Hi William,

That is 4 minutes and 10 seconds of enjoyment for me! A nice, cheerful piece for symphonic band, very "live" sounding also, but that we know about you, that skills you have. I was thinking: a live band has to do a good job to reach this level of playing!
And the music kept my attention until the last barlines!
I can imagine what a job it was to make all the transposed parts correct.

So thank you for sharing this with all of us!

Wonderful! Super, stirring stuff, William!

On first listening I instantly got the American flavour - all those wonderfully stylish flourishes (and perhaps hints of jazzy rhythmic shuffle here and there) that are way more fancy than we old-fashioned Brits tend to do, lol.

Takes me back to my young days in the Royal Navy when for 3 years (under intensive technical training and never went to sea) I was lead drummer in a pretty good volunteer brass band. We did loads of official parades, and despite being an ardent rock fan I really enjoyed my bandmates playing all the big hits of Alford and Sousa.

Very glad you shared this piece and I appreciate the horribly difficult work that went into it. Many thanks.

Bill and I have already communicated at length about this fine composition so I will address my remarks here primarily to the VSL community at large. Suffice it to say that I was so impressed by this piece that I recommended it to the conductor of our adult community concert band for inclusion in a future program. He loved it, too. I got Bill's beautifully prepared score and parts and we will perform it...whenever we are allowed to get a band together again, that is. Here's hoping I live long enough to see that day 😔.

That being said, I don't think the importance of Bill's VSL version of this work can be overstated. To many concert music enthusiasts, wind bands are strictly denizens of the parade field. But for over 100 years, serious concert music has been composed for wind ensemble. Many of the most famous concert musicians of the 20th century wrote for band (or transcribed their orchestral compositions for the medium): Holst, Vaughn Williams, Grainger, Hindemith, Copeland, R. R. Bennett...Stravinsky himself, for crying out loud! Today, concert wind ensembles are found around the world, from student and young peoples' groups, to adult community bands, to the finest colleges and conservatories, premier military bands, and professional organizations. But VSL has made absolutely no attempt to market their products as a tool for aspiring band composers. And this in spite of the fact that they would not have to record any additional samples to do it. In this recording, Bill has proven it! It should go straight into the VSL music library. In fact, if I were the VSL marketing people, I would make something of a big deal of it. It could be their opening to a large, untapped market.

One final thought for you composers out there: bands will play new music. You don't have to compete with 400+ years of classical chestnuts to find room on a concert program like you do with orchestras. Just sayin'...

@tchampe said:

Bill and I have already communicated at length about this fine composition so I will address my remarks here primarily to the VSL community at large. Suffice it to say that I was so impressed by this piece that I recommended it to the conductor of our adult community concert band for inclusion in a future program. He loved it, too. I got Bill's beautifully prepared score and parts and we will perform it...whenever we are allowed to get a band together again, that is. Here's hoping I live long enough to see that day 😔.

That being said, I don't think the importance of Bill's VSL version of this work can be overstated. To many concert music enthusiasts, wind bands are strictly denizens of the parade field. But for over 100 years, serious concert music has been composed for wind ensemble. Many of the most famous concert musicians of the 20th century wrote for band (or transcribed their orchestral compositions for the medium): Holst, Vaughn Williams, Grainger, Hindemith, Copeland, R. R. Bennett...Stravinsky himself, for crying out loud! Today, concert wind ensembles are found around the world, from student and young peoples' groups, to adult community bands, to the finest colleges and conservatories, premier military bands, and professional organizations. But VSL has made absolutely no attempt to market their products as a tool for aspiring band composers. And this in spite of the fact that they would not have to record any additional samples to do it. In this recording, Bill has proven it! It should go straight into the VSL music library. In fact, if I were the VSL marketing people, I would make something of a big deal of it. It could be their opening to a large, untapped market.

One final thought for you composers out there: bands will play new music. You don't have to compete with 400+ years of classical chestnuts to find room on a concert program like you do with orchestras. Just sayin'...

Wow, Bill and Tom, I'm very glad and excited to read this message, especially the fact, that this piece will be played live. You didn't make the score in vain, Bill. Here in the (for you far away) Netherlands somebody sits behind his Pc with a big smile on his face.
And I agree with you, Tom, what you said about VSL, and also about Bill of course in making this splendid example what is possible with the VSL samples.

Macker, MMKA and Tom, thanks a lot, I appreciate hearing from you guys.  MMKA you are right about it being a difficult piece, I played horn on the first and so far only live performance, and received nearly fatal lip damage.  Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it has blistering horn and trumpet parts.   I did have some mercy and put the second, third and fourth parts down an octave in a couple places...

@William said:

MMKA you are right about it being a difficult piece, I played horn on the first and so far only live performance, and received nearly fatal lip damage.  Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it has blistering horn and trumpet parts.   I did have some mercy and put the second, third and fourth parts down an octave in a couple places...

Final thoughts: Yes, Bill, you are exaggerating. I have it on very good authority that the first horn part, while challenging, is completely playable by old men with pulmonary conditions at an elevation of 6,040' (1,840 m) without causing permanent damage.

Hi William,

A very unfamiliar style of music for me. Nevertheless, the composition is obviouosly very-well done. You gave plenty of room for each group of instruments, and they compliment each other naturally. Besides the praise the piece certainly deserves, I'd like to comment on the mix.

1) When I listen on headphones, the separation between left and right is very obvious, while not much is going on in the center. Seems like it's caused by panning rather than by anything else. It's ok in the speakers, though.

2) Some drums sounded a little boxy to me, this is especially apparent in the end. Nothing a little EQ-ing couldn't fix.

All the best,

Crusoe.

Yes, listening on headphones can be  distorting.

I hear no "boxiness" on percussion.  I used a slight decrease in individual wet on those to make it clearer.

Hi William,

It was a real joy to hear such a splendid work for marching band. So well and orchestrated in perfect balance and performed flawlessly. I can imagine that this was a hell of a job to import the written score from your daw and to correct all the inaccuracies in the transcription. (That's one of the reasons why I always start with a written score and exporting it afterwards to my daw. That saves me a lot of energy and time... On the other hand, I couldn't write music without real 'notes'. I don't have an overview of what's going on in a piano roll.)

But back to your new composition. It is brilliant and challenging, not only for the horns. The trumpet parts (1st) is not to be underestimated as well! Your percussion intermezzi are so well done and bring a fine variation in the piece. For sure a work to be performed live, realized by a master in the genre. I'm glad to read that it will be played live (after this dreadful period). I hope a recording will be made. I can't wait to hear it!

Thanks for sharing.

Jos

Jos, thanks very much.  You're right about creating the sheet music first, makes it vastly easier especially as I didn't program with step sequencing but just by playing the notes in on the keyboard off my old paper score, so it was non-quantized and had to be before going into the notation.