My First Ensemble Piece Ever Recorded - Any Thoughts?

Hello Everybody,

It has been another long while since I've posted but I've definitely been composing during my time away. This is a work written for a 2-week composition festival I attended, lots of great opportunities and people when I was there. The festival is called the "ICEBERG Institute"(https://www.icebergnewmusic.com/about) if you're interested. Anyways, hope to hear your thoughts on this piece in regards to harmony, melody and rhythm. I am trying to work in a new(jazz?) idiom and I'm not sure how it sounds to others.

 Thank you for the support

Great music! I think the bongo sticks and trumpet work perfectly with the theme!

Hey Mooravioli, 

I like your piece. The harmony is weird and complex. I think for this kind of music the danger is making the harmony too unconventional, which makes the piece hard to listen to. A lot of people that experiment, do it too much. You don't: you keep the listener hooked and curious, and know how to tell a story through chords. Another thing that helps is your use of melodic motives. Really nice! I especially like the resolution and ending from bar 195 onwards. 

Consider using a tenor saxophone instead of alto, it better suits the melodies you've written. Low notes on sax are often harsh and unpredictable, writing a little higher in the instruments range can give a nicer sound/more freedom to the player to choose the right sound. You can also definitely explore the vibraphone's abilities more. Remember that professionals can play four notes at once! Listen to some bebop vibe players for reference. 

Also, five sharps (or four for tenor)? why would you do that to anyone? If you raise everything a semitone (Eb major, concert pitch), your players will thank you. 

As for the genre - this isn't jazz. I would probably call it contemporary classical. If you want to write jazz, listen to the music. If you'd like to write in any style, you need to be familiar with that music. Of course that shouldn't discourage you from writing this music at all! It sounds cool, and that is what matters. I just wanted to say, if you call this jazz and show it to a jazz musician, they will look at you like "🙂 that is really ~interesting~ jazz 🙂". 

For improvisation, your best bet is to write chord symbols and let one player completely free, like in traditional jazz songs, because that is what players are used to. Saying 'feel free to improvise' and 'improvise less' is very vague, and may not give the effect you want. What you could say is 'feel free to embellish' or something, if that's what you had in mind. In general: if you don't want someone to play the written notes, don't write the notes...

hey man @therealAJGS,

thank you so much for your kind comment. I’ve just replied to you on youtube as well.

hey @Marius_,

thank you for your detailed comment, brother. I appreciate your comments on harmony since I am attempting to explore a new language in this work. Naturally, sounding authentically jazz is still out of the question since I am only mildly familiar with this genre. As for the improvisation bit, I’ve had the chance to work with the performers themselves, and suggested that they add a few grace notes/rhythmic alterations to the existing melody. This is probably more appropriate considering they are classical musicians, who aren’t as well versed in improv. 
 

A few ppl have told me to change the sax instrumentation to tenor saxophone. When I have the time, I will definitely give it a try in muse and change it to concert pitch too!

thanks again.

Hey @Mooravioli!

What an underwhelming piece to have as the first ensemble piece that you've had performed and recorded!  I feel like your style is hard to get into, but it definitely gains from repeated listenings.  The listener gains more and more affinity for this piece upon repeated listenings I mean.  It's very esoteric to get into though.  But I love your use of flutter-tongue and slap-tongue on the saxophone!  Great use of extended techniques.  Though I think that the music could be more unified and self-similar.  I don't find myself whistling or humming a tune after listening to this piece.  Besides just having cool techniques and unusual chords and progressions I think it's also important to give the listener a long-leading melodic line and a clear theme.  But that might just be my opinion, and I'm a very thematic composer.  You do you, of course.  Thanks for sharing!