MichaelAlex

Thank you so much Mr. Winston, probably one of the kindest reviews I've received of my music!

thank you for listening! :)

This is entitled A Morning Hymn and depicts a sunrise, however the sunrise has a much deeper metaphorical meaning such as closure, a new beginning, or hope! Enjoy! A Morning Hymn

THIRD TIME. You mentioned before that you felt the piece was at the place it needs to be with not many changes needed and basically shot down any suggestions. Hopefully this could give you a better idea of the flaws of the piece and what you can do to make it even better. 1. I would change the key in the beginning. You have to understand that Johan Warburton is not in every ensemble in the world and horns shouldn't be hitting G#s and As in abundance. 2. I don't really like what you did with the horns in measure 8. It won't cut through that much and its kind of unnecessary for something double in strings. 3. Your third clarinet and third trumpet parts are very unnecessary. 4. Two bassoon parts is nice and is the standard, but the bassoons are almost always in unison in this piece. Also I feel like the bassoon is vastly misused as an instrument because you have it primarily under the staff emulating a mini tuba-trombone rather than a very beautiful instrument. 5. the 8va in the pic is totally unnecessary and kind of high for them. Just know that for piccolo anything over an A is hard for the player and painful to the audience. 6. Forcefully accented shouldn't be an excuse to not write in accents. -.- In all seriousness, I think it would be more clear to the performer and cleaner to the score to add them in. 7. I feel like this section at 24 is a nice brief contrast and should be a bit longer. (2-4 bars.) Also, trumpets should be muted as to not provide a foil for the delicate flutes. 8. At C i think the oboe and first horn should play a whole note and then continue with the part you have written. 9. M. 37. Piccolo. SHOULD NEVER play that high. Especially hitting high Bs and Cs. I was taught to never write your piccolo higher than flute. Naturally there are always exceptions, but this is definitely not one. 10. this is really picky, but i don't like what you did in 1st/2nd clarinet/trumpet in which 2nd part is higher than first. 11. This section has a lot of unison, but I think it could benefit and be even better if you analyzed the music here and analyzed the colors of the strings and winds to create a very beautiful chorale. Not that it isn't, I just see a bunch of missed opportunities. 12. I think the section at D could benefit from support of Tubas and Low Horns. 13. E. this is the part that makes me laugh. You have 3rd clarinet playing triplets in a register that definitely won't cut through, your second flute is the only woodwind not playing, and you have 2nd/3rd trumpet playing in a register that won't cut through making the 1st trumpet do much more work than they should. I'd definitely remove the 3rd clarinet/trumpet parts, but if you feel they MUST stay in the piece then I would double 3rd clarinet with second in that octave and take 2nd/3rd trumpets up an octave. an add that second flute in, they're gonna feel lonely resting by themselves! 14. 87. You have 1st/2nd trumpet on quarter note triplets with 3rd trumpets playing that ostinato in a register that definitely won't cut through. Remove the part, or double it with 2nd. Also, I feel like that ostinato is kind of a filler in the music and doesn't really add much to the piece to me. 15. 91-92. I think the triplets could be re orchestrated in a manner to provide a much more effective ending. Also, I don't think tuba and horns should play the triplets since the response time for faster playing on these instruments is kind of slow. In the last measure I think the entire ensemble should play the triplet figure, I feel as if the lower voices might resonate over the triplet and not make it as clean. 16. I definitely agree with Dev about the snare part. It's basically the same throughout the piece and doesn't really do much for me. I think this could benefit from mallet percussion. 17. Nothing much more to comment on besides high piccolo notes and bad bassoon orchestration. Great work, I really liked this and I know you will continue to work hard to make it an amazing piece. 14.

Thanks for your review Dev I sent you a PM.

Dev reviews everyone's music but mine. . . I'm jealous.

Well first off, I have to say that this is a great piece and I can tell that you are very skilled in writing just from this! What I would advise you to work on is some of your orchestrations and notations that didn't work that even shows on the recording. If you want me to get in more detail shoot me a PM and we can talk from there! Be sure to check out other pieces on here as well!

