Nameless Band Piece I have been working on for 4 months

Hello!

This is definitely my most ambitious composition project. Between starting college, taking composition lessons, hearing all sorts of concerts, switching to be a composition major, playing in Wind Ensemble, and so much more, I have created the culmination of all the inspiration I have felt from my freshmen year of college.

Please consider spending 5 minutes to check out this project. I have spent well over 100 hours creating this (before engraving) and am really excited to hear your thoughts. I plan to submit this piece to a few competitions.

This is the second movement of a planned 2 movement piece.

A piece full of your personal brand of minimalistic and emotive ostinati, sprinkled with your characteristic short melodic motives - it definitely has some bombast!  It is quite busy and scored for a rather involved percussion section.  You employ many cool orchestral effects and the orchestration overall is really interesting.  You use layers of sound and the piece breathes with frequent tempo fluctuations that give it character.  As far as naming the piece is concerned, when listening, I often envisioned the march of some kind of gentle giant (or some kind of creature) especially near the end (around 4:25 and on with the tuba and low ostinati) although that part does sound kind of menacing.  In other places throughout the piece it has a kind of jaunty and lighthearted character to it so that's why I think the giant is 'gentle' LoL.  That's just my take on it though.  Thanks for sharing and I'm glad to see you're so inspired by your freshman year of school and that you managed to find time to compose this very substantial work amidst your many activities!  

What kind of feedback would you like? I have listened to the piece and can give overall impressions, or I can delve into the score and the musicality if you want a truly gritty review.

9 minutes ago, Tónskáld said:

What kind of feedback would you like? I have listened to the piece and can give overall impressions, or I can delve into the score and the musicality if you want a truly gritty review.

 

A bit of both, please!

9 hours ago, Eickso said:

A bit of both, please!

A bit of both, then.

Overall, I hear texture. Lots of it. Compared to orchestral pieces, band works tend to sound more — what's the word? — punctuated, and your piece is no exception. I suppose this is owing to all the wonderful sounds a nice percussion section can make, which you employ to great effect. But even aside from the percussion, you've put to use a great deal of musical devices with all the instruments: muted trumpets, stopped horns, staccati, marcati, trills, and the list goes on. The resultant effect is that of flavor, excitement, and fun!

I am impressed with your notating/engraving skills and have little to say about that. Of note, I would recommend placing dynamics in between rising and falling hairpins so that your players know how loudly/softly you intend for them to play. The opening few lines of the bass clarinet are a good example of this issue. I notice further the sheer amount of articulations in the piece (accented staccato, accented tenuto) and wonder if perhaps a simple marcato or staccato might suffice in many cases, at least for the purpose of making the score a bit cleaner. Really, though, you seem to know what you're doing here, and I applaud you!

Musically, the piece unfortunately falls behind your other compositional skills. For so much texture and articulation, we are really only treated with two modalities: Eb major and E major. There are no cadences, no departures to related (or unrelated) keys. The harmonies employed are typically major 2nd chords, with falling stepwise scales as counterpoint. The themes appear to be undeveloped or absent entirely; at times this seems like an exercise in how many tuplet species can be played simultaneously. Sure, the palette is enriched by the wonderful percussive effects you use, but without strong musicality, it runs the risk of becoming bland. Like listening to the pages of a book turning rather than hearing the story read. This is offset a bit (in my opinion) by your use of contrasting dynamics, although the competing tuplets do make the musical "message" rather confusing on occasion. I just can't help but wonder what you're truly capable of, musically speaking, if you were to strengthen your themes and harmonies. Not to worry, though. It will get better the more you compose.

All in all, it's a fine piece and one you should be proud of! I wish you the best in your competitive endeavors, and look forward to your future submissions to this site!

38 minutes ago, Tónskáld said:

I am impressed with your notating/engraving skills and have little to say about that. Of note, I would recommend placing dynamics in between rising and falling hairpins so that your players know how loudly/softly you intend for them to play. The opening few lines of the bass clarinet are a good example of this issue. I notice further the sheer amount of articulations in the piece (accented staccato, accented tenuto) and wonder if perhaps a simple marcato or staccato might suffice in many cases, at least for the purpose of making the score a bit cleaner. Really, though, you seem to know what you're doing here, and I applaud you!

