The Hourglass Mind

Synthaesia and perfect pitch are two seperate conditions, not to knit pick but I've been thoroughly reamed out over the very same misconception.

I would tend to agree with that statement, it works, and nothing that works truly vanishes from the earth.

both effective and beutiful, an artful expression of mental frustration and anguish...I listened to all four mvts. in awe, very well done.

interesting theme, i very much enjoyed this. I do however tend to agree with manossg, the direction is lacking a bit. but a very good piece overall.

lol, well in some instances i feel that way but I too am glad you're just kidding. however there are some musicologists who say minalism's dead or atleast almost dead...wheather thats good or bad has yet to be seen...but i'm glad you enjoyed my experimental hybrid.

thank you, philip glass is probably the most famous minamalist composer, so i'm glad the minimalism came through, and as for razor....down the track not across the street....

mallet players practice a technique called double sticking, where 2 mallets are held in each hand. one between the index and middle finger, and one between the ring finger and pinky. Thank you for the critique, I appreciate the honesty and i see what you mean about the difficulty of reviewing atonal pieces. perhaps I should put a lower voice into the texture, maybe a cello doubling the violin at the octave lower....at any rate thanks again. c'est la vie

you blew my mind for a second, I knew my piece only had 30 measures but i had to check anyway, and then i felt pretty rediculous, having realized the joke. *sigh* but so far I've not gotten much constructive criticism....se la vie.

in the interest of mending fences, I'll go ahead and tell you the story. A close friend of mine with cerebral palsey has been fighting damage to his kidneys and liver, he needs a transplant, but he keeps spiraling downward into depression. this piece was in many ways a coping tool for dealing with his worsening state. i have clinical depression, and i do fight, and i stay on top, but some who have it don't fight, don't seek help, and frequently don't survive, but I do understand where you were coming from now and hope we're still on neutral terms.

hey hey, keep it down, and seriously, keep it in the shoutbox or off topic. but vibes really do kick a#@!!!

oh it's one of the real beuties, especialy when it rise out of a thick heavy texture....oh man i hate you for having vibes....but best of luck, i'm eager to hear what you come up with.

well in truth i would love for a harp to play, but unfortunately, it alters the texture too much from what i want. and no GPO doesn't have a vibrophone, atleast not in the finale 2006 version.

I failed to note that the harp is meant to be a vibraphone, GPO doesn't have a vinraphone option, however, a double strung, orchestral pedal harp can be tuned to play chromatic passages, Webern has several harp parts in pieces...but that's neither here nor there, it was meant to be a vibraphone. and as to the amazingly blunt and tactless question...if you can't figure it out, I'm not going to tell you.

I thoroughly enjoyed this piece, I love the almost equilibrium achieved with so many dark instruments playing in such a bright mode. my only real qualm is more texural than anything, all of your instruments have unique individual timbres and yet don't blend cohesively(which works to your bennefit) that is except the bassoon. the bassoon blends too well with the cello at times and I kind of lose both under the rest, but if it were a dark instrument with a more unique tone to replace the bassoon, say, a bass/contrabass clarinet, this might realy make this piece shine. but, this is just my personal belief and I feel the piece as is, is beutiful. Great Job.

I wrote this piece in an effort to capture the weakness and frailty of a man, as he fights a losing battle with clinical depression. an Umbra is the darkest park of a shadow, and so, umbral awakening is a metaphore for the dark parts of thought propogating in his mind. The music itself is a result of the blending of two combative schools of thought; minimalism(chiefly in a steve reich style), and schoenbergs early expressionist, free atonality(i.e. the use of all twelve notes before repeating any, but not using rows). please let me know what you think. Thank you all in advance. EDIT: changed midi file to playback vibes, and removed the harp designation from the score. Human Frailty & Umbral Awakenings.MUS Human Frailty & Umbral Awakenings.MID