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Justin

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Another movement from the same piece has been used in David's "Pillow Fight Paris 2009" video on You Tube. This time he cut his images to a Jig I wrote called "Harvest Festival", also for string orchestra.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm currently meddling with a string quartet arrangement of Elliot Goldenthal's "Final Fantasy" score, and have just finished the supposed "2nd movement"... a scherzo consisting of "Race to Old New York", with "Music for Dialogues" serving as a quiet "trio" ;) (fitting more or less as the cues are motivically related).

I didn't really want to open up another new thread for this (do we have a general "film music arrangements" thread?), so I'll post it here, even though it's not an original composition (all material is from Goldenthal's score). Comments welcome :blink:

"Race to Old New York / Music for Dialogues" Mp3

Score (PDF)

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I'm currently meddling with a string quartet arrangement of Elliot Goldenthal's "Final Fantasy" score, and have just finished the supposed "2nd movement"... a scherzo consisting of "Race to Old New York", with "Music for Dialogues" serving as a quiet "trio" ;) (fitting more or less as the cues are motivically related).

I didn't really want to open up another new thread for this (do we have a general "film music arrangements" thread?), so I'll post it here, even though it's not an original composition (all material is from Goldenthal's score). Comments welcome :blink:

"Race to Old New York / Music for Dialogues" Mp3

Score (PDF)

great work Chris! Well done! i don't remember the original cues but they sure fit for a string quartet too..

EDit: just heard the original full orchestra cues! great work again! Hope we will be able to hear this from a real string quartet! ;-)

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Reading through these posts, I've noticed some of you are writing for video games. How did you get into that end of the business and how lucrative is it? Is there a lot of competition for work, or does the work come pretty steadily?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I know some of you may not be fans of music for concert bands or wind ensembles, but I've never posted any of my original music on the board, so I thought I would share a work here.

http://rapidshare.com/files/230617232/Eleg...refighter_1.mp3

The opening eighth-note motive is admittedly derived from Bach's "Passion of St. John," and there is a very quick John Williams "moment" that I didn't realize until halfway through our tour performing it...anyone who finds it gets a cookie! (haha)

Here's a description of the piece (taken from the program notes):

"In the Spring of 2008 a great number of wildfires began to plague the west coast, including the area where my wife and I live near the Bay Area of California. Firefighters all along the West Coast worked overtime in what seemed like an endless battle to protect the residents of the western states and their homes. After hearing of a number of firefighters who had lost their lives in the struggle, I decided to compose an original work dedicated to those members of the firefighting community who had given their lives protecting all of us from those wildfires. Although the title is “Elegy for a Fallen Firefighter,” it is not dedicated to any one person or group, or even just to the west-coast firefighters who have battled wildfires; instead, to any firefighter who has lost his life in the line of duty.

[Analysis omitted....if any of you want me to post that then let me know.]

This work was written in June-July of 2008, and was premiered by the U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West on a tour throughout Northern California and Oregon from August 16-26, 2008. I had the honor of conducting the work on this tour, and a number of performances were dedicated to local firefighters who had perished in the line of duty. "Elegy for a Fallen Firefighter" was followed on each program by a setting of Amazing Grace, included in order to add to the overall tribute."

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Edit: Some have had trouble getting the file to download. Let me know if this happens again and I'll try re-doing it.

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Airmanjerm, this is a lovely piece. Also, a marvellous performance. You must have been proud, and rightly so! I love the transition to the dominant minor at 2:20 or so. Lovely melody. Your melodic lines feel very natural and sweeping. The return to the opening music at around 3:50 is very dramatic and well-realised. Damn pretty piece. Thanks for sharing.

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Airmanjerm, this is a lovely piece. Also, a marvellous performance. You must have been proud, and rightly so! I love the transition to the dominant minor at 2:20 or so. Lovely melody. Your melodic lines feel very natural and sweeping. The return to the opening music at around 3:50 is very dramatic and well-realised. Damn pretty piece. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks Pixie! I was going for simplicity in this work, so I tried to avoid any bizarre modulations or chord progressions, etc. (I did listen to the "Schindler's List" score while getting myself in the right mindset for this project, which I think comes through a few times.) I was conducting in this performance, and they played quite well in spite of me.

Lovely chorale writing at the beginning.

Thanks Henry! As a recovering trumpet player, I like to give the brass their moment in a heavily non-brass work.

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...and they played quite well in spite of me.

Because of, surely! ;)

Well thanks Pixie! I don't get to conduct as often as I like, and some of the musicians are a little "old school" and don't watch very well. One of my former composition instructors, Robert Jager, told me that he got his name around in the band world back in the late 60s because he was willing (and ABLE!) to come and conduct if he wrote a commissioned work for a band. So, he made me take lots of conducting lessons. Seems to have paid off in some ways...lol. Thanks again!

