Latest Orchestral Work

I have completed writing my latest orchestral work.

The piece is in D minor and it is simply called " Orchestral work In D minor ".

It is scored for :

Oboe

Tuba

Timpani

Piano

Strings

Best Wishes,

I'm going to ask a question: do you know anything about how timpani work?

The constant chromatic retuning you are asking here is pretty much impossible at that speed, particularly since it involves more than one drum.

I see a very serious problem here (other than the timpani part being unplayable): the timpani + the piano + tuba are WAY too heavy for the oboe solo. This is far from being a felicitous instrumental grouping.

The way the rythme just stops at measure 12 is awkward. It ends up sounding as though the low strings forgot to play their part rather than a smooth transition from the previous material to a less active material.

it would have been nice to see the score with the string parts divided into individual channels rather than all lumped together into one.

I'm going to ask a question: do you know anything about how timpani work?

The constant chromatic retuning you are asking here is pretty much impossible at that speed, particularly since it involves more than one drum.

I see a very serious problem here (other than the timpani part being unplayable): the timpani + the piano + tuba are WAY too heavy for the oboe solo. This is far from being a felicitous instrumental grouping.

The way the rythme just stops at measure 12 is awkward. It ends up sounding as though the low strings forgot to play their part rather than a smooth transition from the previous material to a less active material.

it would have been nice to see the score with the string parts divided into individual channels rather than all lumped together into one.

I know that the timpani part is not so easy to play , but it wasn't meant to be easy. The orchestra should use as many timpanis as they need to play this piece. I don

I have completed writing my latest orchestral work.

The piece is in D minor and it is simply called " Orchestral work In D minor ".

It is scored for :

Oboe

Tuba

Timpani

Piano

Strings

Best Wishes,

Ok. This is nice. I wouldn't exactly put it on my iPod though. First off Oboe Tuba Timpani Piano and Strings is odd instrumentation. You're the composer. You can choose how to dothe instrumentation. But I would reccomend using the standard chamber orchestra: Oboe Bassoon Horn Strings.

Saul,

It depends on what reasons you have behind writting this. If you plan on getting it performed by an orchestra, I'm sorry to say, it won't work really. some things in an orchestra/orchetsration, can't be fixed even with the best producer. 1 poor oboe (or even 2, or 3) will be extremely weak with 50+ string players, plus piano+timpani.

The balace is tricky I'm afraid.

The strings are probably assigned to the same channel, so smae notes cancel each other...

some weird things come from the midi prolly than anything else.

The harmonic progression is a nice one, while some things are missing a melody and the piano is not enough to support it, but still it is a nice piece overall.

The orchestra finaly, does seem somewhat weird. why not the rest of the woods and brass? It would create a much fuller and coherent sound.

I could go into ideas about the harmony, but knowing your love for Mendy, I see where you got this idea, and it's fine :laugh:

Take care,

Nikolas

Hi,I think that this peace sounds more like movie theme.Is it in Rondo form?

About the strings been "lumped together into one". Nothing is lumped into anything. The string section is written mathematically with a logical and orderly manner. I don’t really know what have made you said that .

in your haste to defend yourself, you appear to have misundersood my comment about the strings.

I said, quite clearly, that

"it would have been nice to see the score with the string parts divided into individual channels rather than all lumped together into one."

In case you didn't notice, when you created your MIDI file, the strings all got placed on the same channel, which means that anyone opening the file in another programme would have all the string parts smooshed together into either one or two staves.

All the work you might have put into dividing your string parts in whatever programme you are using when you compose, is lost when the file is transformed into a MIDI file and imported into any other programme.

Saul,

It depends on what reasons you have behind writting this. If you plan on getting it performed by an orchestra, I'm sorry to say, it won't work really. some things in an orchestra/orchetsration, can't be fixed even with the best producer. 1 poor oboe (or even 2, or 3) will be extremely weak with 50+ string players, plus piano+timpani.

The balace is tricky I'm afraid.

The strings are probably assigned to the same channel, so smae notes cancel each other...

some weird things come from the midi prolly than anything else.

The harmonic progression is a nice one, while some things are missing a melody and the piano is not enough to support it, but still it is a nice piece overall.

The orchestra finaly, does seem somewhat weird. why not the rest of the woods and brass? It would create a much fuller and coherent sound.

I could go into ideas about the harmony, but knowing your love for Mendy, I see where you got this idea, and it's fine :)

Take care,

Nikolas

How do you want me to write the oboe part, add more oboes?

How do you want me to write the oboe part, add more oboes?

That's exactly how you don't increase the sound of the oboes. You're going to have to either thin the texture or double it with something. It would take hell freezing over for the oboe to come out of that texture.

The timpani part would take a virtuoso attempt. I've played some pretty difficult timpani parts when I was heavy into percussion but this may not be the best idea. The only piece that I can think of that had crazy fast tuning was a piece by the name of Flight, but that section was limited to a short time frame. If you keep up stuff like this for so long, you risk tiring the timpanist as well as pitch inaccuracy, and, in all reality, this really isn't the best type of sound with real instruments. Timpani should be a color, not an instrument carrying the bass because it doesn't function very well that way. Surely you could give these figures to another bass instrument that could resemble the timpani with articulation and have the timpani accent important parts.

I won't comment on this musically because it seems that you aren't willing to hear anything that anyone has to say on your music.

The problem with measure 12 is that you abruptly stop the rhythm and then go right back into it, thus it sounds like the upper strings "forgot to play" since you've set everything into the same groove for so long. If you really want to set that up, you need to start preparing it earlier. Right now it's just a huge surprise, but not a fulfilling surprise.

How do you want me to write the oboe part, add more oboes?

I do not want you to do anything.

I am suggesting an idea only. Maybe change the orchestration? A solo oboe (even 2,3) with 50+ players + percussion, will be difficult. Leave the timp out, and have the strings play much higher range, or anyways, different range than the oboe, and at ppp or something. This could work... :(

I will consider rewriting the piece.

Cheers..

Thanks for everyone's comments.