JaredCowing

Hi all, just curious to see if anyone here is preparing a submission for the 2014 ASCAP workshop w/ Richard Bellis. If so, I'm trying to form a small group of people who'd be interested in sharing their submissions and giving mutual feedback. If this is something you think would be helpful, feel free to shoot me an email! You can PM me too but I don't check this forum as often so there's a chance I'll miss it. Thanks, -Jared

Nice to see other IC composers here! I graduated from the comp. program a couple years ago, it's a great school with lots of opportunities to get real-world experience- especially since there are Park students always wanting music and lots of musicians happy to perform your music (though string players always seemed spread way too thin over too many projects and so were very difficult to secure for a performance). There are lots of great classes outside of music to take- even though music majors have a pretty busy schedule and tend to live in Whalen, I'd suggest taking advantage of some of the other classes as well once in awhile! It's always nice to have some non-music experience to compliment the music skills since making a living composing alone is excessively difficult and extremely competitive- I learned this the hard way after graduating, but soon took up a grad. degree in library science and now work at a music library which is great because I get to work with music and musicians all day (and get to discover little treasures like scores signed by Joseph Suk in a pile of donated music!) and when I come home get to work away at music for film and video games without worrying about rent or if I'll get paid for the music. Maybe in the future I'll be able to do music full time, in part thanks to the people I met at Ithaca who are now out in the world establishing their careers and help open doors from time to time, but in the meantime student loans need paying so it's good to have a 'training wheels' career thought out to make life less stressful until if/when the composing career takes on its own life! Just a few reflections that hopefully help you in your time there. Good luck!

Ok, I've been on a real Star Trek kick lately. Playing ST games, watching the movies, borrowing NextGen episodes from the library... I was in the mood to write some Trekkie music, I've never tried writing in the style so here goes!I'd actually like to send some music in to a nearby video game developer as a 'fan-made' soundtrack to one of their Trek games, so I'm writing several tracks, this being the first one.The scene opens in empty space, where a stormy nebula becomes visible in the distance... it grows bigger as we go through it, and on the other side we suddenly see... a starship!! :) (happy music plays)After a bit the music calms down as we enter the bridge, where the crew is going about their business, when a signal starts bleeping..."Captain... detecting a signal emerging from the nebula..."(Hint: the next track is a battle track)Stay tuned!Feedback always appreciated! Strange New Worlds

Nice! I like how you throw a few curveballs in there, it kept me on my toes. The bass at 1:10 was really really heavy, I'd suggest adding more space between the bass notes to let the music breathe (the basses often do that in an orchestra as well, keeping notes short so the music stays crisp rather than muddy) and maybe doubling that line with low piano to give it more bite, right now it sounds a bit like 'flub flub flub flub' rather than 'dum dum dum dum' (I always feel silly using sounds like that in a forum post but it's hard to describe it any other way). In general, in no fault of your own but just because of the sounds you're using, the articulations don't have much bite, which doesn't compliment the intense tone you're trying to set. To counteract that, I might maybe pull back on the reverb a bit and double lines with instruments that do have bite and where the attack is stronger than the body of the note, like the piano. It might also help to lower the bass/mid range sounds in general and bring up the higher strings, maybe add some upper woodwinds as well, especially at the end. The ending sounds a bit like it's fizzling out since it's all bass, adding more upper instruments will make it sound more full and make it sound more final, I think. Hope some of those ideas are useful! Thanks for posting!

Well first off the mixing is really great, its easy for 'real' acoustic sounds to sound good just as they are compared to sampled music, however the mixing really does compliment the instruments very well and take it a step further. I like the pacing and how you keep changing the texture or the instruments, so much that it holds attention through the whole track even while using the same chord progression the whole time.. enough changes in other aspects of the music that the harmonic structure sounds fine as it is without changing it up any. If the track were any longer I'd suggest throwing in some new harmonic ideas but it's just long enough, so good sense of timing in knowing when to change textures and when to end the track! Not much I can suggest to change, it does what it needs to do very well. Thanks for posting!

I like the pacing and how you change the mood a couple times, especially at the end when it could easily just have faded out with the previous music but instead threw in something to say 'no, it's not over yet.' Keeps it sounding fresh! On a technical note, the samples you're using sound a bit naked, you use plenty of instruments but the music still sounds a bit bare and not very full, one quick way to help this might be adding more reverb to the strings. They sound a bit 'stop and go' on every note in passages where I think you're trying to make it sound flowing and connected, especially at the beginning.. I know some string samples just don't like to sound flowing, so adding some reverb will help the strings connect their notes more and 'fill out' the sound. Another way to fix this is to add some countermelody, perhaps in the woodwinds since I hear mostly brass/percussion/strings. In the spaces where the strings are changing notes, the countermelody can be holding a note to cover it up so the flowing feeling keeps up. At the very end, the timpani (or is it a bass drum?) is quite loud in the mix, I think filling out the orchestra with string reverb and more winds might help it all balance out. Thanks for posting!

Love the ambience and very light touches with the guitar about halfway through, sometimes less can really be more, especially with film! Will you be posting when you have more?

