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It seems there is a misunderstandnig, but by "serious game", I meant more along the lines of "educational" rather than "epic". Sorry about that.

It's a serious game (the title of our thread in our club's forum is The "Serious" Game), but I'm not really sure how to describe it very well. We haven't been able to come up with a name yet, so that should tell you how much we know about it. I'm not sure what exactly you mean by original, but all the music was composed solely by me with (hopefully) no specific influences other than simply the sum of all the music I've ever listened to. As for the string one being "sad and mopey", I am trying to get some variety going because we're not sure yet exactly what will be needed, so I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

I'm in a game developers' club here at school, and in the group I'm working with, I'm doing the sound stuff. This includes writing the incidental music and theme. Before I continue, here are links to mp3 files of what I have written so far: Theme (Brass) Woodwinds Strings Anyway, basically, these are supposed to be more or less like normal compositions, as long as they're not too distracting from the game. The game itself is pretty tame, but that's not my area. I figured that to start with I would use a different ensemble for each piece to force me to give it some variety, so that's what the titles mean; I don't have actual titles. The brass one is supposed to be the theme music because when I wrote a sample piece for the guy in charge he said he liked "the trumpety bit near the end" for the theme. As for what I'm looking for, I guess I'd just like feedback from people who actually know what they're talking about, because the rest of the team thinks it's pretty good, but by their own admission know absolutely nothing about music. Personally, what I think is that the brass one is decent, but could be better. I think the woodwind one is probably crap, but I don't know if I should try to fix it up or just start over, or maybe it's actually better than I thought and I'm just not capable of accurately judging woodwind pieces (I play trombone, and used to play violin). The string piece I also think is decent, but there is a measure at the end that I need to fix; you'll probably hear which one I'm talking about. Please, anyone confirm or deny my suspicions or in some way provide feedback about this stuff. Thanks.

Okay, that works. I guess I just never learned that. Thanks.

I just took a music theory 1 proficiency test (since my college doesn't take that AP credit), and there was one question on there that I just had no clue about. It was something like "What is the name for intervals larger than an octave?" I just put down "really big" and continued on, but I'm curious as to what the real answer might be. Anyone?

It's definitely not too late. I'm 18 and I just had my third lesson ever today, and I have similar reasons to yours. Apparantly I'm progressing faster than most first time piano students because I can already read music proficiently in both clefs. The way I practice is I play through some stuff at the piano, get bored and go play on the computer, get bored and go back to the piano, get bored and go back to the computer, etc. I think I'm getting between 30 minutes and 1 hour this way, and it's all productive, not just pounding away at the keys getting frustrated.

I agree with robin. The piece is playable, just not necessarily by me. The only things that would particularly scare me if I were performing it are those huge leaps (15ths and 16ths). Other than that, for the sections in treble clef, I agree with nightingale in that most trombonists would be more comfortable with tenor clef than with treble clef, but you don't really need to switch clefs anyway. I've played stuff with the D above the highest note in this piece written in bass clef. I had to count ledger lines before playing it to make sure it was what I thought it was (unfortunately it was), but this piece can be written entirely in bass clef. I disagree with nightingale about the difficulty of the gaba sixteenth notes. I've found generally that it's easier to just go back and forth between two positions than to do weird things like 7th-4th-2nd-5th, for example, and since gaba is just 4-2-4-2, it's not a problem. If I'm not mistaken, you didn't write anything that would require an F attatchment, although having one would simplify some of the faster bits significantly. Overall, it looks like it would be fun, and I'll listen to it when I get a chance.

