"Lamentation" for Orchestra, by Kyle Hilton

Lamentation.pdf

Here's a piece that I wrote recently named "Lamentation". It features a Mixed group of instruments that include those found in Concert Bands commonly, a standard group of strings, limited percussionists, and a Piano. 

It was written to represent some of the feelings I've been dealing with in my life, through the last 4-5 years, given how roughly things have progressed in my recent life. Long story I won't bore you with. But nevertheless, this was, in my opinion, the best way to express those emotions and frustrations without using words, and I feel I hit the ball out of the park, in terms of encompassing that. 

I'd love to know what the community thinks. 🙂

Hello @UncleRed99 and welcome to the forum!

I think, for a piece that's based almost exclusively on the Andalusian cadence, this isn't bad!  You mix up the chord progression here and there to create some variation from the typical i bVII bVI V progression and you have a key change in the middle of the piece from E minor to F# minor which injects some novelty into the piece.  I followed along with the score and I noticed multiple places where you have some incorrect enharmonic spellings.  Most of the time you have the right idea in E minor having D#'s as the leading tone.  But it seems like you forgot about some of those Eb's.  Likewise, in F# minor, the leading tone should be E# rather than F natural.  But that's just a nit-pick.

You include a lot of variety in the individual parts that keep the piece fresh despite mostly following the same harmonic progressions.  Great job and thanks for sharing!

11 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Hello @UncleRed99 and welcome to the forum!

I think, for a piece that's based almost exclusively on the Andalusian cadence, this isn't bad!  You mix up the chord progression here and there to create some variation from the typical i bVII bVI V progression and you have a key change in the middle of the piece from E minor to F# minor which injects some novelty into the piece.  I followed along with the score and I noticed multiple places where you have some incorrect enharmonic spellings.  Most of the time you have the right idea in E minor having D#'s as the leading tone.  But it seems like you forgot about some of those Eb's.  Likewise, in F# minor, the leading tone should be E# rather than F natural.  But that's just a nit-pick.

You include a lot of variety in the individual parts that keep the piece fresh despite mostly following the same harmonic progressions.  Great job and thanks for sharing!

 

I appreciate the feedback! If only my mind were as musical as it used to be... I've lost the ability to quickly identify things of that nature, and appreciate you doing so. I'll take this into consideration moving forward with other works. I'm glad that you were able to enjoy it to some degree, and look forward to more conversations with you all, here 🙂