Yes. 'Tis I, for those who remember me from circa August 2007. :wave: I will attempt to be more active this time around, but no promises made, as this is a very busy year for me.

Little background: I've been playing piano for almost nine years, playing clarinet for about four and a half years, and I've been composing for maybe around three and half years, but very spasmodically, with wild capricious bouts of inspiration and long periods of emptiness. :\ I currently use Finale PrintMusic 2008 to write my pieces.

PLEASE give as much constructive feedback as possible. I want to improve as a composer and as a criticism taker-er. :P THANKS EVERYONE, YOU ALL ROCK!

This piece is loosely based on a fugue's structure, and it was inspired by Bach's Little Fugue. It's written for a woodwind quintet.

The .mus file I posted used Finale PrintMusic 2008. The dynamics I used were mainly for playback reasons. This will be the case for the majority of my postings, so don't say I didn't tell you. :P

Actually, the fugue concept worked very well in this piece, and I felt that your ideas for variation were pretty fresh, which was nice. There were a couple places where the chords/dissonances didn't really work for me from the beginning of the stretto section to the end, though, so try to work on those a bit.

One question: are the glisses supposed to have each note articulated or have more of a slide-feel?

I was going for more of a slide feel; I think it's called an air gliss? But I was aiming to make the first set of horn glisses rip up towards the end of the beat. The ending glisses were supposed to be more articulated, I guess, excluding the last horn gliss.

Hmmm...isn't that pretty freaking hard to do? That's how my girlfriend acts :P (she's a clarinet major)

Wait, articulated glisses as in each note tongued?! I thought you meant distinct notes being heard versus the first and last note in the gliss :P In that case, they're all slide-ish. I didn't add in slurs as well.

If you want specific notes for a glissando with a specific rhythm and specific timing, you would usually refer to it as a glissando (with gliss.) written over it. If you are just aiming for a slide (say, like the opening 9 seconds of this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYwYj3U_f18)), it would usually be referred as a portamento (with port.). port. is especially used to refer to string instruments.

(This is just based off of experience.)

In the ending set of "glisses," I want them to "rip" it and pass the note on like a baton.

I saw one of my friend's horn parts once and on the rip part it was 3 sixteenth-valve grace notes on the note you rip up to and (rip) written on above the staff. Not sure for the woodwinds though, but I think grace notes would convey the idea better. That being said, it is possible that there are several ways to write the same music when it comes to sound effects and special techniques.

I saw one of my friend's horn parts once and on the rip part it was 3 sixteenth-valve grace notes on the note you rip up to and (rip) written on above the staff. Not sure for the woodwinds though, but I think grace notes would convey the idea better. That being said, it is possible that there are several ways to write the same music when it comes to sound effects and special techniques.

Grace notes would usually work better on horn parts, yes, e.g. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Thanks, I will shoot for grace notes :) Or maybe have slurred sixteenth notes or something.

sixteenth notes might be a little too slow for a rip

I like this fugue. It's interesting to say the least. ^_^

I'm not real well educated past the first 20 chapters of Chorale Harmony/ Writing, but I love the counterpoint work in the piece, I don't think that I could pick out any place that did not seem to fit the fugal style. Very Well done. Gliss's are a nice touch, but maybe consider grace notes to maintain the fugue style.

Does anyone else get the same problem (w/ FireFox) that when you try to upload something/save something to your computer, like you click "browse" and nothing pops up? Then you have to restart your fxking modem and browser (and sometime computer) to get it to pop up? And then the window finally opens, but the browser fails and restarts? Then you have to repeat the cycle until it finally uploads?!

Well, that's what's happening to me. When I get it to work, I will edit my revised fugue (I still have to work on the clarinet part towards the end) onto this post, and I will post up two more pieces. One piece I've already uploaded to this forum a long time ago, and another I've taken from various melodies I've written in pieces that I gave up on. I entered both into the PTA Reflections "Wow!" Contest, regardless of the fact that the Finale MIDI sounds suck and the rules are stupid and vague.

So yes. Off to RL I go. I just started school and I have drama practice everyday, but I promise I'll still try to be active.

EDIT: Well, a miracle just happened and I have it up. I'll go try to attach the other two now.

Deathbed Reminiscences - irid2revmp3refl.mp3

This is the quilt of a piece made from fragments of "failed" pieces. Here's what I wrote for the artist's statement: What is it like to lie on one's deathbed? Is one engulfed by overwhelming recollections, reviewing the highlights of his life? (Yes, corny I know, but the most trouble I actually had with this piece was the title and the artist's statement, because what I had in mind totally deviated from the theme ("Wow!").

Annoyance - ty2rev.mp3

This is the old piece. Here's what I wrote for the artist's statement: False promises resound like broken records. When they seem to dissipate, the mind torture increases threefold, and a violent catharsis ensues.

I was gonna have my friend GPO-ize the first piece, but he had to rebuild his computer and I told him last-minute, so I felt bad.

I hope you do better than I did. It worked really well and I like the harmonies. It would sound awesome with GPO or performed live. I really think this could "wow" the judges with many of the things here. The key changes worked really well, the accompaniment seemed pretty exciting most of the time, the melody really came out. Yes, it was pretty cliche in some spots, but that's totally ok for what you're doing this for. Good luck! I hope your judges aren't retarded (and above all, I hope none of them are Michael McClean)!

Hey Aldric long time.

That first piece have many pleasant melodies and sections. But I noticed many of the early phrases where too short. I was waiting for the phrase to be longer. I think the part that seem more affected with this are those forte parts. I can't comment in the structure of the piece since you said are fragments of pieces. However I liked how you keep things moving. Also, strangely there were many moments in this piece that reminded me to a variety of music I have heard in the past.

The second piece got stuck somewhat in my mind, and was the one I liked more. The structure here looks not so organized but have nice ideas(like the first one). What I see is that this piece need to work, is all those transitions you did from one part to another. They seem to not work so well. Also, this piece makes me remind of old stuffs I have heard in the past, but I can't recall any. o_O Ah, anyway, I hope I can hear that riff used again, I liked it. :>

And you are very disappeared! Well, maybe because I am going to bed when you are just waking up, lol.

I'll edit the .MUS files onto this post when I get it to work. Gah.

I'm thinking of starting a marching band field show piece. I must get inspiration for a theme, though. Does anyone know any good field show composers/arrangers? Idk if anyone actually looks them up or anything, but yeah, names would be helpful. ^_^


I hope you do better than I did. It worked really well and I like the harmonies. It would sound awesome with GPO or performed live. I really think this could "wow" the judges with many of the things here. The key changes worked really well, the accompaniment seemed pretty exciting most of the time, the melody really came out. Yes, it was pretty cliche in some spots, but that's totally ok for what you're doing this for. Good luck! I hope your judges aren't retarded (and above all, I hope none of them are Michael McClean)!

Thanks! And yeah, I admit it was cliche, but I did that so that even the non-musical judges would be able to relate to it or something, idk, that was my reasoning. :P


Hey Aldric long time.

That first piece have many pleasant melodies and sections. But I noticed many of the early phrases where too short. I was waiting for the phrase to be longer. I think the part that seem more affected with this are those forte parts. I can't comment in the structure of the piece since you said are fragments of pieces. However I liked how you keep things moving. Also, strangely there were many moments in this piece that reminded me to a variety of music I have heard in the past.

The second piece got stuck somewhat in my mind, and was the one I liked more. The structure here looks not so organized but have nice ideas(like the first one). What I see is that this piece need to work, is all those transitions you did from one part to another. They seem to not work so well. Also, this piece makes me remind of old stuffs I have heard in the past, but I can't recall any. o_O Ah, anyway, I hope I can hear that riff used again, I liked it. :>

And you are very disappeared! Well, maybe because I am going to bed when you are just waking up, lol.

My intentions were for those phrases to be short because I wanted to capture the essence of brevity in each chapter of the person's life. That, and because of the 5-minute time constraint :P Go ahead, comment on the structure! I didn't mean that fragments of old pieces were cut and pasted in order, I only took the melodies, arranged the harmonies, and welded them together.

