CYCLES (for wind band)

CYCLES 

for grade 4+ wind band

Full of repetitive patterns and interesting musical approaches. Also a mean clarinet solo in the middle; as well as film-like and smooth modern jazz styles that rotate back and forth.

Tell me what you think about this piece.

It serves as a special dedication to a composer by the name of David Shaffer.

Could you please share a score?

The music sounds very powerful and I like it overall.
The transition from the first part to the solo clarinet part was too abrupt in my opinion.
I really like the style of the middle part with the solo clarinet, because it is very vigorous.
Some melodies (and chords) sound strange sometimes, but I don't know if that was intended or not.
The recapitulation of the A theme is very inventive! Very smooth and logical transitional.

Well done!

First of all thank you for the feedback; I really appreciate it.

Based off of what you (Maarten Bauer) commented, now I see that the intro to the solo is very quick indeed, so I'll add something in between those sections.

 May I ask which melodies/or chords are strange/ awkward to listen to? I tried to incorporate ambiguous "jazz" voicings for the most part. For example, if you look at the last 4 bars of the piece, most of these voicings are Kenny Barron style chords.

Thank you and hope to hear from you again,

GPC

8 hours ago, Gregory Carnage said:

First of all thank you for the feedback; I really appreciate it.

Based off of what you (Maarten Bauer) commented, now I see that the intro to the solo is very quick indeed, so I'll add something in between those sections.

 May I ask which melodies/or chords are strange/ awkward to listen to? I tried to incorporate ambiguous "jazz" voicings for the most part. For example, if you look at the last 4 bars of the piece, most of these voicings are Kenny Barron style chords.

 

Thank you and hope to hear from you again,

GPC

 

No problem!

I will look at it when I am back from the conservatory.

Thank you for the feedback, I'll make sure to tweak the ending.

@Gregory Carnage 

I apologise for my comment about ''some melodies and harmonies'' that sound strange.
They sounded strange to me, but when I listened for the second time to the music, the chords were very logical.
Please forgive me for my mistake...

Since I am a saxophonist, I always check the saxophone parts in music by others to help them with saxophone writing.
Your saxophone writing very good actually. You write interesting parts, which are still playable.

1. M.52 Baritone S: Do you really want a low Bb in this part in piano? The notes under D under the staff can be hard to play less than mezzo piano.
2. M.66 Baritone S: Short staccato notes on a low Bb can be very disturbing. Maybe re-write it?
3. M.69 Baritone S: See point 1.
4. M.72 1st Alto S: Notes above high C can be very hard to play well when the dynamic is less than mezzo piano.
5. M.76 1st Alto S: See point 4.
6. Just for your certainty: the glissandi in m.92 are very easy to play.
7. M.97 Nice Alto Saxophone solo!
8. M.134 Baritone S: Do you really want a low Bb in this part in a crescendo to pianissimo? The notes under D under the staff can be hard to play less than mezzo piano.
9. M.142 2nd Alto S: Impossible. Or at least, I recommend you to NEVER write a written low Bb in ppp. When you still want to have this low Bb, give it to the Baritone (an octave higher written), because it would then be possible to play in this ppp. You really need to change this.

Once again, well done!