Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Her Theme - High Flyin' Adventure

bmartinmusic

bmartinmusic

New Member
Hello everyone,

I'm a long time lurker, and honestly, I'm a little nervous posting here (the amount of talent is overwhelming), but I feel like I've hit a plateau and I think comments will help.

For nearly the past two years I've been working on trying to create an album of old-fashioned adventure movie style orchestral music. Originally, I was thinking of aiming at production libraries, but it may end up just being for my demo/portfolio. I have a number of tracks in various states of incompletion, but this romantic theme is the first thing I feel at least semi-satisfied with.



Unfortunately, there's a big gap in my education and hardware/software when it comes to sample libraries and audio mixing. I've been trying to soak up as much as I can from places like here, but I don't think I'm quite at the level I need to be at to do this professionally. Any comments and thoughts on anything would be much appreciated.
Click to read more...
 
You shouldn't be nervous, this is very good piece, sounds proffesional to me. I could see it in some 60s-70s movie.

I like harmony and orchestration, are You student of music school maybe?

The only thing I would change in this piece, would be adding some harp going down from 2:55(on last chord)

Mix sounds alright for me, but I'm not proffesional, did You used some filter on strings? Because they sounds quite vintage.
 
Good work, nice structure and dynamics.

In the beginning.. solo flute in that range is very very quiet, so when the strings come in my ear was expecting it to be louder. This is personal preference, but it might make the piece feel more natural and live sounding.

Found myself craving more low frequency elements for most of the piece.. especially in the climax around 2:07. Love to hear some more of the low brass and maybe some timpani there...

Hope that is helpful :)

Ryan
 
Thanks for taking the time to listen everyone. I really appreciate it.

I wish I were still in school. I finished my master's in Composition about five years ago, but haven't had very much success yet.

The strings are just EWHO (Actually, the whole orchestra is, with the exception of the solo violin, which is from EW Gypsy. Composer Cloud is the only thing I can afford at the moment.) The only processing I did was to boost the lower register with EQ of the first and second violins to try and add a bit of warmth to the sound.

I kinda went back and forth about the opening dynamics. I didn't want to start too softly, but I really like the very soft piano in the opening strings. Would you suggest dropping the flute or upping the string entrance?

Also, I think you may be right. I did cut a lot of low end out of the final mix with EQ to try and keep it from getting muddy, but I may have cut a bit too much listening to it again with fresh ears and on other systems. I may also need to reconsider the orchestration there.

Thanks again, everyone.
 
I think this is a wonderfully written piece Byron. You should definitely not feel overwhelmed or intimidated, I'd love to see you keep at it and explore your musical self fully. You have a rare musical taste that is timeless but I see it un neutered a bit. I basically could have enjoyed a few more mins of exploring your ideas here instead of introducing and then bailing us out so quickly but it also depends on what your end goal is.

I highly recommend you just keep going forward to the end of your abilities. Don't let bad ideas stop you. The entire point is to get over all the bad so you can finally find the good. That is the only way.
 
Man, that is beautiful! Nice work, great orchestration. Reminds me of the music they play in the "Condor Flats" area of California Adventure in Disneyland.
 
Nice little theme you got there. I highly encourage you to explore some tempo curves to fluctuate the pulse just a bit. You could certainly put in a ritardando just before the strings come in with the theme at 1:42. There is a lot of work that can be done on the actual programming side of this piece with your samples but as an actual piece of music, it stands well on it's own and is rather lovely. I love cheesy themes like this and that is a compliment.

Cheers,

C
 
Nice piece of music, but you have problems in there:
1) Speaking of orchestration and balance, you don't have to make V1 so loud. We hear them well because they are placed on the top of the whole orchestra. They are not tight on their bows when playing so high.
2) You have melody phrasing issues. You established phrasing logic in the 1:43-1:53 interval, then 1:53-1:56 feels like a really bad gap, and I hear your cello trying to do something, but I barealy hear it and it doesn't really solve the problem. You have very long melody notes without changes of dynamic, which is a really bad thing. I like how 2:10 moment works, potentially, your horn phrase could be a great answer to your violins, and this is the place, where you should make your violins play a pedal tone while horns answer them to their previous statement. Unison was a bad decision, obviously.
Melody don't feel really natural at times, often it (or she?) goes not where it wants to go, but where you want it to go, and I can feel it very clearly. Practice more with natural tunes composing. Try to make them as easy, as natural as possible.
3) You have very sweet harmonies at times and harp did a great job to show us their beauty (2:12+).
4) Very long tonic establishment, your piece doesn't belong to the music, where such statements are required. I can understand when Wagner or other romantic composer after 15 minutes of modulations and development decides to consolidate tonic, but you don't really need it.
5) Use tempo changes to accentuate dynamic and thematic changes (1:41-1:42 place doesn't work as it should).
Overall, you did a very good job, gratz!
 
Really nice piece, do not call it old fashioned, it is in a classic golden hollywood style - which will never get old.

The mix of course could be better but I dont care when music is nice. Grim Universe being too critical imo
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom