# "The Great Outdoors"



## rJames (Jul 2, 2005)

I hope I'm not polluting the airwaves over here at VI. I'm just trying to figure out where my music fits into the scheme of things. (Anywhere?)

I keep posting for the same reason that I don't respond to other threads on composition. I don't know if I have anything to add. My ears are not that good and I am still an infant in orchestra composition and mockup. I don't think I have anything valid to add to these threads where people like me are asking for critique.

No matter where I am(musically), I know I have a lot to learn and always want the toughest criticism you guys can dish out.

OK, well I'm asking for critique again.

http://www.digitmusic.net/music/GreatOutdoors.mp3 (Great Outdoors)


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## Frederick Russ (Jul 2, 2005)

Intriguing writing Ron! This style really fits you man. Magical.

On long violin section notes you may want to cc7/cc11/fader them to get away from the long drone to allow them to bloom and recede a bit to help out on the overall realism. Other than that I think you're doing a superb job. You have your own section in my iTunes which should tell you something 

Keep up the good work.


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## Scott Rogers (Jul 2, 2005)

..........


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## TheoKrueger (Jul 3, 2005)

Beautiful work rJames! 

It was saved as .mpeg on my desktop so i couldn't know who wrote it because there were no info tags in Winamp, that helped me appreciate it more and listen to it with a clear mind. Afterwards, i renamed it to .mp3 and saw you made it .... "Wow, cool"....

I like this piece so much that i haven't posted about it for 2 days since you ask for "tough criticism" . Can't find anything to say 

Keep it up!


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jul 3, 2005)

Good stuff, Ron. My only criticism is more related to taste, I suppose. I find that some of the sounds are too bright, stick out from the rest. I'm thinking of the glock too, but the cello as well. IMO, it's attack is too agressive all the time. And the mix could have more dynamic range. Everything seems to me to be in-your-face. Are you using a limiter on your stereo mix? If so, you might want to use a gentler setting, with a bit more individual compression on some of the more difficult instruments. As for where your music fits in, well it sounds like film or tv music to me. If, OTOH, you're interested in writing 'pure' music or concert music, you'll have to be more adventurous, both melodically/harmonically, and in terms of timbre.


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## PolarBear (Jul 3, 2005)

Nice piece I enjoyed listening to, James!


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## jonathanparham (Jul 5, 2005)

Ron,
I've been following your EIS contributions and was wondering if this is one of them?
I agree with the comment about the glock maybe a softer instrument or mixed a little back.
I did get a sense of outdoors and could see it with some animated forest or spring day scene.


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## rJames (Jul 5, 2005)

I can't believe you guys can hear things like limiter and such. Yes, I'll turn down the gain. I've found that Logic's medium enhance setup helps to give punch.

My ears are terrible and I have to get feedback on the high end. I have been known to have the conductor playing the tamborine (into a mic).

Thanks for the stacs on the brass rhythm, Theo. Piece o' cake now.

Yes, everything is EIS now. I might not have used ground motive as the opening rhythm since EIS is my first formal training. Now I think of 2 part ground motive as something that is available. Otherwise, in my songwriting, I have to invent these things every time.

EIS taught me to keep the sections playing different parts of the structure and not to duplicate parts or notes for that matter. Also, to bounce around the "chords". e.g. separate (in rhythm) the 3 and 7 from the 1 and 5.

I was practicing glisses in this piece (I guess its pretty obvious by the above comments).

At about 1:09, I really go EIS crazy. This stuff is right out of an EIS lesson. Back to normal at 1:20 or so.

At 1:24 I happened upon a movement that reminded me of Copland so I repeated it and tried to Coplandize that section.

At 1:30 I wanted to use Theo's staccs.

And throughout the piece I was cognizant of using another simple theme (5 notes) C#, E, D, C#, B.


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## José Herring (Jul 5, 2005)

Say Man! I really like this piece. Show's much improvement from a few months ago at NS. 

The only thing really lacking that I hear is a cohesive motivic thematic thing that would brigde this whole piece together. Because of the dense countrapuntal structure I feel that this piece really needs a central motive where all melodic material is derived from. That way the piece has a "spine" or a central nervous system that all ideas branch out from.

Also, I don't think it would kill to go hear a live orchestra play weekly for a period of a while. There's some balance issues that lead me to believe that there's a little bit of lack of understanding of how the instruments and sections relate to eachother in a realistic setting with live players.

But, I do like the way you EIS guys sounds. Short of paying for a teacher which I would be happy to do later on, are there any books published that I could study?

Jose


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## rJames (Jul 5, 2005)

josejherring said:


> Because of the dense countrapuntal structure I feel that this piece really needs a central motive where all melodic material is derived from. That way the piece has a "spine" or a central nervous system that all ideas branch out from.
> 
> Also, I don't think it would kill to go hear a live orchestra play weekly for a period of a while. There's some balance issues that lead me to believe that there's a little bit of lack of understanding of how the instruments and sections relate to eachother in a realistic setting with live players.
> 
> ...



This is what I don't understand. The central motive. Is it not the theme I have in nearly every bar? 
After intro of one bar it is in bar 2,4,5,6,7 and used heavily throughout the piece. I thought I had overdone this theme.

C#, E, D, C#, B

I think I just don't understand this concept. Or I have used and manipulated it so well that it's indescernible from random melody.

Help me to understand this concept.


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## Craig Sharmat (Jul 5, 2005)

Ron, since you wrote me privately,

I will answer here regarding Jose's anylasis, which btw i agree with. I do not hear a clear theme, and if it there is one later in the piece that is some how getting by me, it really does not stand out as a theme, as it is not introduced early. I feels more like a merandering. It's very nice, but theamatic material is not developed as a focal point of the piece.

Jose, on your EIS question, there are books, but the books just contain the lessons in them, so it is not really a book but lessons and assignments placed in book form.


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## José Herring (Jul 5, 2005)

Hey Ron,

Uhm it's a difficult thing to get across but I'll try. And, remember this is just my perspective based on what I've come to know and understand about music. That doesn't mean that other viewpoints aren't valid.

First let's start with some blatant motives. Beethoven Five and Jaws. Okay. A motive is the smallest musical unit that can be considered one unit of music. That means that a motive can be as little as two notes and as many as several depending. But, basically its the smallest unit measurement of a piece of music. People in pop music call it a hook. In the Beethoven example it's a four note motive. In Jaws two notes.

From the motive you can derive your phrases. Phrases consist of motives put together. Now when you put these together they have to make sense so I and a lot of other composers derive additional motives from the same motive.

In the Beethoven example he constructs his phrases using the same rhythm of the motive but varying the pitch. So that gives us a key as to one way a motive can be varied. It's a bit more complicated but not much more in this piece because the phrases are constructed in such a way that the piece is interesting without much motivic variation.

In jaws it's more rythmic variation rather than pitch of the motive. For example. da-----dum. da--dum. da-dum. dadumdadumdadum ect. :lol: 

At any rate in your piece there's a lot that's covering up that main motive so its never clearly stated. The first couple of measures have so many differenct motives it's hard to even tell whether it's acc or melody. Then you have a nice melody in the horns but a lot of the same problems.

What underlies the obfuscation(spelling) of your main ideas is that there's nothing that is very clearly stated.

Jose


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## rJames (Jul 5, 2005)

Thanks Jose. I called Craig for clarification too. He says the same thing. The theme is not stated clearly as a theme. Not well framed.

That is the part of the puzzle that I was missing.

I guess as a writer, you know what you're trying to do. But all I can hear over the ground motive is that one theme. There are a few glisses and arpeggios surrounding the theme. I am surprised that anyone can hear them as substitute themes. 

Maybe it has to do with (almost) everyone's comment on the balance of the sound. I suppose if I took all of the harp, glock and xylophone glisses way down, you could hear that theme.

I would think by the sheer weight of repitition, those 5 notes would be defined as the theme. (I must have played it 20-30 times in the piece)

Now I'm wondering if orchestral music always (or nearly always) is written with a well-framed theme. I'm looking for my own style and own voice but I don't want it to be a voice that will be ignored because I didn't conform to standards and practices.

Funny, and great, that this topic has surfaced for me right now. I had planned on trying something with a big theme next. Didn't know that it was a prerequisite.

So, you want producers to go home humming your orchestral theme as if it were your "hook?" That makes it pretty straight-forward. I have not been doing that!

Thanks very much for the detailed feedback! I will take it to heart.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jul 5, 2005)

Well, if only it were that easy! Keep in mind that some directors/producers don't like obvious melodies at all! Some people prefer more textural work, rhythmic, timbral. I've had some of my melodies bring to mind bad Walt Disney tv shows for one director in particular. Now, I'll take some of the blame for that, for sure, but you also have to be aware that a strong melody can turn some people off. Being able to do strong melodic and non-melodic pieces is the best, obviously.


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## José Herring (Jul 5, 2005)

Ned's right on this one. It's not that cut and dry Rob.

There aren't conventions as you may think but rather an approach that makes musical sense.