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Here is a short piece that a friend of mine wrote for piano and tape, Inside the Box, bare in mind it was a one take recording so the pianist had some tempo and rhythm issues at times.

See if you can name the influence for the main theme. :mellow:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WPN9W14A

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Here is a short piece that a friend of mine wrote for piano and tape, Inside the Box, bare in mind it was a one take recording so the pianist had some tempo and rhythm issues at times.

See if you can name the influence for the main theme. :mellow:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WPN9W14A

Poledouris' Farewell to the King and Williams's Images?

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I didn't pick out the Poledouris (because I don't know it), but yes to Images!

I had a terrible time last night thinking "I know that tune, but from where?" Took me a little while to actually remember it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi, everybody!

First of all, I would like to make clear that I'm not a composer. Just a piano player... A mediocre piano player ^_^

Anyway, I would like to show to you people a little piece I composed a few months ago, which I have been cleaning a putting it into its best shape. Here it is. It's called "Remembering the Past", or in spanish "Recordando el Pasado". It represents some very turbulent and sad times we had here in our country a few decades ago.

I hope you people like it:

http://rapidshare.com/files/238737670/Reco...Pasado.mp3.html

I think it has some Williams influences, but I'm not really sure... You'll have to tell me ;)

By the way, it's a MIDI, because I don't have anything that records better. I plan to upgrade it to a better quality, but first I have to find someone who will arrange it to a type of synths that sound more real.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

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  • 1 month later...

Back in Frebruary I downloaded a music making program. With no previous music training or writing skills, I just jumped right in. So, don't expect anything amazing, and don't expect anything even remotely Williams-esque.

Here are some of my favorite pieces in no particualar order:

I have also scored a short film which will be at a film festival, and I am also doign a 50min film for the same person, which will hopefully be in next year's same festival.

Also have a friend in Canada who's going to eventually make a animated short and wants me to do the music for that as well.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I liked how you used the Great Fairy Theme.

Oh! Good ear! And cheers. I just hope my new theme for the character is memorable/decent enough... was a tricky balancing act referring to the Master Sword theme, the Fairy Queen theme, and also introducing and developing my own theme while keeping it fluid with the other themes.

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It's nice, but you should let the music speak for itself. Self-serving comments like, "As you can hear, it is at once beautiful and fragile as it is almost frighteningly powerful and majestic..." don't inspire much respect.

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It's nice, but you should let the music speak for itself. Self-serving comments like, "As you can hear, it is at once beautiful and fragile as it is almost frighteningly powerful and majestic..." don't inspire much respect.

Well, I admit that that part is poorly worded. It should read that it is *meant* to be beautiful etc, I just wanted to keep it as brief as possible. I initially didn't have any program notes but was asked by a couple of people who messaged me. And besides, I genuinely don't think it's that great and I'm pretty damn humble and self-doubting most of the time, so, well, I dunno, it's kind of a victory that I was able to say anything nice about my own work LOL.

But thanks for listening and commenting, mate.

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If anyone is interested in hearing it...

I'm working on a Suite for Band (my first), and the first is a military-style march. Even though I'm the composer/arranger for a military band, I don't do a lot of marches. (Thankfully...there's already a TON of them anyway!)

I have completed the first movement march, and our band is performing it on a tour the next couple weeks throughout Washington state. If you're interested in hearing a new march for band (which features a euphonium solo in the middle trio section), you can download it here (recorded today during a rehearsal):

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HFV7D0TC

The entire Suite is dedicated to my undergraduate college, Tennessee Technological University. The work itself is an homage to the collegiate experience, and the movements are as follows:

I. March

II. Traditions

III. Homecoming

As many Universities in the USA (especially in the South where I'm from) were founded as military-prep institutions, the first movement march is in traditional military-march form (think "Stars & Stripes Forever" by Sousa).

This is just a march, so if nobody is interested I won't be offended. I'll be sure to post a link for the entire Suite when it's finished.

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I like it, Jeremy, I like it a lot. I can imagine it being the background music of a Mickey Mouse cartoon.

Also, Jeremy, I have a question to ask: what am I hearing at about 2:45 or so? Are those quite castanets, the rim of a snare drum, or what?

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I like it, Jeremy, I like it a lot. I can imagine it being the background music of a Mickey Mouse cartoon.

Also, Jeremy, I have a question to ask: what am I hearing at about 2:45 or so? Are those quite castanets, the rim of a snare drum, or what?

Thanks Nick! Glad you like the march.

Yes, the sound you are hearing is the snare drummer playing on the rim. I have it indicated as such during that section to help the ensemble not cover up the euphonium solo.

Never considered it like cartoon music, but ironically my march is on the program right after a band work by Paul Hart titled "Cartoon." If you want, check that out. It's available on iTunes (type in "Cartoon Paul Hart" in the iTunes search box and it'll show up). It's a concert work, but intended to sound like cartoon music...but for this one, you get to create the story in your own mind as you listen to the music. Great work!

