Symphonie No .1 ''The Magicians Symphony'' 1st mvt

Hello everyone, this is the first movement of a symphony that i'm making, the is my first draft of the first movement, i would like to know people's opinion and critique of this work. I had to redo this movement many times, and it was tough putting it all together, nevertheless i hope you all enjoy it to some extent.

Interesting piece, thank you for sharing. I like the contrapuntal stuff you do with the strings, for example m. 4-9 and m. 32-34.

I wanted to ask what your intention was on some of the metre throughout the piece. There are several places where, as a listener, I feel the time signature to be 6/8, but in the score it's in 4/4. For example, m. 48-52. The feel of 6/8 is so strong here it would make sense to me to write the score in 6/8. Was your intention for the piece to feel this way, or am I missing something? 

There are several spots like this where I think the notation would confuse the musicians, m. 62-63 is a notable example. I would try to write this so the rhythmic emphasis occurs on the beat, instead of the second note of a set of sixteenth notes - see below. I might redo the scale at the beginning as a "ten-tuplet" so the E falls on beat 2.

Also there are several spots where respelling the accidentals would make it easier to read. For example the horn solo in m. 82-90 - I would spell all of these accidentals as sharps instead of flats. 

Thanks again for sharing, are there any more movements to the symphony?

2 hours ago, gmm said:

Interesting piece, thank you for sharing. I like the contrapuntal stuff you do with the strings, for example m. 4-9 and m. 32-34.

I wanted to ask what your intention was on some of the metre throughout the piece. There are several places where, as a listener, I feel the time signature to be 6/8, but in the score it's in 4/4. For example, m. 48-52. The feel of 6/8 is so strong here it would make sense to me to write the score in 6/8. Was your intention for the piece to feel this way, or am I missing something? 

There are several spots like this where I think the notation would confuse the musicians, m. 62-63 is a notable example. I would try to write this so the rhythmic emphasis occurs on the beat, instead of the second note of a set of sixteenth notes - see below. I might redo the scale at the beginning as a "ten-tuplet" so the E falls on beat 2.

Also there are several spots where respelling the accidentals would make it easier to read. For example the horn solo in m. 82-90 - I would spell all of these accidentals as sharps instead of flats. 

Thanks again for sharing, are there any more movements to the symphony?

 

Hi. thanks for listening and commenting, i will change the time signature to 6/8. Regarding the weird rhythms i tried placing the note on the 2nd beat, but it seemed to come to soon, when i did it with the original score it came on about where i wanted it to, i tried to make a ten-tunplet in Sibelius however i don't really know how to, i'll also respell the accidentals. If you could go more in-depth on how to fix the rhythmic thing i would be grateful. I started working on a 2nd movement however, i'm getting slightly discouraged at writing an entire symphony, i scrapped the 2nd movement and decided to make the 1st movement into a extended symphonic work like something ravel would do, however i don't know if thats a good idea, i've never been really good at writing extremely long pieces of music. Would you have any recommendation's on what i should do?

6 minutes ago, Kudo Anastasia said:

Hi. thanks for listening and commenting, i will change the time signature to 6/8. Regarding the weird rhythms i tried placing the note on the 2nd beat, but it seemed to come to soon, when i did it with the original score it came on about where i wanted it to, i tried to make a ten-tunplet in Sibelius however i don't really know how to, i'll also respell the accidentals. If you could go more in-depth on how to fix the rhythmic thing i would be grateful. 

In Sibeilus, input the first note of the ten-tuplet (in this case a 32nd note on the downbeat). Then with the note still selected, go to Note Input > Triplets > Other. Enter "10" in the top of the dialog box, then hit ok. It should create a ten-tuplet for you to fill in.

9 minutes ago, Kudo Anastasia said:

I started working on a 2nd movement however, i'm getting slightly discouraged at writing an entire symphony, i scrapped the 2nd movement and decided to make the 1st movement into a extended symphonic work like something ravel would do, however i don't know if thats a good idea, i've never been really good at writing extremely long pieces of music. Would you have any recommendation's on what i should do?

Write with a plan. Why do you want to write a symphony? What do you wish to "say" with your music? What structure do you want it to have? Start with the big picture, then work your way down to the details.

If you're just starting out, don't take on more than you can handle. Focus on coming up with a plan and executing. How did you write this piece? Did you have a structure in mind when you started? Or did you write the first thing that came to mind?

2 minutes ago, gmm said:

Write with a plan. Why do you want to write a symphony? What do you wish to "say" with your music? What structure do you want it to have? Start with the big picture, then work your way down to the details.

If you're just starting out, don't take on more than you can handle. Focus on coming up with a plan and executing. How did you write this piece? Did you have a structure in mind when you started? Or did you write the first thing that came to mind?

I made a plan for the keys of the movements and how i wanna structure each movement and stuff, I already have a sense of what i wanna say with the music, however i can't really express it as smoothly as i want, that's why i was unsure if i should focus on a smaller size work before composing something like a symphony. Thanks for the sibelius tip!

Hello.  I'm a newb here and I'm not sure if anybody has said this about this specific piece or any of your music, but if you want to focus on longer compositions, write for smaller ensembles or for piano solo or piano with a solo instrument or two.  Then if you really think the musical material justifies it you can orchestrate it later for a larger ensemble.

I liked your symphony.  It's wacky and unique.  I'm not sure if in writing a symphony you intended to write something more epic and grand.  For that you could write some well placed and orchestrated tutti sections.  As it stands it's very linear and melodic but usually in a symphony there are also well placed accompanying harmonies to fill in the sound and make it sound more full.  1:41 in the woodwinds is a good example of that.  I guess I just mean you could bring more meaning to your orchestration by having the melodic material require the orchestration to be more full sometimes and more sparse at other times.  Same as you'd expect the melody to dictate when the instruments should play loud or soft I guess.  I hope this post makes some sense...

3 minutes ago, PaperComposer said:

Hello.  I'm a newb here and I'm not sure if anybody has said this about this specific piece or any of your music, but if you want to focus on longer compositions, write for smaller ensembles or for piano solo or piano with a solo instrument or two.  Then if you really think the musical material justifies it you can orchestrate it later for a larger ensemble.

I liked your symphony.  It's wacky and unique.  I'm not sure if in writing a symphony you intended to write something more epic and grand.  For that you could write some well placed and orchestrated tutti sections.  As it stands it's very linear and melodic but usually in a symphony there are also well placed accompanying harmonies to fill in the sound and make it sound more full.  1:41 in the woodwinds is a good example of that.  I guess I just mean you could bring more meaning to your orchestration by having the melodic material require the orchestration to be more full sometimes and more sparse at other times.  Same as you'd expect the melody to dictate when the instruments should play loud or soft I guess.  I hope this post makes some sense...

 

Yes, it makes sense. Thank you for the comment and the feedback. i used to compose pieces for piano solely, and i've been slowly trying to get better at orchestrating. So i've done a few small ensembles here and there.