Rain Suite

Written for my high school to play Spring 2010. There are 3 movements- the second runs into the third.This is a first draft, so any criticisms and/or smackdowns are appreciated and encouraged. Thanks for listening!Oh and the antiphonal percussion doesn't render due to some sound file... er... shortcomings. And the snaps. Sorry for the inconvenience.EDIT: Two small errors fixed----1) Oboe 1 and 2 have had lazy copy paste errors removed (cough cough mutes)2) Marimba/Gong is now on one staff.I've decided against condensing some staves to multi-part staves due to some reading issues- some parts are too independent to combine.EDIT 2: Oh dear, score errors... and file update issues. Here's a megaupload link to the appropriate mp3 and score and parts if you're curious (you can view the score here, as well, still):http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7MRP09TW

Rain Suite

Nice work on this. A quick note, from a copying/type-setting standpoint the score looks great! What program do you use? From a compositional standpoint I did enjoy it. Do you listen to Frank Ticheli a lot? I thought it had some of his sound in it (not a bad thing!) I have to say that I got a little impatient, I really wanted the piece to go somewhere and it finally reached that climax on page 18 and for me it was like "oh finally!" I'm not saying it needed to happen sooner but just so you are aware, from a first-listener stand point, that is what I wanted and it finally happened 232 measures into the piece. Everything before that was nice and I really liked the chords you were building and I really liked some of the colors you were using with the instrumental combinations and use of things like the percussion effects and the mutes in the trumpets.

I think it's a nice piece! Pretty long. Also, just a thought. With a title like "Rain" and the use of finger snaps, you are competing against Eric Whitacre's "Cloudburst". I'm not saying you can't write a piece with a similar concept and I actually think you are trying to tell a different story. It's just an observation and something to think about.

Nice work though, enjoyed it! If anyone has 10 minutes, I'd recommend giving this one a listen and seeing what you think.

Jeff

Nice work on this. A quick note, from a copying/type-setting standpoint the score looks great! What program do you use? From a compositional standpoint I did enjoy it. Do you listen to Frank Ticheli a lot? I thought it had some of his sound in it (not a bad thing!) I have to say that I got a little impatient, I really wanted the piece to go somewhere and it finally reached that climax on page 18 and for me it was like "oh finally!" I'm not saying it needed to happen sooner but just so you are aware, from a first-listener stand point, that is what I wanted and it finally happened 232 measures into the piece. Everything before that was nice and I really liked the chords you were building and I really liked some of the colors you were using with the instrumental combinations and use of things like the percussion effects and the mutes in the trumpets.

I think it's a nice piece! Pretty long. Also, just a thought. With a title like "Rain" and the use of finger snaps, you are competing against Eric Whitacre's "Cloudburst". I'm not saying you can't write a piece with a similar concept and I actually think you are trying to tell a different story. It's just an observation and something to think about.

Nice work though, enjoyed it! If anyone has 10 minutes, I'd recommend giving this one a listen and seeing what you think.

Jeff

Glad you noticed the Ticheli quotes :happy:

I used Sibelius 6 for all of the notation things.

72 and 80 serve as smaller climaxes for the first work, though it doesn't come out very well in the MIDI.

Yeah, I guess it's similar to "Cloudburst" with the snaps thing, but not much tops Eric Whitacre in that field. :lol:

Thanks for the comments!

Sounds pretty cool. Definitely got a full pallete of colors going on.

I wish I could comment more, but the score is making me upset. :lol:

1- combine all the typical instrument staves (Fl 1 and 2, oboe 1 and 2, clarinet 2 and 3, bassoon 1 and 2, trumpet 2 and 3, horn 1 and 3, 2 and 4, trombone 2 and 3, etc)

2- optimize this sucker. It'll remove all rest-laden staves. It'll save ink and increase readability. And require less page turns for the conductor. Not the biggest deal, though. This would probably be printed as an oversized score.

3- correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't marimbas displayed on scores as one staff only?

Cool concept! And the sonorities are pretty hip as well. Definitely upload a recording if you get one, this rendering ain't doing it. The beginning to me is a bit overwhelming in an underwhelming way. ...erm, lemme explain. The tutti sections are loud, but don't sound very substantive. There's stuff going on, but it's not a full, unified statement. It works later on in the piece, because you have all that stuff going on and we WANT to hear the different ideas put together. But at the beginning, you want to present those individual ideas in their entirety.

Thanks for sharing

-pete

[edit] I forgot to mention:

the length. I think it works. But it's hard to get a feel for it without the effects and things. Again with the rendering.

Greetings,

I don't really have much to say. This is quite the work. It is very moving and poignant. I do have to admit that I immediately thought of Eric Whitacre's "Cloudburst" after the section with the "finger snaps". That section seemed a little long to me, but it worked. I'm not too familiar with Frank Ticheli to recognize the "quotes" so I can't really comment on that. My biggest gripe is the score. At times it was hard to follow along with the music. You should really fix that! All-in-all, this was a very excellent piece. Please continue to compose music!

Peace,

C.L. Winston