Thanks again!

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I keep meaning to respond to your work airmanjerm but every time I load General Discussion I get sidetracked and forget. Great work, dude, pretty accomplished orchestration -- wind band is a real test of one's ability to employ sufficiently varied colors which you have done well. You done anything in less of a 'straightforward style' (march)? I can hear some very obvious influences like Dvorak and the Star-Spangled Banner (especially the very very end! :thumbup: ) so it would be interesting to hear how you work your material without the well-trodden template.

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I keep meaning to respond to your work airmanjerm but every time I load General Discussion I get sidetracked and forget. Great work, dude, pretty accomplished orchestration -- wind band is a real test of one's ability to employ sufficiently varied colors which you have done well. You done anything in less of a 'straightforward style' (march)? I can hear some very obvious influences like Dvorak and the Star-Spangled Banner (especially the very very end! :lol: ) so it would be interesting to hear how you work your material without the well-trodden template.

Thanks Bowie! Glad you liked the march!

I'd never say that I didn't have any other outside musical influence when working on this march, but I would say it was primarily Sousa (naturally). His march format pretty much set the standard for the military march form. His format looked kinda like this:

1. First strain (16-32 mm, repeated)

2. Second strain (16-32 mm, repeated)

3. Trio (usually 32 mm)

4. Break Strain/"Dog-Fight"

5. Trio again, (often with a solo)

6. Break strain again

7. Final Trio - the "big finish"

(He had another form that he used for about 25% of his marches that omitted the break-strain).

Not to say that there's no similarities to any Dvorak or Star Spangled Banner though... :)

If you want to hear a different work of mine, I posted one a few pages back that I did last year, titled "Elegy for a Fallen Firefighter." I'll copy the link and notes and post them here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U31K2JX6

Here's a description of the piece (taken from the program notes):

"In the Spring of 2008 a great number of wildfires began to plague the west coast, including the area where my wife and I live near the Bay Area of California. Firefighters all along the West Coast worked overtime in what seemed like an endless battle to protect the residents of the western states and their homes. After hearing of a number of firefighters who had lost their lives in the struggle, I decided to compose an original work dedicated to those members of the firefighting community who had given their lives protecting all of us from those wildfires. Although the title is “Elegy for a Fallen Firefighter,” it is not dedicated to any one person or group, or even just to the west-coast firefighters who have battled wildfires; instead, to any firefighter who has lost his life in the line of duty.

[Analysis omitted....if any of you want me to post that then let me know.]

This work was written in June-July of 2008, and was premiered by the U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West on a tour throughout Northern California and Oregon from August 16-26, 2008. I had the honor of conducting the work on this tour, and a number of performances were dedicated to local firefighters who had perished in the line of duty. "Elegy for a Fallen Firefighter" was followed on each program by a setting of Amazing Grace, included in order to add to the overall tribute."

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have also scored a short film which will be at a film festival, and I am also doign a 50min film for the same person, which will hopefully be in next year's same festival.

Also have a friend in Canada who's going to eventually make a animated short and wants me to do the music for that as well.

Sorry I don't want to offend you, but uuuhhmm how? how are you going to make it? you should go to same musical theory course.. .. after listening to your youtube files.

I mean there are some nice ideas.. but it sounds really random well not to say chaotic.

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I keep meaning to respond to your work airmanjerm but every time I load General Discussion I get sidetracked and forget. Great work, dude, pretty accomplished orchestration -- wind band is a real test of one's ability to employ sufficiently varied colors which you have done well. You done anything in less of a 'straightforward style' (march)? I can hear some very obvious influences like Dvorak and the Star-Spangled Banner (especially the very very end! :lol: ) so it would be interesting to hear how you work your material without the well-trodden template.

Thanks Bowie! Glad you liked the march!

I'd never say that I didn't have any other outside musical influence when working on this march, but I would say it was primarily Sousa (naturally). His march format pretty much set the standard for the military march form. His format looked kinda like this:

1. First strain (16-32 mm, repeated)

2. Second strain (16-32 mm, repeated)

3. Trio (usually 32 mm)

4. Break Strain/"Dog-Fight"

5. Trio again, (often with a solo)

6. Break strain again

7. Final Trio - the "big finish"

(He had another form that he used for about 25% of his marches that omitted the break-strain).

