Orchestra Piece 2018

11/30/2018

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"Orchestra Piece 2018" was composed and recorded with Mixcraft Pro Studio 6 and mixed down with Mixcraft 7. It was composed with "virtual" (sampled) instrument sounds, all done on the computer. Scored for flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, percussion, and strings. My goal with this piece was to create a work that was as idiomatically "orchestral" as possible using sampled instruments. With sampled instruments it is easy to do a lot of things that a "real" orchestra would never do, and I wanted to avoid that. It required a lot of study and understanding of the way the various sections of the orchestra interact, and kinds of melodic contours and voicings that one hears in orchestral pieces. For example, I avoided "quantizing" the rhythms which would have made them so tight they they'd sound like they were done on a computer. Some of the entrances of choirs of instruments are staggered slightly, as is usually heard in even the most tightly rehearsed ensembles. The harmonically astringent and rhythmically disjunct sound of my work was inspired by the atonal "classical" music of the post-war period (late 1940's onward).

11 Comments

Tom Furgas

Born in Youngstown, Ohio
in 1954.

Piano lessons beginning
at age 5.
Started composing
at age 12.

Made tapes on a portable cassette machine starting
in 1969.

Started home-taping seriously in 1983.
Have sold and traded tapes and, later, CD's since then.

Musical interests:
contemporary classical, free improvisation, electronic
music both popular and "classical", noise, audio collage, experimental
music of all kinds. Have done many collaborations by mail and electronic media.

E-mail

Chris Phinney

11/30/2018 10:24:29

Welcome to EC Tom! Glad to see yoo here. Been a long time!

12/1/2018 08:29:29

Thanks, Chris! It is great to hear from you again.
Tom

C. Goff III link

11/30/2018 11:06:11

Enjoying your Orchestra piece, Mr. Furgas, thanks for sharing. I've got a big load of your music on compilations that I've collected for about a million years, but I've never directly made your acquaintance. I tip my hat to you, particularly regards your work with MIDI that dates back into some very ancient calendars.

Regards this current offering of yours, I think you might really enjoy Greg Segal's newest orchestral work, if you have not yet heard it. Link here if curious:

https://gregsegal.bandcamp.com/album/33

Keep up the good work. CIII

12/1/2018 10:11:43

Hi Greg -
Listened to some of "33". So far, it's great! Has a distinct Zappa influence, but it's still basically yours. As for not being classically trained, I count that as a plus, not a drawback at all. I myself am mostly self-taught. Read lots of orchestration and composition books when I was in high school, and learned a lot that way, but without being dragged down by classical theory. What you're doing is great, so keep on doing it. Glad you liked my Orchestra Piece. Hal will be posting other works by and by.

12/1/2018 12:41:55

Hey Tom. Great you dig the Greg Segal album. But I am not Greg; I'm Charles Rice Goff III. I just thought that Greg's new album would be very much up your alley.

My own recordings cover a pretty wide range, and I play a lot of instuments, mess around a lot with MIDI too, but in all my own 40-plus years of recording, I've never been quite equipped with the tech it would take to put together a true "orchestral" album.

Rafael González

11/30/2018 13:28:07

Amazing!!! Welcome to EC.

Hal McGee, EC Editor

11/30/2018 14:35:45

Tom has added an explanatory text to the article.

Frank

12/1/2018 00:17:21

Doing something similar was on my (huge) 'To Do'-list also. But, I think I can never reach your quality in this piece. Great job!

12/1/2018 10:13:57

It took me 40 years to figure out how to "orchestrate" and have it sound fairly idiomatic. But don't despair! If what you do sounds good to you, that's the only criteria you need. Keep working, and put your work out there for us to enjoy.

Leslie Singer

12/1/2018 17:51:25

Tom, great to hear your piece. Welcome to EC!

Adam J Naworal

12/8/2018 02:34:07

Very nicely done and a really interesting read as to the process of creating it! Thanks for sharing this and welcome to EC, Tom!

Orchestra Piece 2018

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Tom Furgas

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