Fumage – Trio for Flute, Oboe, and Bassoon (Halloween Competition Submission)

Hello everyone,

I’d like to share my piece Fumage for flute, oboe, and bassoon as my submission for the Fall 2025 Halloween Competition.

🎃 About the Piece
Fumage is inspired by the surrealist art technique of the same name, where smoke from a candle or lamp leaves ghostly, shifting impressions on paper. This piece takes that imagery into sound, with wisps of timbre, sudden bursts, and eerie colorations from the woodwinds. It mirrors candlelight, smoke, and the blurred line between reality and apparition—an atmosphere that fits the surreal and haunting spirit of Halloween.

Instrumentation: Flute, Oboe, Bassoon
Duration: ~7 minutes

Score (PDF)
Audio (MIDI)

Thanks for listening and I welcome any feedback!

–– Justin Gruber

Hello @Justin Gruber and welcome to the forum!

Thank you for your submission!  I have taken the liberty of editing this post to include the mp3 you uploaded to the other post and I'll delete that other duplicate post since we want you to submit your music as its own dedicated topic so that the members at large can have a space to review it properly.  Thanks again for your participation!

Hello @Justin Gruber!

Welcome to the forum and thx for joining the Halloween Competition!

I really like this light hearted piece which for sure match the Halloween theme. Changing meters, naughty interactions between the instruments, as well as some funny dissonance and oblique harmonic motions.

I like in the structure that after reaching Section K the tonality is more affirmed in C major even with some later more dissonant passages, and then more reflective passages before the ending, and then section P brings back the opening. This really gives a narrative to the whole piece.

Thx for sharing!

Henry

I enjoy the chromatism and dissonance. I have found a wide amount of dynamics used, it is neither so simple. I really enjoyed listening to this piece of music! 

Just now, TristanTheTristan said:

Melodies Themes Motives	Harmony Chords Textures	Form Development Structure Time	Originality Creativity	Score Presentation	Instrumentation Orchestration Playability	Execution of Given Challenge	Taste
9.5	8	6.5	9.5	10	7.5	8	7

 

I gave a high level of originality because it has very original thoughts, like a beautiful mess.

YOU EVEN WROTE A SHORT PARAGRAPH ABOUT THE MUSIC?! Definitely 10 out of 10.

Beautiful melodies.

ABA is Boring...

Average: 8.25 Above Average

Hey there Justin

Wow, this is fantastic! There's so much color throughout, and I love how you really explore some of the possibilities the instruments are capable of. Long trills, variation in expressions, all wonderful. 

It was interesting to hear how you developed your melodic cells, since there was a purposeful lack of melody. I love your jaunty changes in rhythm, and your approach to sequence-style movement in your chords (sorry don't know how to properly say that). The A sections were so free and fleeting, kind of reminded me of Debussy or how jazz musicians move chords. Very cool stuff. 

I don't know how "halloween" sounding this is, but it's an outstanding work nonetheless, one that you should be very proud of. Feel free to offer advice or say hi to others, you sound like you have a lot of knowledge we'd be happy if you shared. Thanks for posting, and be sure to vote for me for your favorite halloween piece 😄 

Overall Score Average: 6.25 

Melodies Themes and Motives: 4
  My reasoning for a 4 is because the music, for me at least, seemed difficult to follow. I did lose my place a couple of times, and there really is no melody, not any one line that sticks out at any given moment. Although, I believe that this piece's intent is to be jarring, random, or playful in it's nature, if I'm assuming correctly. (I'm sorry, I couldn't take the time to read the introduction page. 😅 It kept cutting off for me. Possibly something to do with my browser)

Harmony, Chords, Textures: 7
  Overall, I think the harmonic complexity and textures presented here are very good! I don't have a lot of technical wording to use to describe it, as it's very unique, but nonetheless, well done!

Form, Dev., Structure, Time: 4
  (I'm assuming it's supposed to be this way) I wasn't really able to differentiate too much between your sections. The textures change, but not in a fluid manner, from what I observed. The Development of the piece is mostly unchanging throughout the piece. There are moments of more pronounced dynamics, then moments of lower dynamics with only 1 or 2 parts playing. Which does show some form of development, but this would be unclear to the average listener. I also have to say, I've never seen or even considered using a time signature with a denominator of 16. 😅 to be frank, I have no idea how I'd even begin to count that. I simply followed the notes on the page, as I heard them passing, to get through those measures. Personally, I feel there may have been a more sensible choice than 3/16. (Simply my opinion)

Originality: 10
What else can I say? Never seen anything like this one, honestly. And I'm diggin' the uniqueness of it, despite any of my grievances with it.

Score Presentation: 10
Very Professional - Very Demure 😎

Ins. Orch. Playability: 5
Overall, this is technically able to be performed... However, I feel that an excessive amount of time would go into rehearsing something like this, with 3 musicians, just looking at it practically. The syncopation is off the CHARTS my man... 😭 As well as some parts where I notice the pitch jumps over an octave from the previous note/measure, which can be very difficult, especially for wind players, to execute.

Execution: 5
It would scare me if I had this music set in front of me as a musician. So I think that qualifies it as "spooky" but it's not very reminiscent of pieces I'd consider to be "Halloween-ey" or however you'd put that 😅

Taste: 5
I only put a 5 here because I'm not quite sure what sort of flavor you were shooting for. I feel that this score is more reminiscent of your own taste, adding to the Originality of the score. So, I'd wager that this is a totally unique score of your own design/genre, mostly. That's about all the input I have on that topic.