Stephen Bent

First of all, "hardest" is simplifying the question. Obviously, some instruments are going to be easier to get started with (piano or guitar, for example), but others might take more work to attain professional-level skills on. And, of course, it depends on what kind of playing you're talking about: to learn to play tuba well enough to play 99% of tuba parts takes only a couple years, since they almost exlcusively play "oom-pah". Violinists, on the other hand, are expected to be able to play tricky 1/16th note runs all day long. These are just generalizations, however, since any professional musician should be prepared to play stuff more difficult than the normal fare. That said, I believe french horn is more difficult than any other brass instrument, simply because all the partials are so close together, which makes locating the correct one nearly impossible. I've heard oboe is extremely difficult (from my sister, who has played several other instruments). I agree with the comment made early on about organ being tricky due to the "all four limbs" nature of it. Also, it depends on the person. Some people simply find some instruments more intuitive than others. For one guy singing might come naturally, while the other feels right at home with a clarinet. Oh, and I don't know if it's been mentioned before, but I tried playing a theremin once, and it was wicked difficult. I've heard it takes several years to even be able to play a simple melody.

As mentioned earlier on the page, those measures are intended to be an open-ended 4-measure repeated passage, where the horn section can do funky improvised solos. There are lyrics, and you can see them in the attached PDF. -Stephen

My girlfriend played Suggestion Diabolique last year. What a frickin' amazing piece of music. Seeing her play it was pretty much the hottest thing ever.

Whoa. That is gorgeous. Promise me you'll get a live recording if at all possible, okay? I can't think of anything I could possibly say to help improve this. Well done.

Hi folks, So, our theory teacher assigned us to write a piece. There were only three rules: 1. It must demonstrate an understanding of the techniques we've been learning this semester (voice leading, counterpoint, harmonic progressions, suspensions, stuff). 2.It has to be performable by members of our class, so I chose piano, bassoon, and clarinet. 3. It must be between 2 and 3 minutes long. 1. Techniques used: I decided to play it safe and write a nice, simple, completely diatonic piece of boring crap. So basically, I fiddled around the scales a lot with the clarinet and bassoon parts, playing them off each other. I wrote two different and pitifully unrelated 16-measure, um, phrases? Not sure what to call them. Then, mostly to fill up time because I don't know what I'm doing, I repeated everything they had just done with the piano, adding a couple additional harmonies where I thought it appropriate. I then reitered the first 8 measures with clarinet and bassoon, then merged those two parts into one homorhythmic, harmonied version of the original clarinet part, and gave the bassoon part to the piano (and expanded it a lot). It's pretty simple, I'm hoping to show the professor that I understand what we've been learning, and nothing beyond that. 2. How long it took to compose the piece I wrote the first 8 measures yesterday afternoon in about 30 minutes, then did the rest of it throughout today, taking a few breaks. Probably about 5 or 6 hours total? I know I'm slow, but I'm new at this, so cut me some slack. 3. Structure of your piece See #1. 4. Obstacles when composing I had a lot of trouble with the piano part. I don't really know what piano does in a chamber music setting, or how to best use its harmonic abilities to support the other instruments. Also, I kept realizing that what I thought was one chord was really another, which repeatedly made me feel like an idiot. 5. Summary of overall piece An attempt at imitating the Classical style, which I have not yet formally studied, so probably way off. Definitely not what I would ever listen to for fun, but I'm moderately proud of how it turned out. I feel that at the very least, I created something completely original that doesn't break too many stylistic rules. I'd like to think that if this were performed to a general audience (no music people allowed), I could convince them it was written in the 1700's. Thanks! -Stephen PS: Oh by the way, I have to turn this on on Monday (the 2nd), so prompt feedback would be greatly appreciated. Barn Gizmos Trio.pdf Barn Gizmos Trio.MUS Barn Gizmos Trio.MID

Sounds awesome. Are there recordings of your group? I was actually just listening to a quartet (and what a quartet!) playing the Haydn piece you mentioned.

Oooooh, that's a pretty one. Haven't played it myself, but I've got a beautiful recording of Christian Lindberg doing it. I'm working on Launy Gr

Put me on the "John Williams lover" list, for a variety of reasons. First of all, he does the job of an incidental music composer brilliantly. The music coincides well with the events, and I feel that many of the movies he did would be terribly boring without his scores. When I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind at a friend's super-nice home theater, it blew me away. He effectively writes powerful music that supports the plot and events. Secondly, he tends to use more brass than most composers. I'm a big fan of the big dramatic brass sound, so his music appeals to me. Lastly, and this ties in with the second reason, I'm a trombonist, and being a trombonist in an orchestra is frequently a boring and unrewarding task. We sit around for hours, then usually play some unnecessary boring backround notes. But on the few opportunities that I've gotten to play stuff by Williams, it's like the heavens have opened up and a beam of holy light is shining down upon my music. Look at all the fun stuff I get to play! Look at all the black dots! I even get the melody sometimes? Thanks, John! Last summer I got to play the original orchestrations of a bunch of exerpts from the Star Wars score, and it was much more fun than pretty much everything else I've ever played in an orchestral setting. He might steal, but as has already been mentioned, he steals from the best.

