Band Reading

On Wednesday I had a very interesting experience hearing the wind ensemble read my new band piece that I wrote. Hearing my piece being played from speakers by means of MIDI data was alright and I thought my piece was sounding pretty cool. Going into the band reading I was expecting it to sound better then hearing it played from my computer, but unfortunately it was not the greatest reading. Now I know that they were sight reading but I was expecting a bit of a better read through from the band. Since the reading I have been a little bit nervous about submitting this to the Gower Band competition thinking that it may be too hard. Hearing my piece being sight read was defintitly something I was not ready for because I knew exactly how the piece was suppose to sound and when the group didn't achieve it, it felt frustrtaing. I guess this is the way it is for composers, even though you write down all of these directions on a page, what notes to play, how fast, how loud or soft, players will never fully play it the way you hear it in your head.

There were some good things that I got from the reading. I was able to get a sense of balance and I was able to hear some of my dynamic ideas in person besides listening to it from a computer. A cool thing about my piece is that at times I have each section come in a beat after the other starting with the tuba and going up to the flutes to create a huge chord. This sounded decent on the computer but it sounded really cool in person because you could hear the entrances coming in from different areas of the band.

Overall this was a good experience and I am happy that I chose to write for band.