Musically, the piece unfortunately falls behind your other compositional skills. For so much texture and articulation, we are really only treated with two modalities: Eb major and E major. There are no cadences, no departures to related (or unrelated) keys. The harmonies employed are typically major 2nd chords, with falling stepwise scales as counterpoint. The themes appear to be undeveloped or absent entirely; at times this seems like an exercise in how many tuplet species can be played simultaneously. Sure, the palette is enriched by the wonderful percussive effects you use, but without strong musicality, it runs the risk of becoming bland. Like listening to the pages of a book turning rather than hearing the story read. This is offset a bit (in my opinion) by your use of contrasting dynamics, although the competing tuplets do make the musical "message" rather confusing on occasion. I just can't help but wonder what you're truly capable of, musically speaking, if you were to strengthen your themes and harmonies. Not to worry, though. It will get better the more you compose.

Hello! Thank you for your listen and comment. I’m just going to lightly touch on notation, but I do not plan on actually engraving the score and parts until I get comments from everyone like my teachers and the conductor I wrote this for. To that matter, alignment and the overall look of the score will be MUCH more professional. I take it pretty seriously when the piece itself is finished.

If you look at PeterthePaperComposer’s response, you’ll notice that this style of fragmented, undeveloped themes is almost a staple in my music. I am not saying that as a point of ignorance; it has been an ongoing part of my writing, but I argue even now this piece is the furthest iteration of me pushing my musicality in all the ways you commented on. With every piece I write it becomes increasingly complex. My palette is not quite diversified enough, as I have been writing for just under 5 years. This last year I just started to take lessons and switched to be a composition major specifically so I have the time, resources, and support to work on these things you have pointed out. 
 

It is a long process, but, for where I am at, you would be surprised to see how much of a departure in simplicity even this piece is. I think it is why I am so proud of it. It might still be lacking, but it is a crazy improvement from previous large ensemble pieces.

I appreciate your comments here and your listen!

3 minutes ago, Eickso said:

If you look at PeterthePaperComposer’s response, you’ll notice that this style of fragmented, undeveloped themes is almost a staple in my music. I am not saying that as a point of ignorance; it has been an ongoing part of my writing, but I argue even now this piece is the furthest iteration of me pushing my musicality in all the ways you commented on. With every piece I write it becomes increasingly complex. My palette is not quite diversified enough, as I have been writing for just under 5 years. This last year I just started to take lessons and switched to be a composition major specifically so I have the time, resources, and support to work on these things you have pointed out. 

Ah, that is good to know! I do seem to recall reviewing one of your pieces a couple years ago (when I was active on this site), and what you've presented here is a great show of improvement from your previous work — and that's the best a composer can hope for! Constant improvement, constant development of your own voice.

13 minutes ago, Eickso said:

It is a long process, but, for where I am at, you would be surprised to see how much of a departure in simplicity even this piece is. I think it is why I am so proud of it. It might still be lacking, but it is a crazy improvement from previous large ensemble pieces.

Please know that your music is not simple. I did not mean to imply that. My intent was to point out possible areas for improvement in relation to your other compositional skills. If you're proud of what you've written, then you are in a very tiny minority of composers (who, as artists, are often very critical of themselves). Just keep on churning out music that you like.

A tiny word of advice, though, from one who has had a similar composing journey: avoid complexity for complexity's sake. Make every note count. Occam's Razor also finds application in the world of music!

Best,

Jörfi

Hi - I really enjoyed the rhythmic texture/fabric you created incorporating various percussion instruments and using the wind instruments to augment the effect.  Initially, I was enthralled with music ... I understand from reading previous posts that this is the style you want to develop; however, after a bit - I wanted some melodic/thematic lines/variations throw in - which I feel would have enhanced this delightful work. 

Mark