Mmm, I guess I could work on that last transition to the frenetic ending. Speaking of which, I may have to work on the messy ending. Would you mind telling me how I could improve structure? I actually thought this was one of my better pieces with a sensible structure. Well, actually, it's not supposed to have structure because it's supposed to be annoying and repetitive, but I guess it needs it.

Thanks for taking the time to review my pieces!

Mmkay, I FINALLY got the .mus files up. :teeth: This is not the score I sent in for judging (it's much too messy).

For Deathbed Reminiscences (irid2mp3), I split the score up into three .mus files, but for your convenience (and mine) I just uploaded the one w/ all of the parts. There might be a few differences between the final rendered mp3. For Annoyance (ty), again, the score is messy.

I did a lot of things for the sake of playback, so keep that in mind. :)

Not working on anything new ATM, much too busy w/ school, but I will try to squeeze in a couple of hours each week, maybe. We'll see.

Reminder: you need at least 2008 to open the .mus files.

*saves thread from dying*

I haven't composed in a while because, apart from our symphonic winds band trip to Hamamatsu, Japan, and a lead role in the school musical, I'm stuck making Songfest arrangements (it's kind of like a show choir competition between the classes (go 2010!)). I Believe (from Honey) and Stand Up for Love (Destiny's Child). I would post them up, but I don't think you'd want to listen to them, given that I finished them at 4 in the morning, and they only have the vocal parts, so I didn't write in the piano accompaniment. Boring, no?

Instead, I'll put up this instrumental I made of Hellogoodbye's "Here In Your Arms." I made it for a music video project for World History, where we had to replace the lyrics of a song to make it informative about a historical topic of our choosing. I don't have the lyrics with me, but I do know that our group wrote it about good ol' Vladimir Lenin. Enjoy.

I liked the fugue a lot...way better than I ever got when I was studying Bach.

I liked here in your arms. I thought the melody could have been developed more though. started to sound repetitive about half way through. Maybe some voice exchange with the guitar too. On the whole, I thought it was well written. Definitely a good tune to be the background of some video.

very nice!

not bad I enjoyed all of your pieces, but I think you should have a full orchestra in "irid" and get rid of the synth, just an opinion tho. GREAT JOB!

Thank you for the comments! ^_^

For "irid," I intended there to be an entire string section, but PrintMusic is limited to 24 staves, so I had to compact and sacrifice to make it all fit.

OH dear. The Here in Your Arms instrumental had some weird chokes of the drum set,so I don't know what happened to my snare drum or crash cymbals. Argh.

So, SongFest is on this Saturday, I hope to get more composition time after SongFest and the SAT (I'm taking it on pi day next week) and before the big trip. I confess I haven't even touched PrintMusic (unless it was for SongFest arrangements) since January.

*blows dust off this thread*

Well, I have to say that my Japan trip with the symphonic winds was pretty darn awesome though. Especially getting to play as a guest at the All-Japan Wind Ensemble Conference at Hamamatsu. That was amazing. Listening to their robotic bands, though, was something else. Their technique was through the roof, but the balance could've been better, and the feel of some of the songs was lost. American bands sound more warm compared to Japanese bands, but both are great in their own way.

And our class won SongFest! One more year and we'll have a four-peat! Woohoo, it was worth all the work ^_^ Also, "Annoyance" placed second in state for the PTSA reflections thing. :) I am so determined to take first next year.

Here's a transcription I made of a Nightwish (see avatar and siggy) song called "Stargazers." It was on their second album and is one of my favorites of theirs. I'll post the audio only because the .mus file is a mess. I'm not finished yet, I'm a bit more than halfway done. It's a little listening exercise I've given myself. ^_^ Sorry about the distracting pops.

Here's the original song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCVehuXlJxk

Also, "Annoyance" placed second in state for the PTSA reflections thing. :) I am so determined to take first next year.


Don't get your hopes up; I got second two years in a row and deserved first both times. x_x What kind of song won first in your state this year?

Worse part, they misspelled my name.

I don't know what it's like. Though I'm really curious as to how it sounds, I didn't get to hear it. It had a Japanese title, Fuyu no Otozure, though I have no idea what it means.

