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Maiden Voyage - Revisited

Discussion in 'Critique & Feedback' started by JP Beveraggi, Apr 13, 2019.

  1. I'm glad you've found success with piano sketching. I'm also quite proud of you that you've extended to I believe doubled length since you first posted this idea.

    Of course there is room to lengthen the track even more, but I'm going to side with Doug on this one that I don't think you need to for this piece. I'm more impressed and satisfied knowing you stretched your "development" & "form/structure" muscles. Continue doing this with future pieces to keep practicing those skills, even if in the end you chuck away 7 mins of the 10 minute piece, atleast you still practiced and worked through those ideas.

    For example because I was just having this conversation with my father the other day.... Carmina Burana is an amazing piece but 90% of the world really only knows the first 2 minutes the O' Fortuna part.... so does it mean the rest of it was a waste? Fuck no as it's a great piece of music. So then it comes down to the purpose of your piece, and how you're presenting it to your audience I guess. So if your goal is to please the average listener I think you've achieved a solid length with development and forward momentum.

    Take these notes as just ideas and as always, any of my notes you never have to take as "you should do this", remember it's your artistic choice and your style. But keep my suggestions/notes in mind for future pieces if any are interesting to you.

    0:50 seconds is an odd spot to take out the ostinato synth, perhaps sooner, or maybe fade it out softer so it ends at the end of the bar on the "B" phrase of your melody. Smooth transitions not abrupt.
    1:07 start your rhythm with the celli/basses, (or bassoons) either on the downbeat or maybe 2 beats before... instead of it feeling like a new section has started cut and dry, have it transition smoother by smearing your phrases/ideas. (Rachmaninoff is one great example of doing this often; so is John Williams)
    1:07, save the triplet lead in for the 2nd time at 2:11 (just take out a few notes so its more like the swing rhythm that you have at 1:10, then you'd have a micro development for the 2:11 part compared to 1:07)
    2:20 I like your orchestration. I hear your exploration of ideas. nice!
    2:50 sounds like you need to just increase the volume of your melody. I think in context it'll work although the high clarinet note is a bit strong & shrill, but that sounds like your intent with your orchestration. I'd just better balance that your melody is the focus point instead of the clarinet (although the clarinet would still stand out in a real live setting, so turning down the clarinet is not a solution but an artificial one).
    3:28 is cool, its starting to build and soar. This is nice.
    4:00, nice job circling back to the opening synth. I love full-circles.

    Lastly, your opening synth ostinato lacked any development. Wait... it's an ostinato isn't that the point? Well sure... but if you're okay with that than don't mind me pointing it out. But, just know the longer the ostinato goes on the more fatiguing it becomes. Which is perfect why you took it out at the 0:50 second mark, but if you had developments in the ostinato you perhaps could've kept it going longer if you wanted it to. I'm more of just pointing it out to you and you might already be well aware of it lol.

    Also to argue my last point about slow development and ostinato you could listen to Wagner and prove me wrong. So that's always up for debate lol.
     
    Doug Gibson and JP Beveraggi like this.
  2. I like to argue and debate with myself as you've probably learned. I'm my own worst and best critic.

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    Doug Gibson likes this.
  3. Great track. The sound is splendid, very transparent and realistic. In the first paragraph quoted above, you refer to how your audience will react to the track length. This is indeed a vital question we should all be asking ourselves more often regarding every aspect of our pieces. But first of all, who is our audience? Certainly not the teenager blasting rap sounds out of his car, nor the classical listener who listens to nothing but Baroque and thinks anything after Mozart is trash. So who is our listener, and how do we best communicate with them? You really gave me a lot to think about with that simple question. :)

    Anyway, back to your track specifically, I think the length "feels" about right to me. Generally, I try to think about an established form to help guide my own composing. I do this from the first note that I commit to paper (or rather the computer). By trying to use a distinct established form, like Rondo, Sonata, Scherzo, etc. I then have a road map to help guide my poor efforts. These forms have stood the test of time, and most classical music listeners will relate to them, even if they are not sure why. They will also help with pacing and length. The bad thing for me is that I start off with every intention to follow a set form, then often the music takes me away from the set form, and I end up with some modified something or other. But at least it gives me a plan of attack, even if the piece does not end up as planned. I hope that makes some sense.

    Another great tool is to model a piece you admire. You do not copy any exact notes, but copy other aspects, like form, length of sections, the position of climax, etc. But none of the above is probably news to you. You might have been thinking about all of these things from the beginning.

    Regarding your piece, I think you could do more to create a sense of climax at some point. Especially now that the piece is longer, you really need to go somewhere and "arrive" at that destination. The position of the climax would traditionally be anywhere in the final third of the piece. I could not detect the climax in your piece after two listens.

    This is excellent work and you have every reason to be proud of it. if it were me, I would put it aside for a few weeks, then come back with fresh ears and make further improvements at that point. Thank you so much for sharing your work.
     
  4. Thank you Dillon, feedback much appreciated.

    Yes, it makes total sense to keep practicing.

    The ostinato is for a celesta, so if you did not recognise it, it probably means it has 0 chance of cutting through in a live setting, correct?
    Alexandre Desplat uses one in this track (below) and I thought it meant something about "memories" for some reason. I definitely can develop the short repeats I do in the late sections.



    Sounds good, will try.

    Experimentation it is. I like the high note because it brings temporary unease but it is too intense when the celli play the melody on their own, so my guess is that I need to support the celli further in this section.
     
