# "Swirl" -dramatic orchestral piece (finished on Feb 28. Score nearly done. feedback appreciated)



## Vartio (Feb 23, 2012)

latest version:
[flash width=400 height=100 loop=false]http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http://soundcloud.com/socq/swirl[/flash]
http://soundcloud.com/socq/swirl

It's an exercise on expanding on a simple melodic idea, and not let it go too soon. for now i've only completed the introduction of the theme. in the end i hope to have a piece that isn't all over the place, but is focused and has a clear central idea...
since its still work in progress and i'm desperately trying to improve, feel free to be ultra critical.

(Update)
The piece itself is already finished, but I might use some help on pulling off the score.

here's a box.net folder with all the older versions:
http://www.box.com/s/jpflqsc2pt7q6vyksuv8

Cheers!
-Henri
o[])


UPDATE:
Latest version of the score:
http://www.box.com/s/4e58d747002a64bb1d84


----------



## Gabriel Oliveira (Feb 24, 2012)

beautiful!

nice brass! (cinebrass?)


being ultra-picky-critical: i would lower 2db on choir track


----------



## Vartio (Feb 24, 2012)

Thanks!
Yeah, it's cinebrs.

I just updated the first post with a newer version of the piece.


----------



## Vartio (Feb 24, 2012)

New version.
Updated the mix, and arrangement a bit.


----------



## Gabriel Oliveira (Feb 24, 2012)

would be cool to keep the older versions to see how the piece is upgrading!


----------



## Dracarys (Feb 24, 2012)

The strings 40sec in sound very realistic, I wish you would have expanded that melody even more.

Where is the percussion from?


----------



## TGV (Feb 25, 2012)

I'm not a great fan of the "epic", but this is quite nice. Although I can see the charm of expanding the melody, as Casalena suggests, I think the fragmentary approach works well in this case, if you can manage to bring these fragments back later.

If this is music for pictures, it's fine as it is. As pure music, I'd say the choir part doesn't really fit. It *might* fit if you cut it up a bit...


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Feb 25, 2012)

*Re: "Swirl" -work in progress dramatic piece*

You're 19 years old???

Please don't move to my city and take away my contracts!

You rock, big time, and have the talent to go far. =o


----------



## Vartio (Feb 26, 2012)

Update:
the player in the first post is updated again...
had a sort of block earlier, but that is sort of cleared... not sure about it tho. :/
i figured that "dropping the floor off, and letting the listener fall" will do it for now...I still haven't exhausted all my ideas for using the motif/theme so the piece continues to develop. After that i'll have to turn this into notation (which i suck at, since i've never really done it before). 

@Gabriel Oliveira
that's a great idea. here's a box.net folder with all the older versions:
http://www.box.com/s/jpflqsc2pt7q6vyksuv8

@Casalena
Do you mean the string arpeggio stuff? Didn't see as a melody exactly, but it's being used as a sort of reoccurring thing though out the piece... 

Orchestral percussion is from truestrike. and the loops are mostly omnisphere + some additional random hits and bangs.

@TGV
yeah, the fragmented approach seems to be doing the thing here. tho im trying to keep all the fragments based off the same melodic idea, which will in turn keep the piece more focused. its really easy to get carried away when when working on a piece this fragmented.

I agree with you on the choir part... its really not contributing much to the piece anyway so I feel like dropping it. 

@Ned Bouhalassa
Yep... this is what happens when you've played classical piano for all your life and get bored of playing only other peoples music  then getting a bit carried away from there...

Thanks to everyone for the great feedback and comments!!!


----------



## Vartio (Feb 27, 2012)

*Re: "Swirl" -work in progress dramatic piece (updated Feb 27)*

I just got the piece finished and started working on the score... 

I hope I can get some more advice/help on the score, as this is the first time I've ever really done such a thing. :shock:


----------



## danielcartisano (Feb 27, 2012)

Can you upload a link on what you have done so far?

I assume that you'd export the midi tracks from your DAW, and then import them into finale/sibelius and work from there? Thats what I tend to do, unless of course I've scored it first in a notation program.

The track sounds amazing by the way! Production is excellent as well. Well done!


----------



## Vartio (Feb 28, 2012)

Hey!
here's the score:
http://www.box.com/s/i3e75x8rrncx3jbm2y1u
yep. I quantized the life out of everything and imported into sibelius. 
I just started to work on the string parts and some other details and I've got the first few pages pretty much cleared. it still lacks some crescendos and what not.
any obvious flaws?
I already noticed that on bar 8 the harp glissando is 1/4 too early... it should sort of whip in the running figures. 
theres some chords being played by the trombones at some point which ill have to re orchestrate.
starting on bar 41 the horn line will most likely be only played by a solo horn.
also i'm pretty sure the piccolo player doesn't have enough time to breath during the runs...


----------



## Resoded (Feb 28, 2012)

*Re: "Swirl" -dramatic orchestral piece (finished on Feb 28. now working on the score)*

Just saw this now, sounds great.


----------



## mushanga (Feb 28, 2012)

*Re: "Swirl" -dramatic orchestral piece (finished on Feb 28. now working on the score)*

Great piece, Henri!

You mentioned earlier that you used Cinebrass ... is that Core/Pro/both? Any other brass libraries?

Thanks!


----------



## EwigWanderer (Feb 29, 2012)

*Re: "Swirl" -dramatic orchestral piece (finished on Feb 28. now working on the score)*

Todella eeppinen biisi Henri!  

I hope that some day here in Finland someone could produce more epic adventure movies...and I don't mean epic movie where everybody is drunk (as we Finns usually are) :lol: 

Great music!


----------



## Vartio (Mar 2, 2012)

Thanks for all the comments!!

@orchestranova
It's just the core library. sometimes I layer it with Orchestral Brass Classic, but this time I didn't.

Here's an updated version of the score.
http://www.box.com/s/ckyc3v8zjxxfl1le1k1d
There was some crazy accidentals going on that are mostly fixed... Feel free to point out any odd things and give feedback. I'd really appreciate that, since I don't really know what I'm doing.


----------



## devastat (Mar 2, 2012)

*Re: "Swirl" -dramatic orchestral piece (finished on Feb 28. now working on the score)*

Really great work again, Henri. Did you use Cinematic Strings on this one?


----------



## Vartio (Mar 14, 2012)

Hey guys!
Finally, the score is (almost, nearly there... still lacks harp pedalings) finished.
http://www.box.com/s/afa324c265f3abf8d475
Any obvious flaws??? readability issues?

@devastat
Yep it's CS

Thanks for commenting and feedback. Cheers!


----------



## mducharme (Mar 14, 2012)

Great piece, but I do see a lot of things that should be adjusted in the score

Some of the staves are crowded way too closely together in places.. on the first page for instance the top several staves which are resting are too crowded.

You do not need to separate out the woodwinds into two staves. I would suggest keeping them on the same stave but showing "1. solo" "2. solo" alternating to show the trade off between the players. The time it makes sense to have two staves are when the parts are so independent from each other that it is hard to read when they share the same stave. If you get rid of those doubled staves you will have much more room and this will fix ugly collisions like the slurs on the second page which go up into the stave above.

You have a lot of solo winds. With only one woodwind per part, you will not get the big forte you want, the winds will not make enough of an impact in the texture. Of course you could not have both winds going continuously because they could not breathe, so I understand why you do the trade off, but I think it would be better to remove a note here and there from the winds to give them places to breathe than to thin things out too much.

You should have two horns per stave for the french horns. You can mark the top stave Horns I,III and the bottom stave II,IV to avoid having to redistribute your notes (horns 1 and 3 are high note specialists with horn 1 playing the highest notes, and 2 and 4 are low note specialists with 4 playing the bottommost note - you are giving the 3rd horn a lower note than the second horn currently).

Consider merging your trumpet 1 and 2 staves, also your two tenor trombone staves.

Your double bass is missing the abbreviation beside the stave.


----------



## Vartio (Mar 14, 2012)

Hey thanks for the feedback... did some cleaning up and compacting and got rid of the space problems. also thanks for the horn tidbit, I didn't know that before. i improved the wind parts too on the fast sections. the point is to get the very beginning of each phrase/slur to sort of whistle over the orchestra, so by dropping the last note here and there I'll hopefully give the players enough time to breathe. 
Thank you! i really appreciate the help!

updated version:
http://www.box.com/s/4e58d747002a64bb1d84


----------



## mducharme (Mar 18, 2012)

Looking much better!

A few other things.

Put Horns 2 and 4 in bass clef - you almost always have them playing notes in that register anyway so change it to bass clef - they would be happier with fewer ledger lines when they are playing.

Consider giving the clarinets the more difficult fast lines instead of the oboes - the oboes are less agile.

You do not need to change key signature all the time. You are changing it every page here. If you look at Beethoven or something, when he is modulating in a Sonata, he will not change the key signature for each new key he visits. It's generally standard practice to only change the key signature if you are in the new key for a long period of time.

Some of your slurs are colliding with other notes - you really should adjust the slurs where you get collisions like that.

cresc. normally has a lower case c at the beginning.. although I don't think that's a rule, it looks odd with a capital C.


----------



## Vartio (Apr 2, 2012)

Hey guys!
did some updating on the score:
http://www.box.com/s/4e58d747002a64bb1d84
thanks for all the great feedback and help!!!


----------



## UncleNine (Apr 12, 2012)

Really great work. The fragmented approach works as you phrase each section well and the orchestration gives it character. 
Could I ask what patches did you use from Omnisphere. 
I look forward to hearing more of your stuff.

Andrew


----------

