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Performing a mallet percussion ensemble piece?!


snazzypadgett
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I made this piece almost a year ago for my high school percussion ensemble to play, it was SO fun to write knowing that people would actually be playing my music! But...they kinda sucked at playing it. People didnt learn notes, didnt have chops to play sixteenth notes (^_^), etc. It was still very fun to see people playing my music, but also frustrating!

Anyway, I am applying for colleges now and I need somethings for my portfolio of compositions as I pursue a major in music composition. Actually, why the hell am I telling you this? If anyone wants to play my medley of Zelda arrangements, LET ME KNOW! Or...if anyone could take this midi and put some good samples on it, that'd be stellar too! Whatever. I'm not demanding anything, just seeing if anyone's interested:

http://www.squaresound.com/arrangements/file.php?id=1344

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This is great -- I love the transition at rehearsal C. Didn't recognize which tune D comes from, but I've only finished OoT once, and didn't play MM or WW...I'll assume it's my fault for not getting it.

The 2/4 breaks at 89 and 94 are great. I wish I had half of the rhythm chops you do...

My only critique is that I wish it went on for one more section, and threw in the Tal Tal Heights track from Link's Awakening. It seems a little abrupt in the ending, so adding in either a full chorus of the main theme or the LA upbeat version mentioned above would be nice.

Still, this is crazy good. You should convert this to a MIDI and get a .pdf so you can PM DrumUltima and get his opinion on it -- he'll be more helpful than I can be because this matches his specialty. If you don't have a full version of Finale around with which to do that, let me know and I'll take care of it for you.

Edit: Just tried making a MIDI so I could have a friend listen to it, and most of it comes out as a piano instead of all the cool percussion that the .mus file has. I can save the raw audio correctly as an mp3 if need be -- again, just ask.

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Wow!! Thanks for all of the compliments and comments guys! I am really psyched about writing an ending now...9 months later ^.^ I guess I'll write in one more song as an ending tomorrow, maybe the Song of Storms or just a Hyrule Field (the first theme used) with a lot of recapitulations from the other themes used. I dont know, but i agree, the ending is way dumb.

And then...if I made it into a midi, does someone here have samples for all of the instruments? There are:

-Marimba

-Vibraphone

-Xylophone

-Bell set

-Concert snare/bass/crash cymbals/sus cymbals/hi-hats

-Triangle

-Timpani

-Electric bass

I know it's asking a lot, but I'm just curious if anyone has all of those instruments sampled already and can just apply them to the midi tracks. Of course the drums would take a little searching to find the right midi note, but I think it's possible?

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Okay...I made an ending, and I LOVE IT! HAHAHA why didn't i think of this earlier when we were playing it in school! It kind of sounds like phil collins!

New version: http://www.2shared.com/file/4162521/72486545/zelda_medley_final_copy.html

Sorry to get excited over myself, but i really love the mood the last theme sets in now :D BTW, the added themes are the Song of Storms and the final 8 bars are from the Serenade of Water...funny how those two turned out being sort of related :D I turned both of these 3/4 songs into 4/4. And they're both about water, sort of. Heh

What do you think of the new ending though? Even though I like the bluesyness of the last part, I'm wondering if it's too mellow to end on. I think it works pretty well, but i have heard this so many times now that I don't trust my own opinion anymore.

And...if this ending works, and I call this piece "finished," what can I do with it? I timed it, it's about 4:45 with the MIDI, performed it'd probably end up at 5 minutes. Is there some way I could actually sell this, like someone mentioned?? Rowloff.com is where my high school gets all of its material for our percussion section, but it's all original and certainly not video game music. Could I get rights to use this arrangement since it's not original? That'd just be so cool if someone would play this...and putting it for sale would probably get more traffic than just putting it up for free somewhere anyway. (uhhh, like i just did here)

Dhsu, (what's up), I don't have the recording of my high school playing it...it's on a VHS somewhere, but...egh, it's so muddy and hard to even follow with the music. As for the marimba 2 part (the g minor arpeggio things), they actually got those down pretty well, we put the best people on marimba 2 for that reason. The real trouble was everyone getting through the Gerudo theme...we had to take it down like 15-20 BPM, lol. Felt draaaggy.

And lastly, again, if anyone wants to use their samples on this, please let me know! I would be psyched!

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I like what you've written, but the new ending doesn't transition very well out of the old material. It goes from being extremely high energy to this lull -- which, while well written, breaks the flow of the piece in a way that I don't think is all that great. My advice is to take some more time in the transition as opposed for using such an abrupt method.

Still, it sounds pretty good!

As far as selling your arrangement goes, I'd forget about it -- it's a legal nightmare to do, and you'd need more than just one decent arrangement to get Square to give you the okay in the first place. Just having it available here will get you more publicity through word of mouth than anything.

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  • 3 weeks later...
As far as selling your arrangement goes, I'd forget about it -- it's a legal nightmare to do, and you'd need more than just one decent arrangement to get Square to give you the okay in the first place. Just having it available here will get you more publicity through word of mouth than anything.

Square doesn't own Zelda, and it is not a legal nightmare. In order to sell your arrangement, you find out who owns the piece (rights to distribute), and contact them with regards to permission to arrange. One arrangement is all you need to sell it to specific ensembles.

The best way to do this is to sell it to individual bands/ensembles, and have them cover the legalities, while you just get paid for the arranging. This is what I do.

http://www.musicforall.org/resources/copyright/

They have a lot of info on who owns what and who holds which rights. If you need help, ask me via AIM. I'm used to doing arrangements for bands and ensembles, and dealing with the legal parts.

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