Not to say that there's no similarities to any Dvorak or Star Spangled Banner though... :)

If you want to hear a different work of mine, I posted one a few pages back that I did last year, titled "Elegy for a Fallen Firefighter." I'll copy the link and notes and post them here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U31K2JX6

Here's a description of the piece (taken from the program notes):

"In the Spring of 2008 a great number of wildfires began to plague the west coast, including the area where my wife and I live near the Bay Area of California. Firefighters all along the West Coast worked overtime in what seemed like an endless battle to protect the residents of the western states and their homes. After hearing of a number of firefighters who had lost their lives in the struggle, I decided to compose an original work dedicated to those members of the firefighting community who had given their lives protecting all of us from those wildfires. Although the title is “Elegy for a Fallen Firefighter,” it is not dedicated to any one person or group, or even just to the west-coast firefighters who have battled wildfires; instead, to any firefighter who has lost his life in the line of duty.

[Analysis omitted....if any of you want me to post that then let me know.]

This work was written in June-July of 2008, and was premiered by the U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West on a tour throughout Northern California and Oregon from August 16-26, 2008. I had the honor of conducting the work on this tour, and a number of performances were dedicated to local firefighters who had perished in the line of duty. "Elegy for a Fallen Firefighter" was followed on each program by a setting of Amazing Grace, included in order to add to the overall tribute."

Amazing. Simply amazing. I hope one day I can hire you to score one of my future movies ;)

(Standing ovation)

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Amazing. Simply amazing. I hope one day I can hire you to score one of my future movies :lol:

(Standing ovation)

Thanks Michael and Bowie!

OK I'm not hikacking this thread (I swear!), but I just got a recording of something I did about 5 years ago when Jamie Farr (from "MASH") came to narrate on our holiday tour. It was a children's Christmas story titled "Hababy's Christmas Eve," and he came to narrate it as the band played musical accompaniment. So You-Know-Who got to write music to accompany a children's story about a bunch of camels at Christmas! (haha)

Mr. Farr had some of his own ideas about the music - he wanted simplicity, a lot of repetition, etc. (I also refuse to claim the idea for the little song at the end, but for children it wasn't too offensive! lol) This is a recording of the USAF Band at Langley AFB, VA.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GYS7S54N

I may post some of my other music here sometime, unfortunately a lot of my early composition attempts were EXTREMELY derivative of John Williams - mostly in the "learning how to imitate" form of the word, not the "plagiarism" usage (haha). Well, actually my first composition ever was 50% blatant ripoff (I'll chalk that one up to an 18-hour deadline, but still). Later I wrote one work that my Commander instructed me to do - he told me to just throw in as many "John Williams Tricks" as I could and get it out of my system. It turned out to be a pretty fun work - the brass players loved it! - but if you heard it you'd probably spend the whole 10 minutes saying "oh this part came from X movie score..." etc. It worked though....can't hardly bring myself to do that anymore.

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I totally understand what you mean, Airman! I've been the same -- passing through the Williams imitative phase by just writing as much as possible until your own voice seeps through and you learn what of your own imagination works just as well!

My latest piece, "

."
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I totally understand what you mean, Airman! I've been the same -- passing through the Williams imitative phase by just writing as much as possible until your own voice seeps through and you learn what of your own imagination works just as well!

My latest piece, "

."

I have some times where I will still imitate Williams, especially when appropriate. Gratuitous Space Battles is coming out on the 28th, and it is not just my own style, but nods to Williams, Goldsmith and Horner. Of course, I really hate working with samples, so I don't recommend you listen to it outside the game.

Oddly enough, when I listen to my early stuff, it seems more classically inspired than film score inspired. I think the pressures of commercialism have moved me more toward some devices which my clients will instantly recognise, and therefore approve of. Perhaps with this sentence, and with the release of GSB, I will be done with all that, but it is always hard to buck a trend and remain profitable.

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If you want to hear a different work of mine, I posted one a few pages back that I did last year, titled "Elegy for a Fallen Firefighter." I'll copy the link and notes and post them here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U31K2JX6

Great work Jeremy! Congratulations! :lol:

Here's a very short music cue, the music for the logo of a film company:

and my Youtube channel. Currenty have uploaded only the End credits of the romantic fantasy drama " A time for the Heart":

http://www.youtube.com/ZacharopoulosK

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Here's a very short music cue, the music for the logo of a film company:

Not bad, but it seems a bit grand for the rather bleak visual.

imho. :)

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Here's a very short music cue, the music for the logo of a film company:

Not bad, but it seems a bit grand for the rather bleak visual.

imho. :)

I didn't know what it would show. I was asked to write the music (20 seconds), and then they adopted the visuals to the music..

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  • 2 weeks later...

Greetings!

So I've just had my first commercially available soundtrack release! This past spring, I scored the Norwegian film "Upperdog", and while the film is out in theatres, the soundtrack album is available through Amazon, iTunes, etc.

We recorded with a small ensemble of extremely virtuosic players, and the performances are truly stellar, so I have to say,I am quite proud to see the release of this music.

So if anyone's interested, just do a search for "Upperdog", or "Marcus Paus", and it should be available most places.

Best,

Marcus

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