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I'm stuck between two. They're both very anguished movements, but sound very, very different from each other First, Mendelssohn String Quartet no.6, Mvt. 1: And second, Shostakovich String Quartet no.8, Mvt. 2:

I think the only think that doesn't fit comfortably to me is the absence of piano once the transition is done. The contrast is good, but in the moments when strings appear I would have added the piano too, but this is just my opinion. Apart from that I do not see anything wrong here and the mix is cool. I don't think you should split it =). Kind regards, Daniel–Ømicrón.

First of all, thank you so much for the feed back and sorry for the lack of a pdf or explanation, I found out about this forum when I was in school and I only had the file of the audio.(though in hindsight, I probably should've waited until I had access to the pdf) But yeah I agree with you on a lot of the points you mention in this, this is my first big band composition I've worked on. The state that this piece is in now I believe I "finished" writing about a month or two ago A lot of the lead parts from this are from other, smaller pieces I've worked (sloppily) put to together. I've had a hard time with this piece, as I'v been very split on where I want it to go, and it certainly is in a finished state, rights now I feel it's more of a college of ideas, rather than a comprehensive piece. Though I want it to have more structure, I think I really want it to thrive as a sort of a "controlled chaos" though I feel like, so far, I've pursued it in the wrong way. I want it to have a structure, and separate movements that all in tie into each other, but I do want a level of disorder to create tension in a way that's not done a lot in orchestral music, but more of a way that would be utilized more in jazz So far I think my best progress towards this idea is actually through the percussion. I want it to feel sort of off, but not random. In a way that a jazz musician may use techniques to create a level of unbalance before pulling together. Though, yeah, a lot of the parts in this I feel are kind of lazily put together, looking back, I think I should of structured together parts that fit together more rather than parts that I had simply thought of before in the past. The reasoning behind the strange pauses are a combination of the lack of being able to come up with a good transition, and trouble with the program I used to write this(musescore), when creating those transitions I should tried more to push the music into the next section, rather than just stopping it and then starting again with a new idea. I believe that when it comes this piece, I think I'm going to scrap it and try to pick out certain ideas in it, to try to put to together a more comprehensive vision, though it reflects the basic ideas of what I want to achieve with it, I do believe it is a far cry from being the complete experience I want it to be Thank you, Ethan Truesdale

I really enjoyed the rich tonal/color fabric you created with a light orchestration ... not easy to pull off at all. It is quite a sweet work - one I feel is deserving of a performance.

Very nice work and very well produced and orchestrated. If I can add my five cents on the writing versus recording subject. I as well used to write my orchestration on the score window of the screen until I discovered the virtue of the real time orchestration and the blessing of the Piano Roll and control graphs window. I use a DAW such as Logic Pro (before I was using Cakewalk) and yes I can write music as if I was using Finale but writing a score is only 33% of your music. Then the concert master makes the mix and adjust the play, the nuances, the speed, etc. (another 33%) and then the musicians interpret the score and makes their instruments provide the best sound and play possible (another 33%). If I know in my head what the horn, the clarinet or the bassoon should play while the strings are playing the main part, why not play it on the piano keyboard and record the MIDI track with all the expressivity possible of the virtual instrument, which today are absolutely stunning. Playing the parts and adjusting the exact start and duration of the notes, the expression, the dynamic, the vibrato the legato and choosing the right articulation and mostly find the melody or orchestration by playing the real instrument allow to get a better grasp of the orchestration to my point of view. For sure 5 parts counterpoint is easier to play first on the piano and then split the parts among the instruments and it is usually my starting point. However, writing directly in Finale without testing the parts by playing the instrument on the piano keyboard with the instrument sound and expect the resulting performance to be natural is a total nonsense to me, which is why composing in a DAW allow for a better result when you want to get a natural recording of your work. I know many composer composing directly in Finale without a piano keyboard and it usually sound cold, raw and barely natural. Nevertheless, Logic Pro allow to print a decent and readable score should some day you get the 100K$ to record your symphony with the BBC Symphonic Orchestra. Cheers,