OVERTURE no. 1

Hello everyone! I'm Norbert from Hungary and want to share one of my pieces with you i've written 5 years ago. I included a little backstory for this piece about how i made a little "Fiverr Orchestra" to play my piece which i mixed in with Note Performer 3's samples. Please read it before making any comment, because context matters! Thanks for listening! Enjoy! : )

(I also included the original midi files, along with the recorded live files and also of course the final mix with score. Also i'm not promoting Fiverr in any way as i stated in the pdf, i just wanted to give credits to the musicians involved, because they deserve it!)

Here's the link for the midi version:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CaRCS_8gdb49YOsqAAbKMmhM5eFNbEUC

So accomplished a composition; easy to listen to, exuberant, bright and positive energy....I'm hardly in a position to comment. The orchestration is masterful. All I can say is "well done!" 

Your write-up was most interesting and it seems your strategy worked. This is a fine concert piece as it stands.

Thank you for your kind words, really appreciate your feedback! : )

It's wonderful.

Parts of it I feel sound a bit like a movie theme - some of the big festive sections. Orchestration wise, it's very good. I feel that you have an excellent control of balance. I dread to think how long it must have taken you to sort out that recording!

Thank you very much! I used several orchestration techniques from famous film scores (especially Williams' ones from Star Wars, E. T, and i think the Jaw reference is pretty clear before the last section : )) so i'm glad you felt the pieces like a film score in some places! And yeah putting together the recording was a big challange! I'm planning to do a better one, but now i'm working on other pieces too that hopefully i can present soon.

If this was written five years ago, I'd love to hear your writing now! This was a very relevant post for me, as I am also looking into John Williams' score for orchestration guidance and ideas, and I have to say this piece has some excellent melodic and harmonic ideas that are truly inspiring. I don't want to comment too much on your orchestration skills as you have most likely improved greatly as an orchestrator and composer since writing this. However I want to share a small idea that might be of use to you (if no one ever mentioned it). I recommend dove-tailing the woodwinds in measure 113 and onwards (sharing the sixteenth runs between the first and second players to increase fluidity of line). Other than that, your orchestration was masterful. 

I think we can all learn something from this. Nothing is better than live players and it isn't safe to rely on samples or midi to give us an accurate representation of what the score will sound like. In particular, the flutist was excellent and it was fantastic to hear; for example, the solo at m. 71, and the flutter-tonguing at m. 163 sounded excellent and can't be reproduced from today's samples (or even the glorious NotePerformer!). I've always had a sour look on my face listening to samples, too. But this gave me the idea to incorporate live players and samples to produce the best recording you can (at a steep discount to professionally recording it!).

Lastly, I am a stickler for notation and your score was notated beautifully. As we are both Sibelius users, I want to learn how to add the little part numbers (1 & 2) to the right of the instrument names. I can't find a solution out there, but hopefully you can send me in the right direction, haha. 

Great work.

17 hours ago, Carlos Lalonde said:

If this was written five years ago, I'd love to hear your writing now! This was a very relevant post for me, as I am also looking into John Williams' score for orchestration guidance and ideas, and I have to say this piece has some excellent melodic and harmonic ideas that are truly inspiring. I don't want to comment too much on your orchestration skills as you have most likely improved greatly as an orchestrator and composer since writing this. However I want to share a small idea that might be of use to you (if no one ever mentioned it). I recommend dove-tailing the woodwinds in measure 113 and onwards (sharing the sixteenth runs between the first and second players to increase fluidity of line). Other than that, your orchestration was masterful. 

I think we can all learn something from this. Nothing is better than live players and it isn't safe to rely on samples or midi to give us an accurate representation of what the score will sound like. In particular, the flutist was excellent and it was fantastic to hear; for example, the solo at m. 71, and the flutter-tonguing at m. 163 sounded excellent and can't be reproduced from today's samples (or even the glorious NotePerformer!). I've always had a sour look on my face listening to samples, too. But this gave me the idea to incorporate live players and samples to produce the best recording you can (at a steep discount to professionally recording it!).

Lastly, I am a stickler for notation and your score was notated beautifully. As we are both Sibelius users, I want to learn how to add the little part numbers (1 & 2) to the right of the instrument names. I can't find a solution out there, but hopefully you can send me in the right direction, haha. 

Great work.

 

Thank you very much for your comment!

I'm glad that my post inspired you to work with live musicians on your own pieces, believe me it's a great fun!

Also your remark about measure 113 is perfectly valid! I'm a piano and brass player (f. horn) and i tend to forget how demanding could be to play runs on a wind instrument for example. If i think about it the guy playing the wind parts were actually struggling on that part, there were lots of breathing noises on the original recording he sent, and i was a bit unsatisfied at first, but now that i'm thinking about it i didn't let the guy rest at all for like 9-10 bars. Sure one can breath between the up and down runs,  but your idea about dove-tailing that part makes sense. Even Williams let players enough rest between runs when he uses the winds that way (for example in the Indiana Jones score). So good point!

Now about the score i was working on that a lot (I still find mistakes every day though). I was inspired by the look of Hal Leonard scores of Williams' music, also I contacted Dynamedion a music company for hiring an orchestra. Now i'm quickly realized that I'm not even close to afford hiring them, but the guy was nice and he sent me the Orchestration Guidelines they use when they work with composers. That includes font sizes, layout sizes, how many bar numbers per page should be used, etc.

So i combined that knowledge with what i saw on famous scores and i prepared a little guide and sample score that you guys can use also:


DYNAMEDION GUIDELINES + DYNAMEDION.SIB + MY GUIDE HOW TO SET SIBELIUS TO MAKE SOMETHING SIMILAR TO MY SCORE:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vCC362_zP3tzq2H_Chcf4GTSZhJCxJ5H

The part numbers were a matter of adding an "expression text" on the bar and positioning them before the bar. It's a bit tricky though because i tried to maintain a constant distance between the part numbers and the bar, but quickly realized Sibelius messes up the distances pretty quickly (for example the distances are different if you add notes to the score or if the score is empty, or even just adding a time signatures messes up everything) so i precisely measured the distances after every page. It took some time, but i tried to make it look great.

If something is not clear from the guide or you have any questions please ask!  

(also feel free to change everything on the score and use this sample sib file on your own scores)



 

Brilliant!

It is perfect for propagandistic or commercial purposes and that is quite a compliment about your craft.