As I understand it: Strings tune to A because they all have an A string, and the rest of the strings can be tuned in perfect fifths to each other. They should never tune to anything other than an open string because there is the possibility of putting their finger in the wrong place. Woodwinds usually tune to A, but I've also seen Bb clarinets, flutes, and tenor saxophones tune to Bb. The explanation I've heard from band directors is that it's "the most free-blowing note on the instrument," whatever that means. Most brass usually tune to Bb, although F is also acceptable. This is because most brass instruments are constructed so that with no valves pressed, the Bb harmonic series is prevalent. Bb then is the best note to tune to, with F being a close second. Trombones shouldn't be asked to tune to anything other than Bb and F because the slide can produce the same inaccuracies as for string instruments. I hate when my orchestra conductor has us tune to "an A for everyone" because none of us trombones are good enough to accurately tune to an A. The anomaly is the french horn. I usually only see them tune to A, but sometimes they tune to Bb, though it's usually because it's a brass piece and only one tuning note is given. I've been confused about french horns for a long time because apparantly it's actually two horns in one. I don't know enough about them to recommend anything with authority.

Okay, sorry if I misread your post. Today I started reading the chapters on voice leading in my music theory book, and I guess I see what you mean, but it really seems so limited. I'll try to smooth out the voices, but I don't know how much I'll be able to do while sticking to the restrictions I set for myself when I started this. Maybe eventually I'll incorporate this into a whole theme and variations thing with one variation for each verse. Oh well, thanks anyway.

I too am a fairly experienced trombonist. With that in mind, let me clarify some things: I don't think the range is too terrible. The only issue that I can see is that the 4th part goes to low Eb, so that player would need either a valve attatchment or very good control of his/her false tones. I purposely kept it so that was the only part that went that low in order to loosen restrictions on the playing level of the performers. This way only one player needs to go below the range of a trigger-less tenor. Other than that, I did go through and remove all jumps of more than an octave, and I'm confident that I could play any of the parts with reasonable ease. Anyway, I've had a song where I had to go from high C to pedal Bb within a measure; on the other hand, I don't have any trouble with octave jumps in this range. The reason I chose Maoz Tzur was that I'm in a Chanukkah-y mood. I know not many people will recognize it, but who's to say they would recognize it even if the melody didn't jump around. Also, I really wanted to see what it would be like to write a melody that jumped between parts. Maoz Tzur struck me as a song that would sound really good as a chorale, so I decided to go with it. In the end, what it really comes down to it that I'm happy with it. I certainly understand most of your concerns, and of course I would never do this for something too serious, but I just wanted to try it.

As the title suggests, this is an arrangement of Maoz Tzur (a traditional Chanukkah song) that I did for a trombone quartet (although it can easily be transposed for a quarted of any four of the same instrument; I don't think it'll work with a traditional string or brass quartet or any other quartet of mixed instruments for reasons I'll say later). At the moment I only have a Finale file, but I promise I'll post a midi in a day or so, although the midi really won't be as interesting as the Finale file unless you can extract sheet music from it. The melody and harmony are all traditional, and I didn't do anything special there. However, I did split up the melody so that no single part ever has more than two notes of the melody in a row (which is why it needs to be played by four of the same instrument; I think the changing timbres would screw up the melody and make it un-followable). The four parts are about as equal as I can think to make them; they are only numbered 1-4 for convenience. Also for convenience, and to help the melody stand out, the notes of the melody are accented. Other than that, it's pretty much the same old song. maoz tzur.MUS

I didn't notice a difference between the music from Pirates 1 and Pirates 2.

Research concerning perfect pitch I would suggest reading through this guy's research. It takes a while, but he does a great job of explaining perfect pitch and his software (the demo anyway) really seems to work.

nice, but a little boring, at least for my mood right now. I think the parallel fifths help with the calm mood, if that was what you were going for. It also seems a little too repetetive. Obviously repetition of some kind is essential, but it gets really boring if you repeat every four-bar phrase note for note immediately after the first time it comes up. Maybe you should change some of the chords in the repetitions to mix things up a bit. Of course if that was what you were going for, then by all means do what you wish.

Right now I'm learning the Sarabande from suite 2 on the trombone. If anyone wants trombone-oriented versions of the suites, go to Doug Yeo's website. At a recent concert, a friend of mine played the Prelude from suite 1 on guitar.