Sounds great, I love it... but perhaps use a gong instead of cymbal and add make the plucked string instrument louder so it can compete with the rest of the song.
Maybe have a full chorus come in at 2:00... it's supposed to be the climax! Make it big and bold like a western orchestra, strings play the melody too as well as backing!
Great work... better than I could do if I tried far eastern.
I added a few extra things in, plus mastered it a bit better. I think it sounds pretty cool now.
Just google the pentatonic scale and play with that. You'll end up getting something relatively Far East sounding.
Someone who bothers using a Timpani effectively!
I absolutely love the opening Trombone/low horn motif... very heroic. I only wish the strings following it up had more time to develop before the theme around 1:00 came in. At that point, I could imagine some excellent snare work... rolls and "rat-a-tat-tats" in a march going on. Perhaps your timpani could fill in more there. Definitely consider a snare drum at the least... it has the feel of a heroic march from a cinematic score (definitely reminds me of the work of Harry Gregson-Williams in Chronicles of Narnia).
The intro is nice, but I could imagine a triangle part going on... gently chiming in to introduce the trombones and so on.
0:49 with the trumpets heralds a great moment, but imagine offering that to the clarinets (in their lower registries) at first before handing it over to the trumpets around 0:55 with that great dissonant chord.
At the epic horn melody around 1:20, I wonder what would happen if you had your first violins playing 8va that exact melody, it often lends a great epic feel.
As always, your work awes me and inspires me to write even grander pieces. Best of luck with your composing, I'll try to offer some ideas on other pieces if it helps. :)
-Samulis
The first brass instrument you heard was a solo french horn, accompanied by a trumpet later. You always come up with the most innovative ideas in improving music, I don't know what I would do without you honestly.
I'll be producing more epically inspired pieces, and I will do my best to add more emphasis on backup instrumentation and attention to detail. This song was short so I didn't have much time to focus on it as I would have liked.
Thank you for the review, and as always -- you're the best.
Interesting piece here, but there aren't a lot of classical ideas. Sounds like an electronic piece arranged into an orchestral piece. I hope you will take my constructive comments with a grain of salt and consider the suggestions I have left, as they are things I have done to improve my orchestral composition from something far lesser.
I like the progression, but I really think you should consider adding more variation to your motif. Although the change at 1:10 is good, it leads on to that same motif being repeated again and again until the same theme we heard before comes back. Why not take this excellent opportunity for writing in a B-theme there before returning to that A-theme. The nice quiet C theme is nice, but should try to move AWAY from the A theme before returning to the A theme in the finale (which, might I add, is where you'd want to put every ounce of heart-rending beauty and glory). Symbolically, your repeating motif could show how that love endured all changes, but then you have to step back and ask yourself how that will affect people's impression on your song. In the case of Bolero by Ravel, he was okay with having the same key and progression for several minutes straight through a slow, repetitive buildup. :D
This song could certainly benefit from more dynamic changes. Orchestral composition isn't something that should be treated like any other genre... it is expressive, it is flowing... even it its darkest and fastest regions. Your strings have a certain "jilt" to them I think you should try to smooth out through using inversions and ties/slurs.
One of the tricks I have learned over the years writing orchestral is to keep the song moving... sometimes the best idea is to start with two entirely different themes, and try to build a song that transverses the great landscape between them. This allows you to explore, to move, and to even repeat motifs if you choose a form which has that (ABACA or ABCA and so on), but also gives the audience something fresh and new every once in a while, which is the best way to retain an audience for a song over two minutes.
Talking about expression... when you want to show love, you should think more about what feelings you remember from your loves... for me, it would be sorrow; a lone harp playing a soft melody, with it evolving through a great cymbal roll into a glorious theme on full strings and horns. You have to get those feelings and go with them, not go with what progression sounds nice. Use your ear... use your heart... you can tell when an orchestral piece comes from the heart. It could start as a quiet violin, just as your love might have started as that voice in the back of your head urging you to ask the person out... it could start as a quiet woodwinds trio or solo trumpet exclaiming your feelings before you first felt love's touch, quickly rising into soaring strings with a B theme, practically shouting "I'm in love!". This may sound a bit ridiculous, but that's how composers have tackled things like this... by telling a story.
I honestly think this piece is good so far, but you should listen to some more orchestral works... It sounds like you have an ear for more contemporary composers, so consider looking up music by John Adams and Philip Glass, my go-to examples for contemporary music. Also consider some soundtrack music or even some of Richard Wagner's operatic work... both are great for learning the feeling of expression that an orchestra could convey through any piece.
Good luck, I hope you will consider working on more orchestral pieces and improving your style! I have not looked at the rest of your music, but I might give it a look and offer more suggestions if you find this to be of any help! Great work here, it just needs development.
