A Day of a Mountaneer (a short piece for wind orchestra)

Hello, I am kinda new and since I haven't seen any recently posted pieces for wind orchestra here, I would like to post this. Thank You for listening and feedback. (This is modified version; it has some added instruments and passages.)

Programme:
0:06 - 0:27 - awakening
0:27 - 1:45 - warm-up
1:45 - 2:44 - ascent
2:44 - 4:13 - firstly climbing over dangerous place, then slip and effort to climb stedily again
4:13 - 4:29 - ascent again, but some escalating exhaustion also (there should be a substantial ritardando, but I don't know how to do it)
4:29 - 5:15 - reaching the peak

Some of the transitions in this are quite sudden and unprepared.  Seems like some more drawn out transitions between the different sections would have been appropriate.  I assume by your title that your intention in composing this piece was to depict a program but I feel like maybe an explanation of the extra-musical context of each of the sections in this would have given the listener a better understanding of the purpose of the music.  On it's own the music harmonically and melodically seems kind of simple.  Not that that's a bad thing and I don't know where you are in your development as a composer but it seems like focusing on writing more interesting melodies and harmonies would be more conducive in a chamber music context or for a smaller instrumentation.  That's just my suggestion though.  Thanks for the music!

10 hours ago, PaperComposer said:

Some of the transitions in this are quite sudden and unprepared.  Seems like some more drawn out transitions between the different sections would have been appropriate.  I assume by your title that your intention in composing this piece was to depict a program but I feel like maybe an explanation of the extra-musical context of each of the sections in this would have given the listener a better understanding of the purpose of the music.  On it's own the music harmonically and melodically seems kind of simple.  Not that that's a bad thing and I don't know where you are in your development as a composer but it seems like focusing on writing more interesting melodies and harmonies would be more conducive in a chamber music context or for a smaller instrumentation.  That's just my suggestion though.  Thanks for the music!

 

Thank You very much for the feedback. I wanted some transitions to be done by ritardando, but I somehow can't handle how to do that in my music programme, so this may add some of the suddenesity to the transitions. Writing the programme is indeed a good idea, I shall do that as the next thing right away. In the matter of the simplicity of the melodies and the harmonies You are totally right; this piece is intended to rather school wind orchestra (although they've never played it 🙂), but it is very likely also affected by my inexperience (related to the development) as I started composing (in some actual way) approximately 2 years ago and this piece was composed cca 1 year ago. Thank You again for the reply.

I know that in MuseScore 3.6 - the program I use - simply writing "ritardando" into the music is not enough.  I have to write new tempo indications where I want them and gradually wean the piece to a slower tempo (and then hide the tempo indications so they're not visible).

I think your piece is definitely simple enough to be played by a school orchestra as it is.  However, writing more complex harmonies would not necessarily make the piece harder to play since harmony is more of a function of the interactions between the different instruments (although tuning in more exotic chords could be a snag).

1 hour ago, PaperComposer said:

I know that in MuseScore 3.6 - the program I use - simply writing "ritardando" into the music is not enough.  I have to write new tempo indications where I want them and gradually wean the piece to a slower tempo (and then hide the tempo indications so they're not visible).

I think your piece is definitely simple enough to be played by a school orchestra as it is.  However, writing more complex harmonies would not necessarily make the piece harder to play since harmony is more of a function of the interactions between the different instruments (although tuning in more exotic chords could be a snag).

 

Thank You for the advice, it will probably come out silly, but I've actually never tried that thing with the tempos, so I'll certainly venture it. And yes, my struggle with the harmony was partially caused by the issue You wrote, however I also wanted to make it kind of more pleasing to the audience. Besides I originally wrote it in D-major, but I was told that I ought to transpose it to another key, so it could be performed easily by the windplayers (;although that could change the expression of the piece, but didn't cause any significant change to the essence of the harmonies).