Very tense indeed, a few things I hear that you might think about to make it even better: Perhaps a touch more reverb in the upper voices, it's especially evident around 2:28 in the violins where they sound a bit naked. The ending seems a bit abrupt, I wonder how it'd sound if you built up to it or gave it a couple final chords to show that the piece was over. If this were for film or a game, the repetition/constant tempo would work fine since you don't want to distract the player/viewer with constant changes, but for listening be aware that with the repetition, even for a track not too long like this, it could use something 'fresh' here and there- a change in the tempo, perhaps some held chords, or even just a change in key here and there would work. I like when at :49 you drop the beat and the low strings and let our ears clear, you probably don't want to do that too many times since the intensity would start lagging but just a couple changes here and there would help clear/reset our ears and get ready for the main idea again. That can be especially important in intense music... if you keep it up and constant the whole track, a listener might stop noticing the music after too many repetitions. If you throw in a couple 'curveballs,' or even breaks in the intensity, it gives them a chance to hear something else so the original intense music sounds intense again when it comes back. Kind of like how, when playing a section marked constant forte, an orchestra needs to go down to piano in a couple spots, especially before crecendos so that the forte keeps sounding fresh and loud instead of 'flat' and the 'norm.' It seems kind of counterintuitive but sometimes when you want the music to be intense, letting up here and there can actually make it more intense. I enjoyed it, thanks for sharing!

Very nice, alot of complexities in the orchestration but it doesn't get too tangled up. I know how reading with a live group can be- even professionals rarely get it sounding really good on the first run. I also know where you're coming from with working on orchestration in Sibelius- orchestration in a sequencer and for live instruments can be very different, and I've found it's very easy to form a habit doing something that sounds great in one that does not sound so good in the other. I guess you just have to learn it both ways and remember which one you're doing at any given time! Congrats on having the opportunity to get some time with the 'real deal'! :)

Still exploring the different sounds I can get out of VSL. I know I like to make tracks that are longer and start soft, making you wait for the big moments.. which doesn't always work on the internet where you get 5 seconds to pull a listener in before they get bored and click to something else... so I thought I'd make a track that started with a bang and kept it up (most of the time). ...I think this might be the first piece I've ended with a triangle.I was thinking of a scene on the high seas, though there is a part in the middle where it gets pretty tranquil and ambient where I was seeing a night sky, which I suppose you can see pretty well from the ocean without all that light pollution.Feedback appreciated! Round Crestrunner's Cape

You can do orchestra hits in Garritan, but it doesn't really have specific samples for short note hits (except for the short bow strings, which still aren't very sforzando, they seem to have more body than attack), so if you try to do a hit it doesn't really have any bite to it, it's more of a 'flub' sound. Garritan also doesn't have legato winds, each note always sounds like a separate articulation, so you can't add those cool Firebird-esque piccolo runs to lead into the hit. I guess I shouldn't have said Garritan can't do hits, they just wouldn't have come off very convincingly. Not to diss Garritan, there are things it does quite well (and I am keeping it on my hard drive to draw sounds from now and then), but the hits don't seem to be one of them. Thanks everyone for the feedback!

Well, I just got a copy of Vienna Special Edition (EWQL was tempting but I wanted to be able to start with dry sounds and really have control over nuances, even if it meant not sounding great right away 'out of the box'), and I'm just exploring it now and getting used to the different layout. It gives you so much control, which is awesome, but it means I have alot of parameters to tweak/functions to map to my keyboard... it may be awhile before I really feel like I have some real control over the program. But to start I thought I'd give it a test drive, so here's a somewhat random smattering of styles in a shorter track, though a battle feel seems to prevail through most of it.I was really happy with how it sounded in comparison to Garritan, and thought I'd try something I'd never have been able to pull off before, so near the very end at 3:50 I threw in some big Hollywood-orchestra hits, and I'm very happy with how it came out! I think there's alot of cool sounds I can get out of this program, once I have a better feel for it.Feedback always appreciated! Bird's Eye of the Battlefield

I think its safe to say you're a fan of the Mozart requiem? :) A nice job, some very cinematic textures in there, though I agree that the chorus gets a little muddy in some spots, I think largely due to so much vibrato. When singing more exposed lines its understandable to use that much, but when the chorus is providing harmonic support usually the aim is to blend more and stick out with vibrato less. Having not used it, I'm curious- does East West give you control over the intensity of chorus vibrato? Thanks for sharing!

Great! The opening really set the mood very well. You use very nice sounds, what instrument libraries are they from? A short piece but it says alot in that time, very mood-setting. Mixed very nicely as well, nothing 'stuck out' or really gave it away as 'computer-made'. Thanks for posting it!

I like how you drew this from imagery, definitely the trait of a film composer. Anyway, I like the piece, you have some nice textures in there. At the beginning, it almost feels like one long inhale, like an intro that keeps rising and building, stretching to the point where I started wondering if it was an intro or going to be the whole piece. It sounds great, though perhaps you could try attaching an intro to the beginning of the track to vault us into the first section so that the soaring music in the first 1:20 sounds like an arrival instead of leading to something else. Hope that makes sense! At the end, it faded out a little unexpectedly for me.. I wanted it to keep going! If you don't want to return to the music at the beginning before ending, then I might suggest letting the music sort of slow and hold on a final note, or maybe thinning down to just an instrument or two and continuing that gentle rocking feel fading out.. something to indicate that we're winding down to the end. At any rate, great job!