Hi Sherry,

This is fun to hear the timpani line you added to the Stars piece.

I'll exercise my posting priviledge to show your work to others in MP3 format:
<center><table border=1><tr><td>Stars19SherryGPO.mp3
Stars19SherryGPO.mp3 (1263.5 k)</td></tr></table></center>

The timpani line achieves what you were wanting to hear, some grounding of the piece in the low pitch range. This much I find satisfying.

It doesn't quite work for me, though, and I haven't come up with an analysis that totally convinces me why it doesn't work for me. But here are some thoughts:

The other percussion parts were intended as sparkles of glitter in the piece, unpredictably positioned, mostly out of sync with what else is going on (thus, with voice independence). The new timpani part tends to dominate over that glitter. I suspect that what would work better is if the glitter percussion and the timpani took turns. The timpani could itself be glitter, but at its low pitch range.

Said another way, I think the timpani line might work better for me if it were used more sparingly.

Also, the timpani tends to add a darker, almost ominous mood, as though this space adventure is soon to run into hostile aliens, which I guess usually does happen in space adventures, but I wasn't planning on that happening until much later.

Cheers
-- Mark