When writing music you're trying to communicate something. That communication needs to be clear or you're mumbling and people can't hear what you're trying to say.

There's such a thing has integration. That just means that all the pieces of the musical puzzle have to sound like they belong together. Sure sometimes you want to jar people by throwing in something that's way out, but if you do it too much then there's nothing holding the piece together. 

Your piece just has too much too soon so it doesn't seem integrated. With all the material in that 2min or so piece that I heard I could turn that into a thirty min piece that would be interesting.

Take your first motive and pace yourself. Then I think the piece will start to make better sense.

Textural pieces follow the same principal only more subtle and really hardly anything can stick out so you repeat the same textures constantly like in minimal music or pad like music.

Jose


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## Dr.Quest (Jul 6, 2005)

This is a nice piece Ron. Has a good feel to it, kind of magical. It would be interesting if you reversed engineered it...that is remix it starting with what you percieve as the melodic elements and lightly mix back in the "swirly" stuff. If you think of the melody as the dialog in a film, in this mix the dialog is getting overwelmed.
Your stuff always has a fusion-like keyboard players feel to it. I assume those fast runs are played by you in real time? There is nothing wrong with that as it is part of your sound it is more of an observation. You must like some of the jazz fusion stuff of the 80's and 90', yeah?
Nice work, keep going!
Cheers,
Jamie 8)


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## rJames (Jul 6, 2005)

Dr.Quest said:


> If you think of the melody as the dialog in a film, in this mix the dialog is getting overwelmed.
> 
> Your stuff always has a fusion-like keyboard players feel to it. I assume those fast runs are played by you in real time? There is nothing wrong with that as it is part of your sound it is more of an observation. You must like some of the jazz fusion stuff of the 80's and 90', yeah?
> Nice work, keep going!
> ...



First of all, thank you, everyone, for commenting. I love the critique. And I hear you. 

The one thing I cannot ignore is that this is truly how you really good composers feel about this piece.

No matter what I think or feel about this today, these comments will be something that I think about every time I write.

that said, I still cannot fathom how you guys cannot hear how my (evidently) subtle theme pervades this piece. It is there every 2-4 seconds, repeated and repeated (and repeated). There must be various ways to use a theme, sometimes so subtle that it is not heard (to appease the producers and directors who don't want to be reminded of "Disneyland music." And other times where the theme is paramount. 
And possibly sometimes in such a way as to be unnoticable and yet prevalent. (I suppose that is just rationale, we newbies are so good at rationalization)

I will always be proud when someone says my music is not "by the book". But I just hope that doesn't keep me out of the job market. And hence, these comments are very important. If you liked it, even without a clearly labeled theme, I'm happy.

I've read in one book recently that a few composers feel that the dialogue is the melody and the underscore is the harmony that shouldn't take too much attention. And I hear that.

But I can't say that this was underscore because it isn't. It is an experiment with orchestra. I must admit that I did not think about theme but it just came out as a growth from the double ground motive. then I used it as a binding force to the rest of the cancerous growth.

I guess I can admit that my stuff is more of an orchestral jam session. the music just comes out (driven by some intellectual motive//not a musical motive).

jamie, I can't play a lick. Its all written in. And yes, I listened to too much Chick Corea and Aaron Copland. I actually don't like to listen to music and stay away from its influence upon me. But there was a time when it was all Chick Corea, Aaron Copland or Yes (Trevor Rabin).

You are what you eat, and I ate too much fusion in the 90s.


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## Niah (Jul 6, 2005)

That's a nice composition James. Thanks for sharing


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## Dr.Quest (Jul 6, 2005)

Ron,
For me, since I am a mix engineer as well as a sound designer/composer is that I want to hear a better balance of the melodic lines and the swirly harmonies. It seems a bit unbalanced in that regard to me.
As a composition I thinks it's very nice.
J


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## rJames (Jul 6, 2005)

Dr.Quest said:


> Ron,
> For me, since I am a mix engineer as well as a sound designer/composer is that I want to hear a better balance of the melodic lines and the swirly harmonies. It seems a bit unbalanced in that regard to me.
> As a composition I thinks it's very nice.
> J



Hope I didn't sound otherwise. I answered a general thought in my mind as I answered your post. And about the composition, I am more puzzled than questioning the validity of the responses. 

My ears are shot and you are quite right about the mix. 
Everytime I use high freqs in a composition they are too hot.

And Jose is quite right, I haven't heard many live orchestras. Nor have I listened to many recordings. Although I certainly have heard a lot here and at Northern.

I've got some graphics to do and then I'll remix it.


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