symphony in g minor finale

I only joined this forum yesterday and have been fascinated by it. I am trying out one of my pieces here: its the finale of a symphony i composed at the end of 2004. I wrote the slow movement first (hadnt intended it to be a part of a symphony at all. The finale started straight out of the end of the slow movement so then I knew it was a bigger piece. The coda of the finale contains references to the first movement because I was composing that alongside the finale . . . I just opened a soundclick account because I dont know how else to link anything here just yet . . . . not sure if this will work . . . I compose everything at the piano because that is really how it all started. I have improvised endlessly since I was 10 and was nearly 50 before I actually got around to writing this stuff down (a late developer you might say). Had it not been for the puter I dont think I would ever have done this. Sibelius coupled with Garritan has been a complete revelation if, at times, a deeply frustrating one. I am getting better at it though. slowly. I find it impossible to plan my music. the music has to be able to write itself but, as I go along, I often intervene and 'don't' do things that I might have done had I not thought about it as I was writing . . . . someone said in the shoutbox tonight that 'key' was outmoded. well perhaps I am outmoded too but for me key is THE key. colour is everything. I dont mean orchestral colour but tonal colour. Composing at the piano has made me even more that way . . . I am not interested in 'melody' as such. for me, music is a means of travelling through spaces inside which cannot be travelled otherwise and need to be . . . I cannot take my music too seriously. If i do it simply stops happening at all. I would really prefer this piece to have a wider dynamic range but my puter is only 512 ram and that does limit the palette a little.

here is the url for the soundclick file. lets see if it works

Start Player

welcome to another adult then :)

I enjoyed this quite a bit.

without seeing the score it's a little diffiecult to evaluate, but my impression is that it could use a little bit of thickening of textures here and there - for example timbral doublings in the woodwinds, or some percussion effects to accentuate rythmes. I guess what I'm saying is I'd liked to have heard just a bit of "mixed timbre" here and there.

Harmonically, I very much enjoyed this. It was very fresh.

I'm looking forward to hearing the entire work some time.

well I think I would agree with everything you said only there is a problem with doubling when using garritan: None of the instruments can play together in tune! What software do you use by the way?

which version of Garritan are you using?

I do all my recordings from within Finale 2006, using the full version of GPO.

I have many instances of unisons and doublings of instruments for colour in my music, and they work fine. I'm not sure what sorts of troubles you're having with it. Could you give me some examples?

oh the moment you couple clarinet with anything at all in the woodwind section there are tuning problems! same with the brass. horn and flute are fine. horn and oboe: horrendous. . . . Your sound quality seemed much better than mine but I do only have 512 ram on the puter so maybe that makes a difference?

it could be. GPO really requires 2 gig of ram to load any decent sized orcehstra.

I can say very interesting at the least!

I also enjoyed the piece. It would have been nice to have a wider dynamic range on the lower registers. But there's the limitation of RAM.

You have a very good ability to create interesting harmonies and textures. I hope that you can upgade, or solve your GPO issues. You manage to create a good atmosphere with little melody.

Looking forward to hearing your symphony when it's finished. ;)