You already know the basics of what I think, but I'll let you know in depth. I wish there was a way you could get 2/3 clarinet to mirror the bassoon/bass clarinet in the chalumeau register. I feel there are lots of spots where instead of taking advantage of a great harmonic opportunity you just copy pasted notes so a lot of this piece is filled with unison, I'll point those out to you. Unison spot 1: measure 11 third clarinet. Unison Spot 2: measure 14 third trumpet. Since this spot is so sensitive they don't even need to play there. This piece has so much unison that pointing them out to you would take forever, so hopefully you know what I mean. The modulation before 26 feels really rushed and sloppy, and I think if you took your time and really analyzed what you're trying to do you will be resulted with a very beautiful modulation instead of something that sounds spur-of-the-moment. 26-34 is the real missed harmonic opportunity, this part could really shine if you changed the chords or maybe even the voicing here. the chord on 33 doesn't need a fermata because the woodwind choir entrance sounds odd. Also, the low brass exiting on beat 3 makes it feel like they got tired/couldn't sustain the note rather than an artistic move, but perhaps this may differ in a live setting. I liked the chords I suggested at you 42-end much better only because the chords you have sound more like random notes put together rather than an actual extended or poly chord there is nothing wrong with this, but with the chord changes you have the inversions sound really weird to the ear especially the second one where you have the mid clarinet playing against low clarinets, it just sounds out of place. Lastly, this is a great piece and it does a lot in only 3 minutes. Actually, this is not great, it's amazing, I just think there is more to to make it more than amazing, which would be a completely fucktastic thing if possible.

It's difficult, but most definitely possible. :)

This piece sux. I h8 it.

Don't generalize band composers. :P those orchestrations would come of linear even for band. Good job anyways Aaron.

Double stems aren't even necessary unless the rhythm of the parts break up to where there are two different rhythms on one staff, although some composers use double stemming, i've been told it's frowned upon because it makes it slightly difficult for the conductor. But it's honestly a personal choice! As for the a2, it's only necessary after a solo or any similar notation. Div is only necessary when you have one staff marked "Flute" or "Tuba" yet you have two pitches written, this is usually found in pieces written for larger ensemble settings, I write for wind ensemble. However since you have (Flute 1-2 Sax 1-2) clearly notated (In a VERY neat score I might add, Sibelius?) the div isn't needed at all. I hope this helped! Check out my new piece when you get a chance! Thanks!

one more thing. this is really minor, and don't think I'm nitpicking because I really love the piece, but the flute staff indicates there are two parts, no need to write div above each split part. and you didn't even have a second oboe part, so I'm guessing this is a template? Sorry it just kind of bugged me don't take it personally! great work!

Cool! I thought you wrote this without a particular ensemble in mind and whatnot, because if you did you'd basically have an unmarketable piece that is too difficult for beginners and too easy for intermediate-advanced players, but since it was written for your ensemble I understand that. As for the Oboe, they can play down to the low Bb with ease. However if you'd want to keep that part slim with I'm guessing 3-8 flutes I would suggest scrapping it from the oboe completely and making it first flute/first clarinet and maybe even second depending on the instrumentation of your ensemble. Just a thought! One more compliment, after listening to this piece i noticed the percussion sounded very marching-band like. I like it. was this intentional?

Hello, First of all I wanted to say I really enjoyed this piece. Just from looking at the score I can tell you are skilled in writing! However, just some things to make a note of. I really don't think you wrote this for a specific level, which is something that should be done when writing for younger bands. This would be a very doable grade 2-3 piece (depending on where you live) but some things make it unmarketable for that level for example, you have a few high pitches in the brass, mainly horns and trumpet that would be difficult to perform at that level without sounding shrill or forced. (I understand this could be said about my piece, but that was specifically written to be an advanced lyrical piece for high school early college.) Also, I would suggest to not modulate to G major as that would be too difficult of a key for that level. One more thing: those little licks in the flute/oboe at 64 bother me when you have the oboe in the upper register while the clarinets are resting. They could do perform this easier and possibly with better intonation. Also, (this is minor) but your mallet staffs should go above percussion. Great job however! I thoroughly enjoyed it, no b.s. It reminded me a lot of the works of Brian Balmages or other similar composers! Very nice you use percussion and great writing throughout! Congrats! also, feel free to review mine or any other pieces! Thanks for sharing! Michael (: