FunkyEntropy

Agreed, Sibelius has a lousy soundfont (what, tuba and trombone share the same playback channel? Equally distressing is the lack of muted brass. Screw you, Kontact Player!). I really dig most of this. The intro is far too cliche orchestral writing for my tastes, but some of the stuff in the middle (~1:13 for example) makes up for it. I have to say I'm not a big fan of the major sections (1:54 and 2:58). They strike me as being completely out of character with the rest of the piece. Some low, ominous trombones might be more appropriate. That flute, glock, piano stuff, though? Awesome.

Newest version: Using the Sibelius 7 orchestra sounds, should be a much better idea of what I'm after. Made some minor changes, such as muted trumpets for the slower A' section, as well as more articulation markings so players will have a better understanding of how it should go. Final section remains an "oh shit" moment for all involved. OLD: This got put in front of the group about two months ago but only very recently had the time to extract the recording we did of this. I think that some of this sounds really good, and some of it needs improvement, mostly via me giving better information to the players on what exactly I want. I have also come to the conclusion that this is too short, and so now I have the truly difficult task of 1) composing within the modern aesthetic of the piece but 2) not so modern that it'll totally wig out everyone at OCR. Old stuff: So, I've got a new thing up and going. The source material is pretty basic, but wow did it adapt well to the new format. At least, most of it did. The "A" section looks and sounds great (I can't wait until I get to put it in front of the group), but the "B" section is proving to be a major conundrum. I'm essentially limited to four instruments as the 16ths are moving way too fast for the trombone to play. Actually, it's borderline insane for the other instruments as well. Hopefully a little elbow grease will solve things (fingers crossed). Conceptually, this'll be the "Scherzo" movement of a collection of Metroid Miniatures (Metroid: other, other M)

Update from tonight's rehearsal: This is pretty fun to play (I think it's my best arrangement to date) and it sounds pretty good considering it was recorded on a dinky little zoom recorder. Yeah. My own self-critique would be that the last two transitions need work. I don't have anything leading into the downbeat, and the lack of a pulse really kills the momentum in my opinion. Note to self: consider flugels instead of trumpets; darker sound would be really nice for this piece. Anyway, here it is:

I've got a new arrangement done (probably 95% finished) for my brass quintet. I decided to start up an old project of mine that had been stewing for a while, and I'm really, really glad I did. Thus far I've found that the Legend of Mana soundtrack adapts well to live brass, so I have high hopes for this arrangement. Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0CZfeJ3Hc I haven't quite decided if this should be a standalone arrangement or if it should be part of a medley. If I were to work in other songs, I'd probably try and see if I could adapt Southern City Polpota, City of Flickering Destruction/Those Who are Shining, and maybe even Irwin on Reflection. The quintet is rehearsing tonight and hopefully our sight-reading of it will be good enough that I'll feel comfortable posting it. Anyway, link to the midi-rendition: New version, from 11-17-10 rehearsal. Sight-reading is fun!

I like the changes you've made. The new section sounds great as well. Keep up the good work!

Partially. Once it's on the internet, it's there forever as they say. My main concern is that since I'm writing this for performance, I'd prefer it if my quintet was the one that premiered it. Secondly, if someone's going to steal my work, I'd prefer it if they stole the finished version. I'd rather finish the arrangement, make a good recording of it, and then we can see about making the full score available. Anyway, nothing new to see, just thought I'd let everyone know that I've change the tuba part slightly at 4 before P and 2 before Q - it's now down the octave. Any thoughts or comments about the P to Q section?

This is a project that I've been working on for a long time (probably close to a year). Now that I've gotten better at orchestrating, it's finally coming to fruition. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Nobuo Uematsu's masterwork Dancing Mad from Final Fantasy VI, adapted for brass quintet. A quick note about the mp3 - the first repeat back to the top is slightly different from what happens in the mp3. Specifically, the tuba drops the octave. Pedal C's FTW. I've also considered dropping the first eight bars of the piece the second time through to keep things from getting too tedious. Anyway, here you go: [File Deleted] I apologize for not having a rehearsal recording for you to listen to - this piece is hard and we haven't got all the sections ironed out yet. Most of it is sounding pretty solid, there are only a few trouble spots and that's what I'd like to direct your direction towards to see if I can get some help. 6:50 to 8:10 in the mp3 is the final portion of the Kefka boss fight, and is by far the trickiest part of the piece. Unlike other portions of the piece, it's essentially melody + bass line and has thus left me with less to work with. Here's a link to pages 10 to 13 of the score: http://www.mediafire.com/?j3ye9kha996z5bh The repeat from P to Q is where I'd like to have more going on or, at the very least, have some variation between the repeats to keep things interesting. Problem is, I have no idea what. Writing new material is not my strong suit - I tend to get locked into what it does sound like instead of what it could sound like. So. Thoughts, comments, concerns? -------------------- Latest version: 7-13-11 Notes: The parts are pretty much finalized. The 7/8 +4/4 section issues have been pretty much ironed out by removing the horn from the mix. While this unfortunately removes some color and variance, it is so much easier to coordinate that that's an acceptable loss. Our regular trombonist, Lee, is out of town for the month so we're using a sub for this recording. He's sightreading, so be nice. He also plays a lot less aggressively than Lee so it might be kind of hard to pick his solo out at the end. Hopefully we'll get another crack at this with Lee, who'll be back in town for a brief period, on Monday.

For the piece as a whole: solo guitar is nice and clearly in the fore of the ensemble, but doesn't stick out. Excellent balance overall. I would prefer to hear a little more bass, but take this with a grain of salt - as a tuba player I have a very keen bias towards low frequency instruments. The Stage Select portion sounds like you've paid a lot of attention to it (very nice!). Very effective use of silence at 0:12. Nice transition between Stage Select and Hard Man. 1:08 to 1:12 would be a great place to emphasize the bass. 1:32 another great use of silence. Good transition. Snake Man rhythm section (specifically the offbeats) at 1:49 to 2:02 gets repetitive really fast. 2:10 to 2:12, maybe [play with]/[take advantage of] the natural syncopation of this one bar? Instead of having the bass play half notes, make it do something interesting. I'm greatly looking forward to seeing you finish this project!

Posting something that the group recorded at tonight's rehearsal. Taken near the back end of the rehearsal, so expect some flubs here and there. Arrangement by one of our trumpet players, Mike. Since this is a medley, there's a lot of source material and frankly it's a little late for me to be looking for all of the stuff that Mike included. Maybe tomorrow when I'm not so tired. I know for sure that it includes music from: Wind Waker, original LoZ, Lttp, and Zelda II. Thoughts, comments, concerns?

New versions up - live musicians make all the difference.

Thanks for the interest! My intent was for this to just be a stand-alone piece, but the notion of it being part of an album did have some appeal. However, I was loathe to clutter up the project thread with my half-baked idea, especially when I have no idea how long it would take to carry the thing from concept to printed parts to recorded audio. If things get that far, I'm definitely interested in the final product being a part of the album. And just to throw this out there, I'm currently working on High Tension Wire for my group. I'm still in the process of writing, so stuff's definitely going to change (I don't even know if it'll work!) but I think the potential is there. The ending (ending? what ending?) in particular will change, as I'm considering linking it to something else from SD3. My composition/arrangement skills are shakey at best, but here goes: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ef2bllili4zi1xy/Seiken%20Densetsu%203%20High%20Tension%20Wire.mp3

I'm looking for a composer/arranger with a real love for 20th century music to take the percussion-based from Seiken Densetsu 3 and set it to brass quintet. Both the composer/trumpet player in my quintet and I feel strongly that there is an amazing, kick-ass brass quintet piece locked away within the original but we're at a loss as to how to go about uncovering it.What I think might work: Assigned pitch, using the different instruments to simulate different percussive instrument Half-valving for additional timbre variance Mutes, with and without half-valving to create more colors So yeah, if you've got some serious modern composition chops and would like to give this a try, let me know. Thanks, FE

Any comments/suggestions regarding balance, scoring, etc.? I'm going to try find time to have the group rerecord in 2~3 weeks because missed notes, while an understandable occupational hazard for live performers, do detract from the overall appreciation of the piece. So make those suggestions! I can't improve anything beyond those missed notes unless people tell what the things are that need improving.

My thoughts, in chronological order of the piece: I love the timbre of the samples you're using at the start of the piece, so we're off to a good start. More edge (specifically, some distortion on the attacks) in the bass would not be unwelcome. Slightly more crescendo immediately before the B section would create a greater sense of contrast as everything suddenly drops away and we're left with pp strings + flute. Would prefer it if you spent more time with the section containing the flute. Flute could stand to be slightly more predominant (only 1~2% more) initially. Not a big fan of the samples you're using for the last section. It's extremely light in comparison the dark, exciting timbres used earlier; the shift in mood is jarring, to say the least. Very, very promising stuff.

I agree that the drums might be a touch too loud for much of the mix, but I disagree with the being too dry. I assume by "dry" you mean little to no reverb. I feel like the space between notes in the percussion keeps things from getting too muddy, which is always a risk w/ reverb. If I had my druthers, there'd be more bass in this mix. But then, I'm a tuba player - my general philosophy is lower = better. That disclaimer out of the way, a notch or two more in the bass could potentially add some extra depth to what is already a great remix. Hope this thing gets approved.

Seconded. "Strangely endearing" is exactly the phrase I would use. My suggestion as a minor twist would be to have the video game tunes be slightly more prominent in relation to the rapping. Sometimes they get a little lost, at least to my ears, when they have to compete with the lyrics.

What software do you use to convert your .wav's to .mp3's? I use the free version of Switch Sound File Converter and thus far remained issue-free.

The barring is a symptom of me being lazy and choosing the quickest way of imputing notes w/ my keyboard. That will change (trust me, I know full well how confusing it would be to players right now) but that, like dynamics, is detail work that I put off until I get into the serious polishing. Essentially, get the notes on the page first. Details come later. I'll definitely check out the book once I get money. And Ewald...Meh. I'm not a big fan of the romantic style. That, and I've played most of his stuff enough to be well and thoroughly sick of it. I was not aware that Bartok had written anything for brass quintet, nor could I find anything with a basic google search. Link? He'll get over it.

Thanks for the feedback. I hear you about writing too many notes. My orchestrating process essentially involves churning out a rough draft containing as many notes as possible, and then trimming it down in subsequent revisions. Here's a .rar file with images of the current score: http://www.mediafire.com/file/1ijqhemxodn/Chrono Cross Another Voyage.rar It's not the trumpet licks that worry me so much as what the trombone has at m19-32 and again, with some minor differences, at m45-end. That's going under the knife next. Other things going forward: I was considering condensing the trumpet parts into a single line and then having them alternate, but that creates the situation that the trombone is stuck with - a technically tricky part that probably moves too quickly to sound clean. Thoughts? [edit: trombone part should be much easier now. http://www.mediafire.com/file/mwmny3emznf/Chrono Cross Another Voyage v2.rar]

WIP: http://ocrwip.fireslash.net/?fid=832# One of my favorite tracks from the Chrono Cross soundtrack. Transcribed for brass quintet, with the intention of it seeing live performance once I'm finished with editing. The more I do this (I've been quite prolific of late) the more I discover how easily orchestration comes to me (at least for brass) while actually doing something new (arrangement) continues to elude me. [edit: New Version is here! http://ocrwip.fireslash.net/?fid=833 ] Newer Version - now with live musicians! Hopefully Joe will have his flugel fixed by next time so that we'll have 2x flugelhorns. Apologies in advance for the missed notes, this was the last thing we played at our rehearsal.

Fancy new version: This is the recording from our debut concert, live June 27th. This is probably the final version of the piece, barring finding someone with better mics to spend a day with us recording. We were pretty fatigued at this point, this piece being 7 of 8 on the program, following Locke's Theme for Brass Quintet. Yes, THAT Locke's Theme. It's quite the chop buster, but it's also a hoot to play. It was a good day for the Oakwood Brass Conspiracy. ---------------- Youtube Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBeMTXZ56XY ----------- Old text w/o link to old, inferior material. Fresh from our morning rehearsal, this is the Tree of Mana theme from Legend of Mana, arranged by me for brass quintet. Recorded using the Zoom H2 hand recorder, which doesn't pick up nearly enough of the overtones of most brass instruments for my liking. Especially tuba. God, how can I be in tune and still somehow manage to sound sharp on those low Gs? Ugh. Anyway, we're still trying to figure out proper balance - it's hard to tell if the horn needs to play louder, or if it's just an issue of mic placement. Hopefully things will sound better using more & better microphones. It's a good start though IMO.

Link to this WIP: http://ocrwip.fireslash.net/?fid=823 Be aware that this includes less than stellar samples and short bus tuba part that can't keep time to save it's life. Samples are Kontakt Silver for Sibelius 3, and I haven't figured out how to improve that without spending money I don't have. About this WIP: I'm trying to arrange/transcribe the ending theme from the original Metroid for my brass quintet, to be performed and recorded along with a couple other Metroid tunes in celebration of the release of Other M. The other pieces I'm working for that are the Brinstar, Original Theme, and Maridia tracks. This track is giving me a lot of trouble as the piece has lots of moving 16th lines that I was forced to break up in order to render them playable, trumpet embouchure fatigue is a real threat in the original registers, etc. Actual arrangement has never been my strong suit. Mostly what I tend to do put things in appropriate octaves, fill out chords, create a Wall Of Sound or two, and call it a day. Many times I find that this is all I really need. Case in point, my arrangement of the Tree of Mana (http://ocrwip.fireslash.net/?fid=824) theme from Legend of Mana. My group will be performing this on Sunday, so hopefully the recording will be good enough to be submitted to OCR. Anyway, suggestions as to improving the arrangement, counterpoint, etc of the Metroid Ending theme? Thanks!