Thefury2600

Hello,Well, nothing too much to say about this one. I originally wrote this for a contest that was being held on this forum some time ago, but, due to prior engagements, I never got around to writing the other two movements, so I just made this a stand-alone piece. This is supposed to be a lighthearted composition and doesn't take up more than three minutes. If you have any comments please let me know.-Steven March of Follies

Thanks everybody who commented on the composition! Sorry I was unable to respond to them quicker. School had me really busy these last couple months. Hey man, thanks a lot for your comment!! I'm not really the person to ask for percussion advice(haha!) but if you still need help I wouldn't mind trying to help you out. Haha I'm really bad at key signatures and accidentals. I could write forever in one key and not get bored for awhile... Believe me I tried to go for something HUGE for the ending, but what came out was the ending you hear on the recording lol Thanks for the comment!

Thanks for you nice comment! I am going to be a junior at Sam Houston State University this upcoming semester.

Hey I'm glad you liked it! Hey, let me start by saying thanks for all of your advise!! You make very good points and I will definitely take them all into consideration. So far I took out the tenor sax at measure 9 and had that part just be a brass section for awhile. I also had the tuba part, at the beginning, enter louder with a descending part. And thanks for noticing that the score didn't match the playback in some places. I just added in some of those section and I guess I forgot to transfer it over to the score. I'm really glad you thought the section with the xylophone "solo" was OK... I thought people would think it sounded kinda random or out-of-place. People I know tell me it sounds fine but I'm glad I get to hear it from a neutral stand point. The percussionists at my school are pretty much hating me right now for the mallet parts... I really didn't think it was that difficult but I guess they just didn't want to work it up ha. It's funny that you should say I have good clarinet writing because I play clarinet lol! I know the horn pretty well, but on the flip side, I have never played a tuba in my life so that may excuse me for my poor tuba writing haha. So hopefully I'll be able to get a live recording of this piece if things go according to plan. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Thanks again for all of your advise and compliments! Hey thanks for your comment! Yeah those mallet parts are giving me hell ha... I didn't know they would require so much attention would I started plugging them in. I'll probably have to do a combination of both: make the percussion play louder and have the band play a little softer, but not too soft or I think the beginning would lose some of its drive. When I go back in to make some (more) corrections I'll definitely have the trombone and horn split more; that's certainly I good idea. Thanks again!

Hi,This is a piece I wrote over the Christmas Holidays just to past the time and, to my surprise, I think it turned out quite good. It took me about a week to complete the composition but I'm still editing things here and there. I showed it to my band director about a month ago and we read though some of it (exciting!) but the middle section was apparently hell to get through; So with out changing the piece too much I simplified some of the parts so it would be possible to play. If all goes well we might take this piece on tour!! Upon reading the piece in band a couple weeks ago, there were also several balance problems... for example the opening mallet motif; Apparently the low end of the marimba was getting covered by the rest of the band and etc... I never even think about that stuff while composing!Well anyway the percussion professor at my school said that she would take a look at the score to figure out the best way to get the maximum volume out of the beginning section. She suggested maybe using three vibraphones instead... but I'm still waiting to hear back from her. If this piece gets performed it will be my first piece to get played by a real ensemble in front of a real audience! Please leave any comments you have. -Steven Chrome

Oh no!! I thought everybody lovved winter... Hmm I guess it depends on where you live; In the part of Texas I live in it's hot ALL the time so we welcome winter whenever it gets here haha. That crazy middle section has been giving everybody hell haha. I will certianly rework the middle section and see if I can come up with something different. But I make no promises. Thank you very much for your kind comment! I'm really glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for your comment! In measure 85? Oh I see what you're saying... no no there is an 8vb under the 3/4 horns. The 3/4 horns aren't screaming right there haha. I think measure 85 and where that section happens later in the piece are the only spots that have something like that.

Hey thanks for your comments! The dynamics of the piece are quite unreliable aren't they haha. To tell you the truth, all I did was listen to the midi and decide what was too loud or what needed to be softer and write the "appropriate" dynamic for the midi. It never occured to me that if a real orchestra was to try to play this that the softer instruments might not get a chance to be heard. As far as the string parts go, no I didn't want any section of this piece to be played double stopped. Everthing should be played as a divisi. Thanks for all of your help!

Why thank you very much! Yeah I'm not sure what's going on with the middle section. While I was writting it it seemed like a good idea, but by the time I finished and realized it didn't quite fit... the very thought of this piece made me wanna cry haha

Hey thanks for your advise! Unfortunately though I am not getting this performed anytime soon; I just wrote it for the hell of it and didn't think anything of it at the time ha. Also I wouldn't know who to go to if I had wanted to get it played. Anyway, you have a lot of interesting comments to say! I did not know that it was so important to have the horns on top and the trumpets on bottom. Like you mentioned, I have seen it written both ways but I didn't know one way was for concert band and the other for orchestra. I just thought the composer wrote it however he felt that day. About the orchestration, I totally agree. I have not had alot of training or anything in this area; hopefully this will change soon but until then I'm going to have to stick to what I've got ha. Thank you for you comments!

Hello, I wrote this piece a couple months back (when it wasn't winter) and at the time I thought it would be a "cool" project to start. Well at first I stuck with the theme but I kinda wondered off a little bit but I think I wrapped it up quite nicely at the end. Its shown in concert pitch so some of the voices my not be where they're supposed to be. I'm still trying to get use to the new site so if something is not quite right I apologize in advance. =) Thoughts of Winter

Hey, Everywhere I go people keep telling me that writting for smaller ensmebles such as duets and trios etc... will enhance your overall writting ability. Now I don't know how much of that is true, but I can certainly see how it could help. With this piece included I've only written one other chamber piece about two months back. Between the two, I think this one is definitly more demanding, mainly because I actually play clarinet. The other duet was for trumpet and piano and I don't really know anything about playing trumpet so I made it a little on the simple side... on the other hand, I pretty much know the limitations and range of the clarinet (my limits anyway :)) so I was able to pull all that stuff into this. The piece is only about 3 minutes long. I worked on it for about 5 days, 2 of which were just editing and trying to make the score look presentable. I am intending on doing multiple movements since it is a suite and everything, but I think for now I'll just add the other mvts at a later date. I'm kinda burned out on duet music right now haha... -Steven MP3: Glass Garden Suite.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage Score: PrintMusic! 2004 - [Glass Garden Suite.pdf - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

We can break this habit together! Stay strong lol

Hey thanks for your critic! About the flute line, if worst comes to worst I'd probably just put the melody up an octave, I don't really think it would fit in any other instrument, do you? Maybe Vibes but thats already occupied with something. Accidentals would totally help here haha. To be honest, though, I didn't even think about putting any, I was just trying to get everything down before I lost something. The score being in concert pitch was just for my benefit ha... I took the weak way out. And the only reason the percussion is at the bottom of the score is because for a long time whenever I picked the instruments for my piece, Printmusic would put the percussion on the bottom of the page and for a long time I thought it was correct so I just stuck with it. Now its just habit for me haha, it looks weird any other way but I'll fix that soon! Thanks for commenting! And by the way, I was totally looking at going to SFA because I really liked how they have all the film music classes... well at least somebody told me that. But I was also told they only take 5-10 comp. majors a year. That scares me ha. I'm also of course looking at UNT which is probably where I'm going but I would really like to have that film music aspect.

I'm right there with you guys. I've been using Printmusic 2004 for quite a while! I really don't see the need in upgrading unless they come out with something that's totally revolutionary, or my Printmusic somehow dies. It might be awhile before I upgrade :P