Three Scenes for Ensemble- Nicholas Schuman

Hey all! I just completed what was for me a massive project, Three Scenes for Ensemble is a set of chamber pieces (one of my first compositions) which I composed and recorded at the legendary Hansa Studios in Berlin. I felt this would be a great place to get some feedback. I know it's a ton of music, but it would be incredibly helpful to even if focus on one measure to show an example of different choices I could have made orchestration-wise, harmonically, notation-wise, etc... Thank you in advance and I hope you enjoy! If you would like to support please consider also listening on Spotify. 

Score Video:

About the Music! 

Credits:

Composer: Nicholas Schuman, Flute: Thomas Hahn,  Oboe: Anna Schulkowski, Clarinet: Constance Morvan, French Horn: Melinda Gál, Piano: Daniel Zhao, Cello: Josiah Simonds, Sound Engineer: Arne Bergner, Assistant Engineer: Marian Hafenstein

Hello @Nicholas Schuman,

Welcome to our forum!

I really appreciate your effort and love in composing. I have never seen a composer self-analyse his own piece with so much details.

23 hours ago, Nicholas Schuman said:

I know it's a ton of music

It’s not a ton of music, at least it’s not an hour of music in your first post haha! I will try to analyse the first piece first.

I enjoy the aura of the piece and your free tonality gives the piece fresh air with different moods and climaxes build up which you write down in your own analysis. Great job! The playing is great as well and it’s an honour to record your music in a great studio!

I take a photo of the thematic analysis page to follow the motives. Sometimes the use of motive and labelling is not too easy to be linked. For example I find the red theme 2 as marked in the opening thematic analysis very different from its first presentation in the introduction, and as a listener and analyst without the labelling I won’t consider them come from the same motive! I love your treatment of the blue motive when it’s shared by three instruments and acts like some kind of Klangfarbenmelodie, but in some cases I think sometimes it’s hard to define the motive and notice it, when there are many motives happening at the same time and not very clearly defined separately.

The D# in b.140 flute should be an Eb I think.

I really love the Intropsection one. I will continue to listen to remaining pieces. You may also take some time to review pieces in our forum from other talented members and possibly review them too! Thx for joining and sharing your music here!

Henry

Hi Henry!

What an honor to have such a thorough and kind response, especially to my first post. I want you to know that it truly means a lot to me. 

Yeah, my themes are all over the place and as much as I wanted to make sense of it all, i still have much to learn about themes and development. Much of it came from the stress of a deadline (for school) and writing segmented sections which are later forced together. I love how you discussed it's 'aura' :). You gave me new confidence with this response and very useful criticism which I will learn from. I'm most definitely very excited to go check out and discuss music from other composers on this forum.

Cheers!

Nick Schuman

9 hours ago, Nicholas Schuman said:

What an honor to have such a thorough and kind response, especially to my first post.

Hot dang boy are you lucky. You got a review from @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu. Man, just typing @H pulls up Henry first. He's our forums most illustrious member, and anything he says is Chinese wisdom we all learn from. 

Sorry, I'm an unsuccessful clown with a guitar. 🤔

This was great! And wow, for your first piece, you have a studio performance? Wow, holy opportunity! I hope you asked them every question in the book, because the more you know of their instruments, the better you'll compose for them. Do they work with your school? What's it like to study abroad and record in Berlin? It sounds like you have an incredibly interesting story to tell 🙂 

I agree with Henry with the score being rife with labeling and coloring. It's cool to see your analysis, and there is an audience for that. It shows you care enough to explain in further details questions listeners might have, or that you know your stuff. But I'd post a version of just the score too; I bet it would get more views than the analysis version 😉 

Your music is lovely, and for your first composition, this shows a lot of promise. I like that your background is film scoring and the like. It'll help shape your voice, because it's your inspiration. But I really encourage you to study up on the great composers. Watch Youtube for hours of the score videos. It's free, bruh. Look up Romantic-era composers first; it seems to suit the style of the film people. But let it lead you to others. Study scores of Chopin and Beethoven (and WOW, many more!) if you're writing for piano. A lot of your parts are elementary and conservative, especially in solo moments. Guess what, that's ok! You made it work, you went through the recording process, the whole shebang. You COMPLETED your project, and you followed through. That's what it takes to make it in my eyes, to see it through to the end. Congrats 🙂 

My advice, like I said, is to keep studying up on the instruments. I forget... do you play an instrument? It would be greatly beneficial to you to continue to explore one instrument in it's full capacity and to write for it in tandem with your school studies and projects. I'm a guitarist, and my knowledge gained of the instrument always leads me to perpetual new ideas about what other instruments might be able to achieve. 

You seem like you have a lot to offer the musical world, and hopefully the forum here. There are loads of talented people here to learn from, and their advice is free. And if you want piano pieces performed, Henry Ng charges $1,000,000 USD for a complete full album. It's worth it

Oh yeah, welcome 😄 

You guys are awesome, thank you so much for the kind words once again. Im actually studying production and sound engineering at Catalyst Institute in Berlin, and for my final graduation project we get to propose any large scale project that we want and we had about 4 months to make it all happen. It was absolutely incredible, only the cellist was from my school but everyone else are working musicians here in Berlin. I bothered them as much as I could with questions and comments and my greatest success throughout the process was the musicians themselves somewhat enjoying the music. That meant a great deal to me since they're true professionals.

I do play piano, most of my life actually, but I never really practiced so now I just use it as a resource to write music. I fell in love with classical music only about 4 years ago, before that I was into classic rock and some current pop/indie music, but man it hit me like a sledge hammer and for reason I just felt like I could do it myself. The biggest issue with composing is that I read music at a kindergarten level, like barely at all. So much of the simplicity is me just not knowing how to score what I'm thinking of or even playing on the piano. The main reason I felt confident doing this whole project is because i picked up some things in terms of orchestration, so understanding the instruments even a little bit was enough for me to jump right in. 

Score reading is one of my weak points for sure. As often as I do it, it's so hard for me to actually use what I learn and usually still go with my instinct. I will keep working at it, possibly by narrowing my scope so I don't get overwhelmed thinking that I need to analyze a whole symphony.

I love being abroad man, Berlin is absolutely incredible. A true treasure of a city, I would recommend it to anyone. the change in scenery has also been a great excuse to push myself as much as I have been, let me know if you're ever in town! 😄 

Thanks again man!

Best,

Nick Schuman