Mirror Dance for Reed Quintet (My biggest piece ever)

This has been my main project for the last few months, it's my biggest project ever by far. This is the first completed draft, and there are lots of sections I plan to work on and make better. There are some midi errors that you will notice if you follow with the score. There shouldn't be an auditory break between sections, but alas. Please give feedback, and enjoy!

Hi @veps!

What a cool minimalistic style you've adopted!  Very unique choice of instruments for a unique wind quintet!  But this worries me a bit:

On 8/19/2024 at 10:49 PM, veps said:

There shouldn't be an auditory break between sections, but alas.

Your piece is so continuous that in order for the players to catch their breath they'd need to circular breathe to pull this off.  Although there are tiny breaks between notes, for the oboe and bassoon especially that won't be enough time to release unused air and take in new air.  And the other players can't just sneak in a breath in between notes either unless you're okay with some of your phrases sounding cut off or cut short.  I really like the music though!  The 2nd movement is my favorite.  Thanks for sharing!

4 minutes ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Hi @veps!

What a cool minimalistic style you've adopted!  Very unique choice of instruments for a unique wind quintet!  But this worries me a bit:

Your piece is so continuous that in order for the players to catch their breath they'd need to circular breathe to pull this off.  Although there are tiny breaks between notes, for the oboe and bassoon especially that won't be enough time to release unused air and take in new air.  And the other players can't just sneak in a breath in between notes either unless you're okay with some of your phrases sounding cut off or cut short.  I really like the music though!  The 2nd movement is my favorite.  Thanks for sharing!

 

As a wind player, and from advice from other wind players, they usually will find a note to drop to sneak in a breath. Wind players are very used to playing passages that don't have opportunities for breaths. Also, when I played it on bassoon, I was able to sneak in a breath during the triplet eighth note breaks. Thank you so much for listening! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I also like the minimalist aesthetic of this piece. It's quite mesmeric!

Think the rendition could benefit from a better sound library, especially for the saxophone. I wonder which one did you use?

Do you have any ideas about how to include your aleatoric section in the rendition?

It's something I've been thinking about recently, and I don't think it can be done with MuseScore. 

Maybe Dorico or Sibelius will do this?

I suppose you could just make one aleatoric choice, and put that in your rendition.