    Dillon DeRosa likes this.
  5. I don't think this is a bad thing at all Paul, but a conscious thing we should be aware of when writing. I was having (as well) this exact conversation with my father yesterday about form. He reminds me every time that, "music wants to go where music wants to go, you can put it in a box but you can't try to force an idea, form, or rules that it just doesn't want to belong to."

    So sure, to argue with my father you could but then thats why sometimes ideas don't work out they way we want it to, or it sounds artificial or not genuine... it sounds like your ripping off another composer etc etc... all that jazz...

    I've recently been doing the same thing Paul, trying to pick a form and stick with it but, I do break the form/rules because I hear extensions of sections/phrases or repeats. I do think it's good though to have a form in mind, to just give you a little structure or balance before entering the dark void of nothingness as you start your journey into composition lol.
     
    Paul T McGraw likes this.
  6. I wouldn't say it has a zero chance of cutting through but as the orchestration becomes more dense it prob will start to become buried.

    Layered with a piano is a different thing though, the piano is more percussive (has a stronger attack) so together the celeste and piano will have more chance of it cutting through like in this Desplat piece.

    As well, this could just be your sample so I apologize, but your celeste sounded more like a synth then an actual celeste would. Celeste still has the toy'ish bell sound and you can still hear it in Desplat piece, but yours sounded a bit too round and not bellish to me so I assumed it was a synth. (But Harry's potter famous celeste is a synth is an artificial one so who cares right?)

    I felt personally Desplat's ostinato goes on a bit too long but then he does develope it with adding the harmonies with the 3rd's at 40 seconds. Then at 1 min he actually changes the ostinato. So he does still develope it which you could've done something similar instead of dropping it out... IF, you wanted to.. obviously you didn't have to. ;D

    Also notice how he varies in the celeste and piano coming in and out... this also creates variations and development because Desplat is well aware of how fatiguing this ostinato is becoming straight from the beginning of the piece.

    Thank you for sharing your inspo track by the way. I now better understand what you were going for.

    Edit: I listened back to your piece, I actually do hear part of the bell sound especially on the high note. So I could've just assumed it was a synth and my brain didn't allow me to consider any other options lmao. Apologies
     
    JP Beveraggi likes this.
  7. #27 Dillon DeRosa, Apr 19, 2019
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2019
    I didn't see this apologies. If you'd like you can support the celli by all means (double with bassoon, just throwing more winds at you lol). But in a live setting those cellis would cut through no problem; just, so will the clarinet in this instance.

    Listen here to this amazing piece but the soloist had some problems here (it's a hard solo so give the guy a break, but still he/she does struggle alot.



    This is what your clarinet could sound like especially if you ask him/her to play it quieter. (itll sound a bit better by the best muscians, just trying to give you a clearer picture since samples are too perfect for the most part... but your piece may never be played live so in the end does it matter? idk lol) Just a learning moment.

    Edit: I just want to say I agree with your experimentation and I'm not trying to show you that you shouldn't do it but just the opposite. :D
     
    JP Beveraggi likes this.
  8. Thank you for the encouragements and feedback Paul! Much appreciated.

    My audience is unknown, so I base what I do around the story I want to tell. I think I can spot when a piece is rushed, but it is a lot harder to tell when it is too long. This is the very hypothetical question I want to answer: "If I could generate a minute of music in 3 minutes of composing, what portion of the hour-long composition I have written today would end up in the bin?".

    Working on a preset form or based on a third party piece makes total sense to get inspiration flowing.

    From the perspective of an inexperienced composer, I would however not think changing form once your idea is finalised is something to be disheartened about. It just means that the story you end up wanting to tell would be more efficiently told in a different format. A bit like a writer that decides to write a novel and ends up writing a play. Whatever works, no?

    Oh dear, this very bad news for me. I intended to put the climax in the section between 3:30 and 4:00. I had my doubts about its effectiveness but your comment is proof that it is not a strong enough statement. I have to readjust.
     
  9. No big deal at all, it is important to me to make sure my scores are playable in a live setting and my mockups should reflect that. I am looking for big realistic orchestral sound which is tricky to get. So you will not find hear any synths, not even sub bass thickeners.

    He is using the celesta to fill the high end frequencies I think. A little trick to make his track sound fuller as his main theme is quite bottom heavy. It fits my track quite well for the same reason, but when the clarinet comes in, the high end becomes a little crowded ;)

    Pleasure, I can even share the score once I get the version finalised.
     
    Dillon DeRosa likes this.
  10. The celesta was a great addition and smart use to fill in the high frequencies. I love using celesta to fill in high frequencies or even on the ends of notes to round stuff out or extend a duration. Because it has a rounder tone than a glockenspiel strike. Ravel actually does some cool tricks with celesta and harp/cello harmonics in Daphne & Chloe. Celesta is an amazing instrument and you'll definitely hear it all over my music. :D

    Can't wait to see the score. I didn't know you worked in notation, definitely share the score as I prefer score reading! My transcription game is weak haha!
     
    JP Beveraggi likes this.
  11. You will have to bear with me on this one. I use notation for sketching the orchestration, but as I build the mock up, I tend to add or subtract parts based on how they contribute to the mix and I do this directly in MIDI because it is just quicker to experiment with. I only update my (most probably poorly written) score in the end, but it would be great to know how close my score matches the mock up.

    Thanks Doug, the podcast format is a great idea. Weekly publication maybe? ;)

    This tonal gravity theory is pretty interesting. It feels intuitively right that time spent away from the tonal center sends a message that a section is not over. My theme rushes to the root making the melodic line "feel" finalised relatively quickly. It is a compelling point.
     
    Dillon DeRosa likes this.

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