Metroid II - Ancient Chozo Ruins for brass

[FunkyEntropy]

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)

[FunkyEntropy]

Thanks for the feedback.

Yeah, the samples suck. I still haven't figured out how to swap soundfonts for Sibelius 3 so I'm stuck using Kontact Player which, among its other numerous failings, uses the same sample for both tuba and trombone.

Instrumentation for this is standard brass quintet (2 trumpets, horn, trombone, tuba). Hopefully I'll be finished adapting this piece in time for my groups next rehearsal so I can put up a better representation of the A section. The B section is going to require a lot of wood-shedding so in the interests of not embarrassing ourselves it probably won't be included.

Your comments about the 16th section are particularly helpful. I can't see the trigger being of much use since most of the intervals are non-P4s/P5s, but if you see any let me know. Here's a PDF (http://www.mediafire.com/?z40vjqq2cdntlk8) of what that section looks like so hopefully that'll give you a better understanding of what's going on. I'm pretty sure the last two bars are unplayable for trombone, I'm just not sure how to break up that line without eliminating most of the downward momentum.

In terms of interpretation, most of my effort is going into reaching for Webern levels of detail; everything is being broken up into fragments. Now that you've suggested it I might eventually try to throw in some inversion/retrograde shenanigans, but for better or worse my creative skills run towards orchestration rather than arrangement/composition.

[FunkyEntropy]

New version. I think I managed to salvage the 16th section into something that is not only playable, but also thematically effective. Woot.

Since this is not the first time I've had difficulty using pdffactory, I decided to just make a TIFF graphic instead. This is what I've got right now for the 16th section:

http://www.mediafire.com/?qj8rrdijrg8dtq5

So, now that the B section sounds significantly better than the A section, I think it's about time to start developing and expanding the first theme.

[FunkyEntropy]

Bump with version of it being played by the quintet. See OP for more info.

[erineclipse]

Bump with version of it being played by the quintet. See OP for more info.

This is...Metroid? Sound's more like StarWars...

[FunkyEntropy]

Bump with update.

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.

I'll be flying to Chicago tomorrow, so I might not get an opportunity to respond to folks right away.