[Sherry C]

Hi Ralph,

Originally Posted by rrayner

You get a delayed response from me due to travel commitments, but I finally got a chance to listen tonight.

I hope it's been fun travel!

First, I have to say, Clarice (my Clavinova) did not like the percussion parts, so in order to hear your piece properly, I had to listen on my GM PC. Clarice just doesn't like GM drums. I think I told you back in my early Composer days that my drum parts from the Clavinova sounded like a bad violin on General Midi.

Yeah, it actually doesn't sound in GM like I hear it either I use a soundfont for "roughing' my work, and sometimes GPO/JABB by Garritan. JABB (jazz and big band) has a "GM drumset", but it doesn't really work like GM, so I have to pick around for the drums. The GM "standard" isn't quite as standard as we'd like

I would like to hear it played by the band, as I think they will convey your swing feel better.

We'll be getting the chart out for practicing probably some time in the next few weeks. We have a gig coming up in two weeks that we'll probably stick with our more familiar tunes, but I'm hoping we can at least go through it soon. I want to hear it, too I'd like to get a recording, and if I do I'll post it.

The interplay and the mixing of horn colors is very good throughout,

Thanks - the "colors" were inspired by your early comments

but your chart really gets going after measure 145 -- a very nice change in momentum, even though there is no accelerando, it feels like there is.

I had sort of the "dixieland mayhem" style in mind for that part, as in the original work by Grieg the whole orchestra is going, and there is indeed an accelerando. I didn't necessarily want the extra speed, just the extra dynamic. However, I also have a feeling that where the momentum changes due to the increase in instrument participation (and the contrasting parts), there will probably be a concommitant increase in adrenalin, most likely leading to an unintended but not necessarily unwelcome accelerando of our performance

I find your separate drums score very interesting. Thanks for planting the seeds of how to better handle repetitive percussion parts.

That was actually inspired by our drummer. He made a comment one night about a score he had, which was 3 pages long. He said it was about 2 pages too long - really all they needed to do was give him the basic rhythm, then tell him how many measures of what to do. So that's what I did. He approves That said, I also realize that this style of scoring wouldn't work for everyone, but since this is mainly a piece for our band to play (at least at this point), I'm not too worried about it.

David has a good idea. Would it be difficult to set aside an area original works?

Well, that's actually what the "Share your music" section is supposed to be, but I do understand the desire to have the musical pieces in a grid of some format that would be more easily accessible. That sounds like work, though

I'll give it some thought, and if anyone has any ideas about how to put something like that together (and keep it organized), I'm all ears!

Thanks for the feedback guys - I always appreciate constructive comments, whether it's confirming something already there or suggesting change

ttfn,
Sherry