EDIT: I just learned that it means Winter's Arrival, so yeah.

Oh, well maybe the song that won in your state was actually good, then; I know that wasn't the case in my state. That's what happens when the judge is Michael McClean...

I just Wikipedia'd him. Wow, he was a producer for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Nice... And it's funny how it says his genre is Mormon pop, LOL. I mean, I know about Christian pop, but I've never really thought about Mormon pop. What about Buddhist pop and Jewish pop? Lol.

But yeah, I'll try and see if I can contact the state winner. Maybe with her permission, I can post it up here if you guys want.

lol, I have nothing against the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (my dad's in it, after all), for the record. In fact, we like to affectionately call it the "motab". Anyway... :topic: Bad self! *hits self on wrist* I'll comment on music in a bit.

I was digging through some old WIPs, and I found this snippet (from January '08). I think I made it when I was on YC, playing a composition game. It was sometime right after I got PrintMusic '08, so I think I was just playing around with the larger-scale instrumentation I had at my disposal. Right now, I'm posting it as is, but I'll definitely get around to revising it. I'll play around with the orchestration, maybe add a piccolo, and take out some of those glisses at the end. Any other suggestions?

I love the melody in some spots (such as m 25 in the trumpet)! Definitely an interesting piece!

wow, you really seem to like glisses huh? :D

and hemiolas. This seems just a tad slow paced for a circus song but that just an opinion. It really just depends on a lot of things.

Is it possible to get MIDI or Mp3? I don't use finale anymore :( hehe.

finale reader is available for free on the finale site

thanks!

Raise your hands if you remember me! :D

Mmph. So, senior year. Last year of high school. One tough cookie.

And I KNEW that I was going to use being busy for "more important matters" as an excuse to not "waste my time" composing. I love composing, I just hate my work ethic that tells me to de-prioritize it. SO, as my Senior Project, I'm composing a piece for my school's famed symphonic winds group. Yes. This will be a circa six-month-long project, so bear with me.

Rough ideas? You bet! First, my idea was to base it on the Great Fire of Meireki, but then I decided to save that for later. Then, I thought I would make three short movements, each describing a different poem from a different time period, which I scratched.

THEN, I brought up the idea to dedicate the piece to the most awesomely great c/o 2010!!! I would make each graduating senior play a feature, or maybe have a section where seniors exclusively play [possibly while everyone else ducks]. I would make a melody that, in the end, would counter a bombastic rendition of our alma mater. Tentatively, my project is titled "2010 Overture."

Ambitious, no? Especially considering that I haven't done a piece for concert band yet! I'm working to get a mentorship from an Emeritus composition/theory professor at the local university. I'm so excited!

And my friend's gonna hook me up w/ GPO 4 :O Man, I gotta get back to composing again, I haven't done a piece in aaaaaaages. Partly due to my recently discovered blogging addiction.

Peace! ^_^

/encouragement 1

Raise your hands if you remember me! :D

Mmph. So, senior year. Last year of high school. One tough cookie.

And I KNEW that I was going to use being busy for "more important matters" as an excuse to not "waste my time" composing. I love composing, I just hate my work ethic that tells me to de-prioritize it. SO, as my Senior Project, I'm composing a piece for my school's famed symphonic winds group. Yes. This will be a circa six-month-long project, so bear with me.

Rough ideas? You bet! First, my idea was to base it on the Great Fire of Meireki, but then I decided to save that for later. Then, I thought I would make three short movements, each describing a different poem from a different time period, which I scratched.

THEN, I brought up the idea to dedicate the piece to the most awesomely great c/o 2010!!! I would make each graduating senior play a feature, or maybe have a section where seniors exclusively play [possibly while everyone else ducks]. I would make a melody that, in the end, would counter a bombastic rendition of our alma mater. Tentatively, my project is titled "2010 Overture."

Ambitious, no? Especially considering that I haven't done a piece for concert band yet! I'm working to get a mentorship from an Emeritus composition/theory professor at the local university. I'm so excited!

And my friend's gonna hook me up w/ GPO 4 :O Man, I gotta get back to composing again, I haven't done a piece in aaaaaaages. Partly due to my recently discovered blogging addiction.