Trombone, hands down. Pretty much the greatest instrument ever invented. It sounds especially pretty when played in groups. I'm being totally objective here. Definitely no personal bias. Nope. Example: The London Trombone Sound playing Baber's Adagio for Strings. Probably the most gorgeous piece of music I've ever heard. And this is a newer one for me, but I really love a full choral sound, especially with a nice deep bass section. You can make some of the most beautiful sounds in the world with a good choir. Example: Biebl's "Ave Maria" And although it has less variety of sound, I think the sound of a Hammond B3 Organ is frickin' awesome.

Very nice. Powerful, interesting, and for the most part, totally kick-donkey. This is the kind of piece that makes me like classical music. Kind of reminds me of Danny Elfman. Which, coming from me anyway, is a big compliment. I'm a little worried about the trumpet (?) part at 44 seconds in. If that's indeed trumpet I'm hearing, few people are gonna be able to play that. I thought the ending was a little weak in comparison to the rest of the piece. Obviously, that's an artistic choice and maybe you just have a different vision of the ultimate end of the world than I do ;-) Overall, very nice work, sir. Color me impressed.

Thanks for all your comments, both nice and constructively critical. I'm really glad I discovered this forum (through a trombone forum, if you were wondering). CaltechViolist, nice to hear from someone in the area. I myself am in the Oxy/Cal-Tech orchestra (was last year too), and we have our first concerts this weekend. However, due to a terrible, terrible idea on the part of Dr. Gross (did he conduct while you were there?), we aren't playing anything with trombones in it, so I've been forced to sit out of all the rehearsals so far. Lame. Anyway, you are dead on with the guess about personnel. The only friends I have whose musical abilities are at the level I want my band to be at (and play desired instruments, of course) were a bari and tenor player (plus myself on trombone). And just to really mess things up, the tenor player transferred to a different state over the summer, the bastard. So when I was formulating the band in my mind this summer, I thought about that problem (lack of upper-range horns), and decided that I was okay with it as is. I've always had an affinity for a really rich, deep sound (men's choruses, trombone choirs, that kind of stuff), so I'm hoping that will transfer into this band. Although now that the tenor guy is gone, I'm going to have to re-write all this anyway. Maybe I can find an alto player and re-voice the horns accordingly. Thank you all for your kind welcome and reviews. I think this might be the start of a beautiful friendship between me and this forum ;-)

Thanks! It really is only my second original composition, but I've been playing and paying attention for years, so hopefully that's paid off. I've also arranged a bunch of stuff over the last couple years, but until recently nothing fully original. I was going for an upbeat, energetic horn intro bit before having the whole band come in for the real piece. Could you clarify what you mean by "stronger"? Yeah, that's a very good point. I know I would definitely hate to be the pianist on the part I've written, so I'm gonna dig in and re-write most of it before handing it out to the pianist. Sorry if I was unclear about the format there. On the score (and individual parts, of course), 59-83 is actually just a 4-measure repeated open solo section for horn and guitar solos. The idea being that because everyone in the band is a competant jazz musician, they'd be able to improvise their own parts in order to keep the backgrounds for the solos interesting. But maybe I should add in some backgrounds for the other horns to play while they're not soloing. You could be on to something there. Absolutely. If I were writing this for an unknown group, I definitely would have done that. However, the only people in my band willing to sing backup are the horn players, and they already have something to do during that section. I will definitely work in some of the changes you suggested. Thanks so much for evaluating my piece and offering your opinions! I really, really, appreciate the time you took to look through it and write some intelligent and productive feedback. I'm getting a good feeling about this forum ;-)

Sounds good. I would agree with robinjessome about the 8th note comping, though. Cut down on that a little and give the piece room to breathe. Also, in the piano voicings, you don't need to lay out every note of the chord. The human mind is pretty good at filling in gaps in chords, particularly when a section is repeated frequently, and opening up some space in the voicings would help keep the piece from feeling too weighted down. Just my two cents.

I like it. Not too complex, but enough to maintain the interest. Are you a guitarist? Any plans for a live performance/recording?

I realize how ridiculously delayed this response is, and hope I will be forgiven for reviving this dead thread, but I have a simple and clear answer to the question, which there does not yet seem to be. There's a free program (perhaps the one referred to above) called PDR reDirect that allows you to create PDFs from any program you can print from (like Finale). You can download it for free here: http://www.exp-systems.com/PDFreDirect/Downloads.htm?1 I've been using it for about a year now, and it works beautifully.