Have a good day,
-Samulis
Hey, thank you for your comment. It was polite and constructive, and I thank you a million times for taking your time to write it.
On that note, I changed the genre of this piece and I'll stop putting music on the "Classical" category, and that way, hopefully aspies like NorskeDrittsekk (but not you!) will stop bugging me.
PS: about this song itself, I went for simple and repetitive because that's the feeling I wanted. I think of the separate parts of it as snapshots of how I felt during one certain day or event. I see it as representing something static. The way it changes, without transition or explanation, is the way I found to represent three completely separate events, at different periods of my life. Since my entire body of work is autobiographical, I feel that it needs to respond to my feelings and my thoughts on whatever I'm trying to convey, and I am extremely satisfied with this song. I just wish I hadn't changed the ending, which, originally, was very sudden and "ugly".
Pretty nice... reminds me of Age of Empires soundtrack.
My main tip is to try moving away from repetition... however much fun it is, classical doesn't have a lot of it except for the early stuff. This sounds like video game music to be honest.
You did a good job with switching percussion up. However, for more 'epic' stuff, think about having many instruments, not just more epic percussion. I suggest you listen to some film scores such as that to Lord of the Rings, the Narnia series, and so on... they are great inspiration for "epic" feeling pieces... same with music to some computer games.
A nice piece, I actually really enjoyed this for some reason. Not exactly classical, but nice and varying. Good job, keep working on improving your stuff. :)
I appreciate the feedback sir!
"This sounds like video game music to be honest."
I hope that is a good thing, I have heard some pretty good VG soundtracks. :)
"My main tip is to try moving away from repetition"
I actually tried to make this more repetitive so it had some semblance of a theme (this piece is a deviation from my more 'progressive' pieces). I will keep this tip in mind, and may revise this piece later to correct this.
"A nice piece, I actually really enjoyed this for some reason."
Thanks, I am glad to hear this! This is my first finished 'orchestral' piece (after 4 or so failed attempts), so I'm glad I did something right!
"keep working on improving your stuff. :)"
I will, thanks! I really like this style, and will continue to develop it.
Excellent work. :D
I honestly love the way the piece sings and builds... the dynamic motion is in great motion constantly, that's excellent. I would give you some constructive criticism, but I am not in a good mindset for offering it... instead I will just say that I like it a lot, although some of the instruments could have been balanced a bit better and perhaps a tiny bit more reverb and spreading used at certain points.
Brokendeck was talking a lot about he wants to see pieces with melodies, and yours has a clear one... also lots of dynamic mood changes.
3:30 is epic... love that swing of mood. Masterfully written there onto the end... the rapid arpeggios in the 4:00 area sound great and are something I have honestly never thought of using like that; it provides great action.
The harp around 4:50 is beautiful... that buildup is perfectly executed... the ending doesn't have much of a cadence though, but it sounds great anyway... consider a harp arpeggio of the chord, slowly going up from the lower end of the instrument up to the top over the course of the final note... it offers some more character to an otherwise plain ending.
Great piece... definitely top 8 material. :)
-Samulis
Thanks for the review! You always write helpful ones.
Yeah as far as balance/verb/spread, this is the first mockup I've done with some new VSTs so I'm still getting used to their "power" and how they sit in a mix. I agree here.
The "cadence" if you will, is actually Vmaj7/V (solo harp + strings), then i - iv - I (tutti). Straightforward, but regardless of labels, I had that particular ending voicing in my mental ear early in the composition process.
Thanks again and good luck!
Great work!
Sounds great, my only issue is that the drums sound a bit quiet... consider making the timpani/bass drum a bit wetter and in the 3:00-4:00 area with hits, moving between the first and fifth or first and third has a great feel to it as opposed to sticking on the first. The snare rim-hits around 1:00 should either be a bit louder or perhaps, consider trying them on the drum itself.
You do a great job of making clean motion between the various motifs, and the piece moves well, although some more counter-melodies could have been used. Instrumentation is okay, although I didn't hear much woodwinds. The clarinet around 2:00 is nice, but oboe and 8va would perhaps offer a clearer sound. When you get to the build up around 2:45ish, the range seems fine, but once again, oboe might be better.
Which trumpet were you using for that part near the end? If you were using solo trumpet 1, consider trying solo trumpet 2... it has a timbre that is more fitting for epic songs. Alternately, I have had luck as of late with the 2 trumpet VIs.
There's a fair diversity to the piece, and I think you did a good job with expressing a solid feeling with it.
Best of luck in the competition!
-Samulis
Hey man, thanks for the feeback, I enjoy your music :) I think i used grouped instruments for the parts, including trumpets, if there was any solo instrument it was the french horn, i love french horns. Anyhow thanks for the detailed review :)
Dissonance... and motion related thereof... an amazing thing to use, and most people are too scared to try out some good dissonance.
I think you could have tried to work on reducing the repetitiveness a bit and presenting new themes and more dramatic changes, especially with such a small ensemble where such changes are near required. Certain instruments seem to perform the same role throughout, and although that's perfectly fine, sometimes switching things around can show you something you never thought of before.
I enjoyed this piece considerably. I only wish it were for a larger ensemble, but it's perfectly fine with the instrumentation it presently has. There isn't much motion, throughout the piece... it essentially just wanders. If that's the feel you want (it sounds like it is by your description), that's fine, but a lot of people like orchestral pieces that take them on a journey.
A very fine piece nonetheless, best of luck!
-Samulis
Thanks for the great review.
I have been composing music for orchestra for the past five years now, in my room, usually at night, as an amature, since I was 15. When I started, I really had no idea what I was doing. At that age I had never really listened classical music or something like that. I was just extremely inspired by Yann Tiersen. I loved everything about his music, especially the way he put his emotions into it. I also wanted to turn my own emotions into music.
Years went by and my pieces began to get weirder and weirder. I actually began to push too many themes in one piece. Eventually I couldn't be satisfied because the pieces where not coherent enough in my opinion.
That is why I wanted to take a step back with this piece, to go back to the simplicity I started with, but still with the expierience I now have. I hope this explains the repetitiveness and the fact that there aren't any more themes.
Maybe I've gone back to simplicity too far. I'm still searching for the right middle.
I agree about the journey thing, I also like orchestral pieces that take me on a journey. That's why I'm obsessed by symphonies like the 3th, 4th, 5th and 6th of Prokofiev, the 2nd of Rachmaninov, 5th, 10th and 11th of Shostakovich, etc. Everyone should know those pieces. Especially Prokofiev's 5th! Prokofiev was a true master! But to get back to the topic, I'll try to upload some different stuff that is more of a journey, but I've got to tell you those pieces are weird and extreme. There are a few pieces that I cannot complete, because the computer with the files had crashed. I will upload these as soon as possible. Right now the submit area of NG is having some problems, so I'm not able to submit audio just yet, but I will keep trying.
I hope I haven't forgotten anything.
Engaging, extremely well mastered. The opening brass hits sound almost a bit too high velocity-wise...
One thing I would have expected is a lot of tremolo strings, but, forgive me if I am mistaken, I didn't hear any. The vocals are great... EWQL, I presume? You have a sort of call thing going on around 2:10... might be better to have those quarter-notes coming out from different pans (left-right) for more contrast.
You have that epic feeling down really well, great work on that! It flows well, but consider some lower cymbal rolls or gong rolls for a more epic feel.
At the finale (4:33), I feel as if more could have been given. The issue with having a song so epic the majority of the time is that finales are hard. Consider a full chorus in at that point singing a counter-melody of some sort (perhaps rest-F#-G#-A for the first measure) and strings doing whole notes as well, just to put as much noise in there as you can and to make it feel as "full" as possible. Perhaps even marching cymbal crashes on the 2,3,4 beats or something. As I said to others before, don't be afraid to break out a gong... it lends a great epic feel.
Strings- consider all sorts of sixteenth-note arppegios climbing all over the place and descending/ascending lines, although I like those root-root-fith-fith (or whatever you did there with the marcato strings) sixteenths too.
Brass sounds great, as a trombonist, I fully endorse it! :P
Just don't be afraid to make your bassline (tuba or double-bass) louder... or maybe that's just my speaker setup.
If you have any vibraphone or waterphone instruments, here's the place to use them. Also, anvils might be a good addition if you want that sort of ringing hit.
As for mastering, may I suggest writing everything at half-volume (if you have a master volume slider control for the whole piece, drop it down so your waveform only goes about half-way to full) and write there, then boost it up as needed later and, if REALLY necessary, use a light compressor if you want a loud mix, although that can cut back on nice sharp percussion sometimes.
A great piece, one of the best so far!
-Samulis
Hey Samulis, thanks for the review! You're right about alot of things, such as the additional percussion would have added some variety. And maybe I could have changed it up at the end to give us a newer sorta theme to emphasise the climax. I actually did add almost every VST that I had running at the time to play something, so my layering might just be poor. The velocity at the beginning was intentional, and I've heard it done before in some scores that I have and for that fact I wanted to maybe give it a shot myself where the stac's just interupt everything.
I actually do write everything really quiet and master up. In fact when doing so i nearly deafen myself when a sudden noise from any other app hits me. I know it's not an excuse but I do have sound card issues, being that it just doesn't f**king work anymore. So when sound was mobo direct, which sounds soooo awful.
I should have added a waterphone. This was a perfect opportunity too! Argh!
Thanks so much for your review, it helps me improve so much! :)
Excellent piece... Has a great style, certainly orchestral-cinematic. I love the suddenness of sections, it's not traditional, but it's beautiful. The progression and flow of the piece is excellent, near flawless. My only big issue is that the percussion is lacking... some bass drum rolls here and there would be nice, although there's a considerable amount of lighter percussion in use.
One of the things I look for in classical is an aspect of music from the Romantic era- expressing a feeling and/or telling a story. This piece does that- it's vivid, descriptive, and unique.
The initial launch around 1:00 is an excellent point, and the dissonance reminded my of some of Wagner's stuff. From then on, it traveled contemporary orchestral-cinematic with some great passages... of both great joy and sorrow, it seems. The motifs flowed efficiently and effectively between ideas, and passages seemed complete, although this piece, although so long, could be written even longer to experience some new variations of these themes.
Instruments and symbolism-wise... I am a real stickler for certain things when it comes to harps, partially because I have experienced the rants of discontented harpists and partially because I find it one of the most expressive yet most misused (at least in cinematic) instruments. You used it well here, and provided some great melodic ideas, although more expression could have been used (I honestly love low notes on Harp and Piano, they provide great backing; also, counter-melodies on harp or guitar can sound great in the right instance). You honestly invoke a lot of symbolism in your choices, whether intended or not, and I am really REALLY happy to see that. :)
The epic size of this piece is commendable alone... I have only written three or four pieces past four minutes, and none as good as this.
Regarding some ideas and feedback, one issue is dynamics. There are certain parts where a crecendo on the instruments (3:15, for example), then a decrescendo, would be nice so it completes a full motion. There's a lot of bit where more "feeling" can be added through more expressive dynamics, but you did a great job on outlining motion.
Honestly, this is one of the finest pieces I have heard in a long time, although some more mastering could have been done and some more other bits. This is definitely in the top 8. :)
Excellent job, and good luck!
-Samulis
Whoa... man this review is so detailed! Thanks a tonne! I really love getting helpful reviews.
I usually quote and respond to each part of the review but since this review is so big and I'm limited on characters I'll just have to respond the old-fashioned generic way :P.
First things first, I'm happy you think the flow was good. The fact that there's such a large number of changes in the mood and feeling made it very hard to get the transitions right and I think this is the song which gave me most trouble in transitions. You're the second to like the suddenness of certain sections so I guess that was a good call on my part, thankfully.
Regarding the percussion lacking, I didn't really want to focus much on percussion this time round. I mean, I wanted to add the occasional light percussion and cymbal rolls/gongs to pronounce certain parts in the piece but yeah I agree that percussion wasn't something too prominent in this. I thought someone would mention that, actually.
I'm also really glad you think the passages sound complete. I've had people tell me in the past that I sometimes make song sections too short.
I totally agree with you about harps by the way! They are definitely underrated. I've actually used a harp in every single orchestral submission I've done so far. None used it as prominently as this song did, but I do love the sound. East/West has a really awesome harp.
I see what you mean about adding bass notes to the harp/piano. That has always been my problem; I can never actually utilise low bass notes of those two instruments properly (mostly harp).
Also 3:15 was a bit of a moment of laziness on my part. The project file was going insane with all the instruments I was using and I didn't feel like making a proper crescendo/decrescendo since with all the lag it would take ages :P.
Overall I REALLY appreciate the massive review. Hopefully I'll make it into the Top 8, but the competition's really tough so I don't know about that!
Thanks again! I'll find the time to review you back - your submission is great :3.
Amazing...
As a huge fan of Mahler, Wagner, Schubert, and all those great (Late) Romantic Era composers, I have to say this piece has an excellent theme. My only distaste is that the instrumentation seems a bit funky. Some sort of woodwind instrument (flute or oboe) would be far more used than trumpet in the fast echoes of the Piano motives... The instrument sounds could be improved upon, but that's a pretty major undertaking, so no need.
I think there should be one more echo of the ending, but going up and even slower and quieter, with perhaps strings (unless you're writing a Russian piece, in which case it would rapidly speed up and go through a piano gliss then a quick "1-7+-1!" at FF or something catchy like that).
See, this is exactly the kind of review I was hoping for!
Instrumentation:
Damn, you're right. I was browsing through my instruments and thought that the woodwinds wouldn't have enough impact to echo the piano, but I guess they don't even have to. The trumpet almost makes it a double concerto.
Ending:
Yeah, I thought the same thing - after uploading. One more echo, but not the russian style: I am german after all :D so it would be extremely slow, still with piano in foreground.
Thanks a lot for the review!
Cheers
Orchestral music, weird instruments, and sample libraries just about sums it up.
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