Peace! ^_^

Haha. I'm in final year of high school too. I have 1 month until I'm done with high school. Good luck!

I wonder how you are going to do this Overture! Haha. I don’t have any ideas for it though.. ><

Umm, hi everyone. *sheepishly creeps in* So I've graduated high school and am now attending Stanford. I'm trying to make more time to compose stuff, but I'm much more inclined to just arrange stuff 'cause I think it's more fun. :P

So, updates on the composition. I have successfully completed it. The music theory professor basically told me he felt he was too old to help out, and other local music theory professionals either didn't respond or couldn't commit. So, last-minute, I got my school's past principal to help me because he was a band director and I thought he might be able to help out. He did, to an extent, but it was mostly for critique and goal-setting (which were both essential). I started off with a simple melody, varied the melody, sneaked in the alma mater, quoted 1812 Overture (with minor tweaks to hint at the alma mater--and I also briefly quoted Firebird and All You Need Is Love, for fun!), played around with a few motifs I derived from the alma mater, and then I ended with the prominent alma mater with the simple melody acting as a counter-melody.

I also got my high school band to perform it at our Spring concert; unfortunately, I didn't give them enough time to practice it, and . . . it could've been better. It had its moments, but I wasn't fond of the way my band director interpreted it, so I won't post it; attached is an .mp3 rendering. I hope you enjoy! ^_^

Also, here's a short and sweet arrangement of "Angels, From the Realms of Glory" that I wrote for this past Christmas. ^_^ Happy holidays! (:

overture was very nice. it does seem pretty hard for high school kids to play, but then again I never played for such thing. :/

Anywho... some of the transitions were amazing. Only problem I really have is that... you didn't have a melody that could be appealing to the high school kids. I think they might have walked out without having to remember anything about the melody.

Angels, from the Realm of Glory was pretty good. It was short though.... but then again no one likes a person who keeps on bragging about his/her glory.

overture was very nice. it does seem pretty hard for high school kids to play, but then again I never played for such thing. :/

Anywho... some of the transitions were amazing. Only problem I really have is that... you didn't have a melody that could be appealing to the high school kids. I think they might have walked out without having to remember anything about the melody.

Angels, from the Realm of Glory was pretty good. It was short though.... but then again no one likes a person who keeps on bragging about his/her glory.

Thank you. ^_^ I can assure you that it is very playable. I'd consulted with two band directors who told me we could play it, and I myself have witnessed the band play much more difficult pieces.

This was one of my first dilemmas: constructing a counter-melody to our alma mater that could act as a stand-alone melody. I do think it's rather lackluster, but I think it serves its purpose--to further glorify the alma mater. :D (I've attached my arrangement of the alma mater for reference.)

And about Angels, thanks! It was just meant as a short composition exercise for me and a little something to share Christmas cheer with others, nothing fancy.

Hey everyone from the Ichigo community, so I'd *reeeeally* appreciate feedback from more members on "2010 Overture" because this was a milestone for me to accomplish (my first piece written for concert band) and I'd like to write more concert band pieces in the future. Thank you! ^_^

And here's the .MUS file and the .PDF file, hopefully they will help you in criticizing my piece. The .MP3 can be found a couple of posts up, along with the background of this piece. (: Hope to hear from the Ichigo community soon!

I would deeply appreciate feedback on "2010 Overture," pleeeeease. Thanks! ^_^

And just so this isn't a bump in desperation, I shall leave you with a piece my friend and I co-wrote about a year ago. My friend is a brilliant tuba player, and I was his accompanist during a competition of sorts. In between rehearsal time, we would take breaks and composed together. He is untrained/inexperienced in music composition but he is stubborn so a lot of these ideas were his. :P Here it is, "Mourning Dew." Definitely one of the weirder pieces I've written, hehe. 'Cause it was just written for fun, no comments needed on this one (unless you absolutely must, haha) but again, I'd really appreciate any feedback on "2010 Overture." You can find the .MUS and the .PDF in the previous post--and if you keep looking up, you can find the .MP3 file and some background info. (: Thanks in advance!

