A rugged, Catalan shepherd meets Bartók, Stravinsky and Ellington. A few extreme reharmonizations of short folk pieces.

I've been having the impression I was playing a bit too safe with my harmonies lately, so I've done what I used to do at the beginning: do a restricted writing exercise and re-harmonize or rethink simple folk melodies.

You may recognize the third piece, its lyrics have been translated to English and Spanish, at least. There's also some trivial quote hidden in there.

I include both the full orchestral score, and the initial piano sketch.

Edit: At the present moment, this is just a study for a future, longer piece. I'm thinking of something like Grieg's Norwegian Dances, where folk tunes are fleshed out into large forms with "classical" development.

As a curiosity, I also include pics of the first 2 folk dances. Both involve steel-reinforced wooden sticks, and are fast-paced and violent. Someone breaking a bone isn't that rare (the xylophone in the first basically parodies the bones breaking). I danced myself to the 2nd melody.

Charming and witty ..... I hear Resphighi calling .... as well as your other friends ....  I am a fan~!  It brought a smile to my face. 😊

Pretty clear you know what you're doing! There's nothing musical or score-wise to comment on. 

Can I deduce that from the short score, that you come up with a basic 'piano draft' first? To me, arranging is a particular skill within orchestration.

The piece is most likeable, exciting, energetic. The pauses suggest a series of short tableaux as in a ballet. You draw attention to the occasional likeness between (earlier) Stravinsky ballets (Petroushka) and Bartok. (I'm not familiar with Ellington to be able to connect him).

It could be considered 'light music' which is not to belittle it at all. In fact, for its lightness it's pretty demanding.

Altogether brilliant and thanks for the full score aside from Youtube.

Hola, te comento en español porque me da la gana.

Me gusta mucho tu trabajo. Por un lado creo que aún sigues explorando estilos e historias (cosa que nunca se acaba en la vida, la verdad). Tampoco sé tu "background", tu formación, si eres autodidacta o no... Pero se te ve una muy buena base sólida.

Este trabajo es estupendo. Jeje, no sé si el Fum Fum Fum se puede entender del todo fuera de aquí, es una pieza genial.

Un abrazo. Y sigue haciendo música xD!....

Luis.

Aw, Luis. Not fair in Spanish. Lucky I studied Latin at school so I can get the gist but.....

😄

It is good! It reminds me Dvorak Slavonic Dances https://musescore.com/crono23/slavonic-dances-op-46-anton-n-dvo-k-slavonic-dances-op-46-no-5-sko-n-1878. Very expressivce work! 

This is incredible! Enjoyed it a lot! I also appreciate that you share both the orchestra and the piano score. They will come in handy for learning both about orchestration and harmony in the future (now I cannot understand 99% of the chords you used xD). Really beautiful work!!

22 hours ago, MJFOBOE said:

Charming and witty ..... I hear Resphighi calling .... as well as your other friends ....  I am a fan~!  It brought a smile to my face. 😊

 

Thanks. Curiously enough, it's someone I wasn't very familiar with, but I've been studying parts of the Pini di Roma since the last 6-ish months.

21 hours ago, Quinn said:

Pretty clear you know what you're doing! There's nothing musical or score-wise to comment on. 

Can I deduce that from the short score, that you come up with a basic 'piano draft' first? To me, arranging is a particular skill within orchestration.

The piece is most likeable, exciting, energetic. The pauses suggest a series of short tableaux as in a ballet. You draw attention to the occasional likeness between (earlier) Stravinsky ballets (Petroushka) and Bartok. (I'm not familiar with Ellington to be able to connect him).

It could be considered 'light music' which is not to belittle it at all. In fact, for its lightness it's pretty demanding.

Altogether brilliant and thanks for the full score aside from Youtube.

 

Thanks Quinn! For orchestral scores, I tend to start with a short score instead of a piano score (i.e. more staves and more detail in general). However, since this was mostly and exercise where the orchestration was an afterthought, it thought it was enough. The orchestral score will eventually have way more counterpoint that the initial sketch, though.

I think the "light music" label here is perfectly fitting, I treat this as a study for a later, larger piece. I'm thinking of how Grieg fleshed out this kind of tunes into large dance forms where the themes are developed in a "classical" manner.

19 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

Hola, te comento en español porque me da la gana.

Me gusta mucho tu trabajo. Por un lado creo que aún sigues explorando estilos e historias (cosa que nunca se acaba en la vida, la verdad). Tampoco sé tu "background", tu formación, si eres autodidacta o no... Pero se te ve una muy buena base sólida.

Este trabajo es estupendo. Jeje, no sé si el Fum Fum Fum se puede entender del todo fuera de aquí, es una pieza genial.

Un abrazo. Y sigue haciendo música xD!....

Luis.

 

¡Gracias Luis! Pues la verdad es que no he estudiado nada de música y no me gano la vida con ello. Yo no tenía ni idea, pero resulta que Fum Fum Fum no sólo se ha traducido al castellano, sino que también a un montón de idiomas. Vaya sorpresa.

Un abrazo a ti también!

6 hours ago, Patrick Hasselbank said:

It is good! It reminds me Dvorak Slavonic Dances https://musescore.com/crono23/slavonic-dances-op-46-anton-n-dvo-k-slavonic-dances-op-46-no-5-sko-n-1878. Very expressivce work! 

 

Thank you! These pieces are in a more modest scope now, but I'll rework the first two (at least) into something longer like Dvorák's dances. Check also Grieg's Norwegian Dances, they're even cooler!

This is outstanding!

I am extremely impressed

Found video with this masterpiece by Frankfurt Radio Orchestra (Paavo Jarvi)- 

then found scores on it https://musescore.com/sheetmusic?text=Norwegian Dances 

then pluged in on my PC

then opened LA Scoring string

and now

I'm in heaven!!!!! 

I particularly like the last two pieces, as they are harmonically more "dense" (meaning chords change more frequently). Whoever also composes should know that it is quite difficult to maintain both complexity and aesthetics. One can easily invent their own "complex" frameworks and have a lot of fun playing with it, but the outcome isn't always convincing. I'm glad you are not one of those people. Just one thing, these movements are a bit too short in length, which means the materials are not fully developed. The duration is not significant enough to showcase your craftsmanship. Would love to hear more compositions from you.

On 8/7/2021 at 7:24 PM, panta rei said:

This is outstanding!

I am extremely impressed

 

Thank you!

On 8/5/2021 at 10:38 PM, Quinn said:

Aw, Luis. Not fair in Spanish. Lucky I studied Latin at school so I can get the gist but.....

😄

 

Si vis, latine fabulari possumus, sine problemate! uwu

On 8/14/2021 at 9:52 AM, Yanpeng Zhang said:

I particularly like the last two pieces, as they are harmonically more "dense" (meaning chords change more frequently). Whoever also composes should know that it is quite difficult to maintain both complexity and aesthetics. One can easily invent their own "complex" frameworks and have a lot of fun playing with it, but the outcome isn't always convincing. I'm glad you are not one of those people. Just one thing, these movements are a bit too short in length, which means the materials are not fully developed. The duration is not significant enough to showcase your craftsmanship. Would love to hear more compositions from you.

 

Thank you! I think that the fact the melodies are very simple leaves me a lot of room to go nuts with the harmonies. As my post says, this is a study for a larger work, where I'll (hopefully) manage to flesh out and combine some of these melodies in a manner similar to Grieg's Norwegian Dances, with transitions, developments, etc.

I hope you'll press ahead with the larger work -- and think about how to develop the sketches you've got into a broader concept. Development and large scale structure will be more important and valuable than working in more tunes.

My favorite episode was the first one, by far. Great colors, nice harmonic twists and turns. I think "Fum, Fum, Fum" was the least successful of the set -- too uniformly heavy, and the snare drum detracts. I see your "trivial quote", but I'd advise not needlessly annoying your bassoonists because good ones are hard to find.

Tom (new to the site)

Interesting mix of Ellington and Stravinsky 💯Even if you look at the scores of their melodies you can see big diferences between classic music and jazz but with the single root. 

https://musescore.com/user/236086/scores/222191 (Stravinsky)

https://musescore.com/user/5887471/scores/1432131 (Ellington)