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Piano piece orchestration


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Hello everyone,

just looking for some feedback about this very little piano piece I tried orchestrating, since I am trying to get better with orchestral composing before attempting something bigger.

I attached both piano version and the orchestral one. Thanks to anyone who will give a listen!

P.S. I have no mp3 for the piano version at the moment, but here is a youtube link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP3lKmoO6ME

 

Edited by ferdi9749
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Thank you for sharing. I really enjoyed it.

Some thinks to consider:

- indicate how many of each wind instrument

- bracket horns with sub-bracket

- in this case bracket piatti and timp

- in my experience trumpet with mute would need to be marked dynamically louder than the timbre to blend with to actually blend.

- take care of your articulations. on page 2 flute should probably just be an eight note. You also have a staccato within a slur.

- page 4 the slurs in vln1 and vla would probably be better not covering the A and similar.

- trumpet in that low register won't project so well. consider putting it up an octave maybe still with mute.

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This is a great piece!  The melody develops nicely, and there are some nice moments with the harmony. It's short and sweet and develops to a nice climax in the middle. Well done.

I have a few suggestions.

1. At measure 46, when you bring back the original theme in the winds, you have a nice counter melody in the strings, but it kinda just stops a few measures in. I think you could definitely expand that counter melody out all the way until measure 54 or further. The counter melody adds personality and variation.

2. On measure 61, when you have this build up to the end, the lower strings are still in pizzicato. You might wanna have them bow that measure, because since you're building up volume, you'll be able to get more power from bowing than plucking. It'll help build to that grand finale (but that's just my opinion)

Overall, I think that is a great piece and you did a great job! 

 

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I like the character of this piece. This is a good exercise. I’d recommend you get some inspiration and ideas from 2nd movement of Mahler’s 7th symphony (Nachtmusik I). Mahlerian pointillistic technique is perfect for something like this.

Okay, some observations:

• The pizz. basses at the beginning will balance better behind the oboe if you put them at pp.

• A lot of those quarter notes you have in the melody oughta be 8ths, to keep in character with the mischievous nature of the piece.

• Mordents are baroque. It’d better to write out the grace notes.

• Don't capitalize the first letter of your technique text.

• Fix those voice leading problems in bars 25 and 29.

• The lone fermata on the cymbals on page 5 needs to go unless you’re going to put a fermata on the whole orchestra there.

• Bar 46: Your flute is mis-marked as an A instead of a G, like the oboe. 

• The last two bars of page 5 is unbalanced. It’d be better to drop the timps there, and take the cellos and basses down to pp.

• The last two bars of page 6, you may want to mirror the phrasing in the violas that you have in the flutes.

• Overall, the piano version has some pretty big gaps here and there, and an overall thinness of texture. You might want to write a fuller, more fleshed out version first. And then have a go at orchestrating that.

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1:14 That sounds a little bit out of context to me. Before the tutti the music sounds a little bit hollow, maybe adding a double bass or basson was a good idea, also whe the clarinet starts playing using the basson too would have been a good choice I believe.

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