Reddit mentions of An Introduction to Tonal Theory

Holy crap, this is great! Thank you so much. :)

I put my questions in bold so that they would be easier to find.

> You have 2 timpani written out; no no no. You have 1 player.

Yeah, figured as much. In Nodame Cantabile, a Japanese anime, there was only one timpanist and I've never seen more than one in all the concerts I've watched. I guess I banked on the possibility of replacing him/her with a more traditional instrument, as was said possible in the succeeding rounds.

> Overall, the score REALLY suffers because you're seeing 1-4 measures per page. Edit the layout so we can see 6-8 measures per page. The count will cut from 125 to a much lower number and it will be easier to navigate.

Hahahaha my voice major friend also pointed this out to me as one of my biggest mistakes. Which paper size do orchestras usually use though?

> This is probably why little feedback came through.

Oops.

> I see quickly three tremolo markings on the tuba and bass trombone. Based on another comment, do you think this is vibrato?

...yeah. For the parts I didn't know I just relied on MuseScore's render. Sorry about that. Really should have studied orchestration beforehand.

> 22 measures of the xylophone playing the same pattern is a little tiring, I would suggest not "verbatim" repeating for such long, long stretches, for any part.

Oh lol I actually got this from Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. The marimba guy played the same thing for like 5 minutes? Hahahaha but I suppose only Steve can get away with it and not have his head bashed in by an irate percussionist.

> In measure 31 we see the first instance of offbeat tuplets. This is a huge no-no.

Oh wow I wasn't aware of this at all. I just thought it sounded neat. Definitely should have read a book first.

Actually, is there a booklet or cheatsheet that collects these hidden gotchas in one place? Might be easier to learn that way.

> At measure 57, is "trill" a vibrato for you? (IE computer playback)

Yes lol. They sound quite similar in MuseScore, though I should have known the difference already from my sax playing.

> Be aware of the need to breathe for ALL instruments.

Should I put breath markings then? My sax teacher told me the saxophonist should be able to figure it out and I just assumed it applied to all wind instruments.

> Your instrumentation allows you ONE tuba. (lol!)

Does this mean one can get away with longer patterns when there are multiple players around? Is it the prevailing convention that one player is expected to substitute for the other, and so on, to play such passages

> At measure 114, watch out for beaming.

...I confess that I usually just relied on MuseScore's automated beaming. But yeah, I have read about this issue somewhere and I should have known better lol.

> Below in the timpani is a confusing triplet. I would convert that (I think this is right, done hastily): quarter rest, half note, quarter note triplet (quarter note, then half note, inside)

I see. I suppose a lot of the notational stuff that's difficult to digest is about counting, especially since one usually has to have the experience of performing in order to see these difficulties (which are theoretically permitted by music notation's grammar).

> 120 Bass Clarinet, again, you should have eighth note tied to the whole note.

Hmm? What do you mean? Isn't it tied already?

> Your Xylo pattern at 150 comes on the 2nd sixteenth note of the downbeat while everything comes in right on 1 for their pattern. No other player is doing this, so it sounds like a huge error. "Is the xylophone player late? Are they drunk?" (seriously) I would reconsider this pattern (rhythmically).

I see. Does this mean that, as a general principle, I should have deliberately offbeat sections accompanied by another? Or lol perhaps I should choose my breaking-off-the-rhythm parts more carefully.

> 166 shows to me some accidental stuff: xylo might best be a D# and the Abs I see in the flute should be G#. Your motion leads to A and E (which are of the key) and point toward tonicization stuff. (Granted, I could be wrong but digesting this score is a lot so we'll let it go.) So you will want leading tones (half step below target, different letter) instead of chromatic notes (different pitch, same letter). Works functionally, easier to read, less sorting of "is it flat or natural?"

I admit, I don't really understand harmony all that well. I just tried what sounded okay but I suppose there's no skipping the whole theory.

> You might benefit from using the "repeat bar" symbol you've used constantly throughout the work in a singular part score for the timpanist, so when the pattern changes it will be very clear

I don't know how to specify which bars to repeat in MuseScore. :(

Am I right in assuming the divide-repeat thing means only to repeat the previous measure, as is the case for MuseScore playback? If so, then I don't really know how to represent the pattern I want so that the player repeats it properly while still showing the delay in the pattern's beginning.

> The lower you go and the closer together notes are, the muddier things sound.

More harmony woes. 😅

The book I'm using for this kind of stuff (and as a general intro to music theory in general is Peter Westergaard's An Introduction to Tonal Theory. Came across it in a library and it reads like a really clear mathematics textbook, which I really like lol. I tried Rameau but it just isn't for me.

> long tones (chords), more thoughtful use of dynamics (volume), and thoughts about instrumentation. Do you really need the bassoon or bass clarinet? Do you?

Would you mind expanding on that last point? Do you mean one is superfluous in the presence of the other? Or is it because they're pretty hard to come by? (I heard a bassoonist in the music department who spent $9500+ on his!)

Anyway, thank you so much for these comments! I don't know how to express my gratitude. This kind of feedback is the stuff of dreams for beginners like me and I really, really appreciate the time you spent writing it. I promise to keep every single one of them in mind when I write my next set of pieces and beyond.