Court of the XIII Chancellors

I'm not necessarily new to orchestra or symphonies but I'm no expert either. Thought I'll go for a dark/light theme. I finished this last night though the ending is abrupt. Not sure how well this is done. Need opinions or advice would be welcomed.

Hey, there!

Was the mixing of minor and major 3rds supposed to be a tribute and light and darkness? It wasn't quite obvious. If it was, I think they could be implemented a little bit better, having them clash without warning, to me, was a little jarring. Very cool idea though.

You use a couple things my old teacher would call "waiting time" and "repeated time". There's a lot of points in this where the audience has to hold up and wait for the next note in the progression. This can be used for effect, but can get tiring in large numbers. Same with repeated time, except that entails that you use repeated figures a lot. 

The ideas around it are cool and sounds like you put some thought in orchestration. Nice!

Hi

Thanks for the reply. To be honest I orchestrate by ear and have no idea what thirds mean haha. As far as waiting and repeating goes, I actually have a question about that. 

I'm a little afraid to overuse the same base melody throughout the song, so I'm not sure if it is ok, in orchestrating terms, to keep the same melody with the strings looping over and over. The only time I changed the melody was when I made the switch from Legato strings to Minor Strings. I do realize the waiting part was a bit too long. I honestly thought I was kinda doing a 2nd symphonic movement (or is it third) when things slow down a bit and only use a few instruments.

Not sure if it was a bad idea but I would keep a section going for about sixteen bars (not sure if bars is a term that actually pertain to orchestrated songs) and then go into something different with added instruments. Is that good?

Also, would the waiting time in this song be ok if I added more percussion?

By clashing do you mean the sections after the reverse cymbal and cymbal crash/timpani?

Melodies generally need some sort of development. Sticking with one and repeating with the same progression can be really canonical and I don't think that's what you want (canons involve repeated melodies with repeated chord progression, like a round, or a synonymous passage).

By waiting time I mean something like a note being hit and then waiting for the progression or melody to move on. Adding percussion could minimize it, but might end up being repeated time if you're not careful.

By clashing I meant as soon as the main melody comes in there are E naturals and Eb's together and also Bb's and B naturals together at a given time. This piece sounds mostly tonal, so I wasn't sure if this is what you wanted, and thus gave you the benefit of the doubt that you meant it as part of your piece's theme.

Ahhh ok gotcha. I definitely see what you mean there. I'm going to work on another piece and use your advice so I won't make the same mistakes twice. I'm going around the forum and checking out everyones stuff for more inspiration and insight. Hopefully my next piece will be a bit better.

Yeah I was never good with music theory and such. I just kinda build it as I go without writing anything down. It's mostly an idea that pops up and me trying to manifest something as such. I really love Danny Elfman, especially the theme he made for the Spider-Man film and his work on The Nightmare Before Christmas which are big inspirations. 

Thanks for the advice.