# New song



## ka00 (Feb 27, 2018)

EDIT: Thanks to everyone who posted their helpful feedback. Here's the final composition and mix:

Would absolutely love to hear any feedback and critiques you have. You can be brutally honest. Thanks for listening!


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## dannymc (Feb 28, 2018)

could you give some context to this piece in what the mood you were going for here? that way its better to give feedback that's appropriate.

Danny


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## Nesciochamp (Feb 28, 2018)

Wow, very dark contemporary piece. Even makes me feel a bit uneasy, but nice instrumentation and details. 
As Danny said, some context would be nice, since this definitely isn't a typical song/classical piece.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Mar 1, 2018)

ka00 said:


> Would absolutely love to hear any feedback and critiques you have. You can be brutally honest. Thanks for listening!




Hey man,
Thanks for sharing. Man, the brutal feedback I would give you: I am not at all connected to your piece. I mean you probably eager to create some mysterious dark sounding piece but even with such music you need to settle a motif to have an anchor otherwise it becomes..to be honest: Random Music. Probably this kind of track would work an for underscore movie scene but it doesn´t really carry on its own at least in that case here. I like the atmosphere a lot, so there is nothing wrong to go with such more dissonant chords, in fact I appreciate such writing. It is just that I can´t make out a thematic message at all. I hitted the like button of course, because I think you like to go other ways which is cool and that is in times of production media epic music refreshing. But my advice would be: Work on the fundamentals in creating a theme which you carry throughout your piece.


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## Johann F. (Mar 1, 2018)

I liked it a lot! As Alexander pointed, not the typical epic stuff we see here and that's a good thing. 

What libraries you used? Care to elaborate a bit about your room setup?


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Mar 1, 2018)

It is really cool atmos. As underscore perfectly fine, but I will agree with Alex that it needs a more prominent motif. That isn't to say it needs some flamboyant Violin line over the top, but just a recognizable pattern to tie it all together.


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Mar 1, 2018)

ka00 said:


> Thank you, Simon! Very nice to hear your feedback. I'll direct my focus for the next while to figuring out how to create themes and motifs that can carry a listener through a 2-3 minute piece. I haven't cracked the code yet.


Yeah. Look just be careful, I've had feedback like that and tried to wedge in a theme and it completely took away from the vibe, that's why I emphasize that it doesn't need to be hugely detailed and lyrical.


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## ka00 (Mar 1, 2018)

SimonCharlesHanna said:


> Yeah. Look just be careful, I've had feedback like that and tried to wedge in a theme and it completely took away from the vibe, that's why I emphasize that it doesn't need to be hugely detailed and lyrical.



Okay, I'll try to wrap my brain around it. You know, I'm kind of having a hard time with the concept, as the music I'm inspired by doesn't always seem to have an outright theme.

For example, I'm going to upload a temporary link to a song which I can't seem to find anywhere online (I'll remove the link once this thread dies down). This incredible cue by Dennis McCarthy represents the exact type of music I'd want to be able to create one day.

[link removed]

Now, is this classified as 'underscore'? Does it have a theme/motif, because I can't quite figure that out?


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Mar 1, 2018)

Sure - so the opening figure of 4 notes is your motif...I dont have keyboard in front of me so I cant name the notes.
After then around 43 seconds we hear the motif in the winds repeated. Still going @ 1:20 (maybe some muted brass playing it too? im on my laptop)

So far what hes doing is stating the theme and then swelling in some dissonance before playing the theme again.
1:51 theme in the horn slower(but different figuration I think?)

2:00 listen to this string motif and then listen to the start of the track again

2:50 slooooowww motif

3:20 listen to the viola/cello line there - sound familiar? 4 note motif

Sorry I cant be more specific, but hopefully you can hear the motif, its all over the track!

It's certainly not as overt as say, Beethoven symphony 5 (DUN DUN DUN DAHHHHHN), but it is there


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Mar 1, 2018)

And this track is a perfect example - nothing too strong that completely ruins the mood, but a small phrase that ties the track together.


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Mar 1, 2018)

And it's not the same as a "singable" melody or theme, it's just a (and im sorry i've said this word so many times) motif - there is a distinction.

Ironically my next track is going to receive the exact same criticism :D


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## ka00 (Mar 1, 2018)

Wow, Simon. Thanks so much for deconstructing this! It's immensely helpful of you!

Looking specifically at this example, it seems like a motif doesn't literally need to be the same note pattern repeated throughout a piece, but various patterns which loosely gravitate around a) either the same notes (or maybe half of them are the same at any given time) or b) similar interval as the previous incarnation of the motif.

This is fascinating, and I hope I've got it right (I have a deficit in music theory). I'll take another look at all this in the morning and see if it makes any more sense then.

I think I always pictured motifs to be a distinct melody that kept recurring with different instrumentation and or different embellishments, when maybe it can actually be looser than that.

Looking forward to your next track!

Thanks again.


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## ka00 (Mar 4, 2018)

I made a much shorter alternate version of this, trying to tonally unify the disparate sections better. It meant removing a bunch of parts I found interesting but could not make fit any better. Figured I would post it as I can't tell if it's better or worse than the first version. I'm sure you've all been there. Here's the new version:

Thanks for listening!


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## ka00 (Mar 5, 2018)

Just posted the final composition and mix. Thank you very much to everyone who posted their helpful feedback!

Cheers


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