Orchestration Project with Redbanned members (Update 1.st post)

At least I'm surprising. You mean the flute note at 0:12 ?

 

Yeah, and the next one. Just an idea.

 

Thank you for your compliments, they're really encouraging and it means a lot to me.

How was my approach ?

Well, I'm a simple guy so I do simple things. The reason I didn't orchestrate your fanfare as expected is because you did exactly what I wanted to do except you know how to do it and I don't. Few days later you said you'll try a dark version and I was like 'no way, I'm an elfmaniac and I can't leave him this one'.

So I changed the C major into a minor and I started to tweak notes in harmony to turn it into a darker path with more dissonances. The result is not as dark as previously intented because my experiments leaded me to something more mysterious and I really liked it. So I did it this way.

The most important for me is to be respectful of the given material. There's no point to perform a reinterpretation of a theme if the target audience can't recognize it. So I kept the harmony as close as the original and I did not change the melody. If you liked what you heard I'm really happy but I'm sure you liked it more because you knew what it was. If I had changed too many things in harmony and melody and you didn't really recognize the theme, you'd be a bit upset (I'd be).

So, that's my approach : tweaking, twisting but the theme should be (almost) instantly recognizable. And of course, I had to do the do-it-with-no-click personal challenge.

You said the end is ambiguous, well... First, we both know that it's not how the Fanfare For A Man ends, second, I'm not sure yet where I should go next to finish the work (and I'm scared to fuck it up).

Voilà !

 

No reason to be scared! Just go wherever you feel like going. And if it's not working, you just found out where not to go, which will narrow down your options. Kinda shitty advice but it's you and your vocabulary against the world. And we all know how to go about improving our vocabulary, don't we? In this case, since you already have a composition, it's just experimenting with different colors. The composition may limit you, so if that's what you feel, don't be afraid to change things. This is all meant to be an exercise (you can scroll up to the very first page, I think, and listen what Doug did twice with Polychordal Space). Just do what feels right to you.

Then you can just wait for Alex to post in chat that he's having some beers before posting your changed version, I'm sure he won't mind then!

And why not, do the brassy fanfare as well. I'm sure you'll learn at least something from it.

 

'Hold the german guy, i'm posting my shit !'

No, I'm not afraid of others opinions, they're always welcome. About Doug's work, that illustrate exactly what I don't want to do. I mean, the pieces are good by themselves and you'd probably see the relation with the original material with some analysis. It's maybe a more intellectual way to do and it has its value. But I think it's a mistake to do so. It limits drastically the act of sharing the music.

 

That's funny. I should get a coffee mug printed with this quote.

All the best !

 

Haha ! Without context it sounds so mean. All my apologies.

Good case : Everything has changed but they kept lyrics, melody and rhythm. They also kept the relationship between the first chord and the melody. It works very well as a cover.


Bad case : Everything has changed but they kept lyrics. Why do they pretend it's a cover ?

 

The reason is well exposed here. The original rhythm means something and I wanted to keep it. The rest is only a noob story : I didn't know how to do that so I wanted to enter the melody in a straight way in the sequencer grid and use the tempo track to make it sound freeform but I failed at the first step.

Fun fact : I forgot the two short notes.

 

Great version Alex! 1:26 to 1:33 you cannot get more "Williams-esque" than that! I just have the feeling that there could be a sexier way to lead to this kind of progression harmonically... Feels a little incongruous to me.

Still need to start working on my version... Got really busy lately.

 

The mid range strings at start and at 42" bother me. I dunno if it's an interpretation or samples/midi editing issue but it's a little poussif* because of an unpleasant pump effect.

* French word, I don't find a translation.

 

Have I inspired you to try different versions?

Could you explain me the '2 dynamic markings less' part (or tell me where it's explained) ?

 

It's basically a trick that Mike learned from Shawn Murphy/John Williams, that mostly applies to live orchestra: since you mostly "record" pieces with musicians, and not perform it live, it doesn't actually have to be THAT LOUD in the room. A good rule of thumb is to bring everything one dynamic marking down on the whole score, keeping the ceiling at forte (and using fortissimo for effects), so that the musicians play everything more musically; the reasoning is that they would play a little bit louder anyway, but also that you can always push the overall volume of a quiet performance. It's basically to achieve a more musical performance by having the musicians play quieter and by taking advantage of a bigger dynamic range.

Mike always says that John Williams' sessions are actually much quieter in the room than they appear to be in the movie, and if you pay close attention you can actually tell that some of the sounds must be VERY quiet (how many times have you heard pizzicatos in his pieces? Or tremolos?).

I also want to add that a lot of other composers don't really take full advantage of this, and as a result you end up with overcompressed tracks with blasting brass sections and screaming choir that don't feel nearly as big as they should, but instead they sound very flat (and also because they don't take advantage of dynamics in general, but that's another topic).

 

Thanks Francesco. I think I heard something like that from Mike's videos but I thought it concerned notation and not mock up.