden, not in a way which works. Also the piece didn't feel fully developed and explored by the time it ended, so it wasn't satisfying for it to be over at all.

Overall though, a good job imitate surface stylistic elements of Reich! Very pleasant to listen to.

Wow, this is really neat! My feeling, although this might have been the effect you were trying to create, is that having each section repeated 8 times got too predictable, and it might be nice to mix it up and add, for example, a bar that repeats 7 times, or 9 times, or 3 times, or something. I really liked the middle section where you kept shifting the accent, but again I'd love it if the number of repeats changed.

The ending was really sudden though, it feels like the piece should fade out just as at the start it faded in. I don't know, overall it was great though!