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Ode to Hersheypark


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I took the first movement of my "Symphony No. 2," and remixed it and arranged it for concert band. Since it was actually originally written with Hersheypark in mind, I called it "Ode to Hersheypark." This piece is dedicated to Hersheypark in commemoration of their 2020 expansion. It was written using Musescore 3 as well as the GeneralUser GS v1.471 soundfont.

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I haven't seen the original work, so I'm just looking at this as a concert band piece. I think the opening develops too slowly - I think it would sound better if four bars were cut out and the vibraphone came in at bar 5. I found the glock/oboe rhythm at 96 quite interesting. If you were intending this to be played by a real band, I would kind of recommend just having the glock play it - the reason being it's a very hard rhythm to play, and even I would probably find myself very slightly fudging it. Which would be fine if I was the only player with it, but two players fudging the same unison rhythm can end badly.

Another thought I have is that it doesn't seem like it changes enough. You've got plenty of tempo/rhythmic variation, and you change up the chords, but you don't have any dynamic variation and you often use the same combinations of instruments. These things will come more naturally to you as you get more experience in writing - an idea will come with a specific sound/dynamic/colour in mind. You're also generally using the full range of registers available within the concert band - more ideas for variation would be using only the high register or the low register.

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