Here are my two cents on the Overture. Before you read the material below, I apologize if I sound condescending - I really don't mean to be like so.

In the introductory part, I would really prefer a chorale-type deal for the whole thing - not just the last five bars, along with some rubato in the beginning. I don't know why I feel this way, but I feel like the march part is - just a "typical" band piece, if you get what I mean, which reminded me of a piece I played in my sophomore year of high school:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ggOOHbhpEU

The piece seems to be more like - okay, so we have one fragment here, one there, then that fragment repeats, then let's repeat the two together, then let's end with the first fragment with tutti, go into the first section, and let's turn this into a march with the same fragments, all fanfare-like and everything.

I just basically wanted something more out of the piece. I mean, if you want to, you can disregard all I said above and keep it the way you want it, but you asked for feedback and here you have it. :heh:

As for the Mourning Dew, the chords reminded me, of, oddly enough, this piece:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hajwg6kxpQ4.

I don't have too much more to say about the piece.

Hey Clarinetist, thanks for the response! (:


In the introductory part, I would really prefer a chorale-type deal for the whole thing - not just the last five bars, along with some rubato in the beginning. I don't know why I feel this way, but I feel like the march part is - just a "typical" band piece

I'm not sure what you mean by "the last five bars." And actually, I was pretty much going for a "typical" concert band piece, since this was my first one and I was just starting to explore the medium. I didn't want to stray too far from the norm. Baby steps, haha. I personally think that because it's the first instance of the theme, it should be plainly stated without rubato. I guess the first complete interaction between the two statements (in whole)--the minor variation--could use some rubato, but even then, I wanted it to be clear to the audience: "Oh, that's the main theme. Oh, and that kinda sounds like the alma mater." The beginning was originally a *lot* slower, but I felt the faster tempo made the theme easier to be recognized later in the piece. I tried to make this piece relatively accessible by making stuff obvious (like the combination of the themes) to cater this piece toward a less musically-knowledgeable audience.


The piece seems to be more like - okay, so we have one fragment here, one there, then that fragment repeats, then let's repeat the two together, then let's end with the first fragment with tutti, go into the first section, and let's turn this into a march with the same fragments, all fanfare-like and everything.

Yup, that's the basic breakdown.
"I started off with a simple melody, varied the melody, sneaked in the alma mater, quoted 1812 Overture (with minor tweaks to hint at the alma mater--and I also briefly quoted Firebird and All You Need Is Love, for fun!), played around with a few motifs I derived from the alma mater, and then I ended with the prominent alma mater with the simple melody acting as a counter-melody."
So what did you think about it--did you like it, or did you think it was dull or something?


I just basically wanted something more out of the piece.

Well, like I said, I wrote this piece to dabble in the art of concert band composition and to (essentially) glorify the alma mater. :P I wasn't really trying to get a message across; this was more like a technical exercise for me--practicing to better my skills. What were you searching for that you thought was lacking, specifically?

Oh, I meant the last five bars of the first section. XD I was basically looking for a sort of message, yes, but if that wasn't your intention, that's fine. I wouldn't really call this piece "dull;" the best way that I could put it is that... I don't know what it is about my thought of these kind of pieces, but I for some reason think that fanfares (like in that video I posted above) are usually forced.

For a better idea of what I was looking for, basically something like this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBDcC39dLiw.

EDIT: Wow, I did not read that description. >_< Be back later; my mind is out from staring at my laptop for a couple of hours.

Mmm, I'm quite familiar with that Shostakovich piece, my high school band practiced it a *lot* for a festival in Hamamatsu . . . brings back nice memories, thank you for that. (: Hmmm . . . I guess the title commands a sort of dignity that preceding pieces titled "Overture" have, huh? And "forced" . . . hmmm, I do get what you mean--marches and similar pieces usually seem to be constructed to demonstrate technical prowess, but I didn't intend that section to be like that at all. I just wanted it to sound grand and noble, like how an alma mater should be. Maybe it was the rendering itself that made it sound "forced"? Ehh, I don't know. But in any case, thank you for your feedback, it is much appreciated. (: