Film Music Competition

Your question has been answered in the thread already, Sorasen. But once again: Thomas says to keep it pretty basic. There is a drum set(which will minimally include a snare, a bass, a cymbal of sorts, and perhaps a hi-hat--I wrote for hi-hat already, so if you do and it turns out they don't have one, it won't be the3 end of the world), then tambourine, triangle, cowbell, woodblock, these would be probably the only percussion you'll need, and the only ones they will have. I'm sure if you write for a solo tam-tam it would be fine if they played it with a larger mallet on the cymbal, however. Percussionists are known for imprvising.

Oh this is where you sign up! Sign me up then. Hopefully I can make some time to do this.

Your question has been answered in the thread already, Sorasen. [/b]

Whoops, sorry bout that....

Thanks though, I shall get started now.

What are the exact notes of the Timpani?

Where are they found on the Clef?

They're not exact notes - just keep in a range from G below middle C to E (first ledger line under the bass stave)

hi! it's my first post here, this is a wonderful site and I'm sure I'll enjoy it!

Sign me up please , I'll do my best.

Greetings

Andrea

The percussion doesn't happen to include mallets, does it? Anyways, I think I'll give this a shot - at least, as yet another attempt to redeem myself in writing feasible orchestral music ;).

WHOA!! I'm glad I checked this forum...

The deadline is today; does that mean I can still sign up? If so, count me in. Now I'll go read the rest of this thread.

EDIT: On the percussionists doing crazy things note, I remember this past year I once had to play crash cymbal and suspended cymbal at the same time; there was no suspended cymbal and I had no time to put the once crash cymbal down. On top of that, I had to cover triangle. I managed it; what I did was take up the crash cymbals both hanging down, so my palms were facing each other. Then, with my right hand, I grabbed both a yarn mallet (yarn end coming out of the top of my hand) and triangle beater (striking end coming out of the bottom). The triangle was clamped onto a music stand.

For the suspended cymbal, I'd use the yarn mallet and let the left cymbal hang; for the triangle I had to hit out of the back of my hand without letting the right cymbal get in the way, and for crashing I just brought up both cymbals. It was the most awkward thing to do ever... though once I also got asked to play four mallet instruments (vibes, glock, xylo, tubular) at the same time. You should have seen it, it was like some old black and white movie. The parts traded so fast, I was running ragged from one to the next, usually getting there mid-part and having to run again to catch up. About halfway through the piece I gave up.

Lesson in what to avoid when writing for a specific group! :)

Yes, the deadline is officially past for entrance to the competition. Of course, if someone were to come in from now until 12:00 AM Saturday morning, I would let them compete, but anywhere beyond that point in time(Saturday), NO! :)

I wouldn't mind seeing 1 more before 12 am to make 20, but still 19 competitors isn't to bad.

Have to agree with you there. It's better than I had expected (I only expected around 4-6 entries ;))

OK, June 16th has been and gone, so:

This competition is now CLOSED FOR ENTRIES! No more participants may enter!

I'll leave the thread open just in case any of the competitors have any questions they wish to air in it, but as for signups, that's it.

Thanks, Mike!

Progress update - after two days, I've got almost two minutes of material, and from what I can tell it's well within the ensemble's capabilities. There are a good bit of accidentals later on, since I'm using secondary dominants, but nothing extreme and the tempo's slow at that point.

Well, I don't think accidentals are a problem unless they're unclear, or confusing. For highly chromatic sections(this is meant for everyone), reminder accidentals are very helpful for reading purposes and changing key signatures often is never a good idea.

My piece is being written without any key signature, due to the nature of my harmonic pallate and the (slightly) chromatic nature of film music. So accidentals are found nearly everywhere(some parts are in fminor, Emajor, etc.), but I'm keeping it easy to read.

So you must have tambourine, triangle, cowbell, and woodblock?

Hey everyone,

If you could pass this around, that would be great. It appears that I'm going to be away from the computer and the internet (sob) for a few weeks as I'm going to all over the country! I may get a chance to check mail and all of that whilst I'm away but I would recommend that if you have any serious queries, e-mail me NOW before Friday and I'll see what I can do. I think most of the serious problems have been dealt with in the thread and I take it most of you are writing at the mo.

