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Final Fantasy X - To Zanarkand (For Wind and Strings)


hRook
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So, this piece came out of unusual circumstances. I am a music major and I'm in Orchestration class this semester. For our final project, we had to arrange a 2 to 3 minute piece. As a reward for the amount of work it takes to arrange and format all the parts, we are having our pieces read by the school orchestra (Which I'm pretty excited about).

The piece I chose is honestly one of my favorite musical works I've ever heard, the track "To Zanarkand" from Final Fantasy X. I chose to arrange it for wind and strings. I plan on recording the reading tomorrow afternoon, but for now all I have is the Finale export. It's a little robotic, but it gets the idea across. I've never scored for this sort of ensemble before... it has been a real challenge. Let me know what you think! If the recording turns out well I may submit it.

http://www.hrook.net/mp3/ToZanarkandFinal.mp3

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Not sure if its a clarinet :idea: but the instrument that plays in the begining just sounds, kinda 2d? If that makes sense, which I'm sure it doesnt to anyone who isnt me lol

I really like the pizz strings though, they fit in well.

Overall i think some of the instruments could be a little more wet, but thats just me, I'm a newbie to remixing/remastering. So it's probs not worth listening to me haha

Oh, a nice strong oboe part would be awsome,I'm kinda a oboe whore. Love it. :-P

Also, try playing around with the melody a lil' bit more? It's very very true to the source which is awsome, cause there's a reason you chose this song to play with, but mixing it up a bit could add something extra special to this.

Well done, and look forward to hearing what comes out next

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Ah, Zanarkand. Still one of the most beautiful video game themes ever :)

The use of dynamics was great! In a slower piece like this one where the melody stays pretty constant, it gave it some movement and punch. The clarinet lead was a good choice (and no, I'm NOT just saying that because I play clarinet, haha) - I liked that you compensated for its range and dropped some of the notes an octave.

At times, there was a little bit of muddy sound, mostly just because of several instruments playing in the same few notes of a higher range, I think. Also, I would have liked a little more bassline in parts. Maybe just a bass clarinet or a double bass to give some added depth, especially through the forte bits. Actually, a bassoon might sound cool in an underlying bass part, too.

It must be so difficult to score multiple parts for live performance, but you've done a pretty nice job with it ^-^

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So the orchestra did the readings today. I recorded their performance of my piece:

http://hrook.net/mp3/ToZanarkandPerformed.mp3

A lot of the phrasing and voicing comes out more with human players and real instruments. Unfortunately, they just sightread the score so it's by no means polished. I just did the recording with my field recorder (Zoom H4N). Maybe someday I can find an ensemble to prepare and perform this arrangement.

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So the orchestra did the readings today. I recorded their performance of my piece:

http://hrook.net/mp3/ToZanarkandPerformed.mp3

A lot of the phrasing and voicing comes out more with human players and real instruments. Unfortunately, they just sightread the score so it's by no means polished. I just did the recording with my field recorder (Zoom H4N). Maybe someday I can find an ensemble to prepare and perform this arrangement.

They still did an amazing job of doing justice to it, for a sight-read piece. Very nice.

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Awesome work man. I actually just turned in my Orchestration project 2 weeks ago and had our wind symphony sight read it. Unfortunately we had to all pick between Schumann pieces so its not quite as cool as this :P. I think it needed some light percussion though like hoboka said, but its still great. Maybe the occasional suspended rolls or cymbal scapes to add some effect. I can definitely feel your pain with the project...arranging for large bands is a ton of work.

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Thanks guys. Interesting you should mention percussion. I had the option of including it, but I opted out. Since I am primarily a percussionist, I tend to be compositionally biased toward it. I wanted to see if I could get a good motion out of the piece without relying on percussion for it.

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