Looking forward to seeing all the entries and good luck to everyone! :P

One quick question: can the flutes do 16th-note chromatic runs at quarter=140, from Eb above the staff down to Bb above the staff? And the same for the clarinets, except a concert major 6th lower? If only the flutes or only the clarinets, I can take one or the other out, but I'd much rather leave both in.

Also, I'm starting the piece in G minor, but I'll probably modulate to G major later on. Which key signature would you rather have? Most of the work will be in G minor.

Progress update: I broke a week-long writer's block this morning, and now I have 2:27 worth of score, and I have a very good idea of how the rest of the piece will work. That leaves me just enough time to finish! :) Of course, once I'm done with the playback copy, I'll need to create a score for actual musicians... :P

Johann, I'm not sure why you are asking this question... First of all, are you talking about a little run, or a constant motion, running 16ths? Either way sounds fine to me, as flutes and clarinets are very used to moving about wildly. Take a look at some Stravinsky. But, I don't understand why you would think this is hard. Maybe there's something I'm missing? But, if not, what you described is perfectly playable.

You are allowed to change key signature every now and then, you know! ;) Me? Most of my piece is in some sort of F, but it will always move out of F then come back. But I'm leaving all key signatures blank, as I like to write without key signatues, so I can use a more chromatic harmonic language.

Good luck with the rest of your piece! I'm sure it'll be great.

I've never been a part of a high school orchestra or band, so I don't know what high school flautists and clarinetists are capable of. The musicians in my college band could certainly have played it, but I thought it safer just to ask. At any rate, I threw out that section and did something completely different (and far better), so it doesn't even matter! ;)

As for the key signatures, I'm finding I don't need to modulate for this piece! There's a lot of possibilities and variety just in moving from major to minor and everywhere in between. This is probably the best thing I've ever written... in fact, though I came in thinking, "I'll just do my best and have an extra something for my resumé," now I'm beginning to realize I could very well win the competition - and that's very exciting, even just to be composing at this level.

...Actually, now I am modulating, but I saved it for a long time and it's a kind one. My track now runs 4:39 long after two straight days of inspiration! I'll be done with this for sure.

Finally I managed to get myself in front of a computer! Great to hear that everything is going well for everyone. As regards playability now, just write what you can and what you think is possible. Of course all the pieces will be judged on the orchestra's ability to play it, but if we can work around the harder sections, then that should give you some hope to leave these sections in if you understand what I mean! :(

Alright everyone, 9 DAYS LEFT!!! You all gonna be able to make it? I'll PM everyone, to make sure they're on schedule.

Thomas - my piece shouldn't be too tough. I do have a fair amount of accidentals, even sharps for woodwinds and trumpet sometimes, but those passages are always slow enough, and I could even manage them (I'm worse than HS players, trust me). The key only changes from G minor to C major, though I may change that to F minor/Bb major if you really want me to and it doesn't hurt the tonality too much! :happy:

For the original submission, I will be providing and MUS and an MP3. If I should win this, I will need to hunt down a way to convert the MUS to a PDF, as I don't have Acrobat on my computer, just the Reader; in fact, I'd suspect most in this competition don't have Acrobat. Thomas, are you capable of making that conversion, or would I need to find someone who can do it for me?

Also, Thomas, the piano's part is very sparse, only notes here and there for coloristic effects. Is this acceptable? I can add more interesting stuff if it's not. I have the violins up to the D above the E string in one small section - it's an eighth-note triplet arpeggio up and down, and the highest note is the only thing that really goes outside your recommended range, so it might still sound good - they're backed up by the piano and it's not so important for them to stand out like crazy. Is that alright?

Johann, Primo PDF is a free utility that installs onto your computer as a printer. When you hit the print button in Finale, you can select (under the different printer pulldown at the top) Primo PDF and it will 'print' the music file into a PDF, at the specified location.

If you don't care to do this, you could always send me the mus. file, I'd be glad to do it for you if you happened to win. :happy: