March and Extravagance (orchestral film-oriented music)

Hello,

Please your feedback and opinions regarding this one. Thanks!

Smart  with personallity. Nice work Donethur! 

13 hours ago, Dream Sown said:

Smart  with personallity. Nice work Donethur! 

 

Thanks mate :)

Nice!

I like how you switch from one theme to another theme without breaking the flow of the music.
The orchestration is nice too!

On 4/2/2018 at 8:37 AM, Maarten Bauer said:

Nice!

I like how you switch from one theme to another theme without breaking the flow of the music.
The orchestration is nice too!

 

Thanks Marteen. Appreciated, mate :)

Ricardo 

Hi Ilv,

Thanks for listening and commenting. I have some comments actually:

"0:6: use E minor triad instead of C# minor triad" "2:4: bass note should be F# instead of A## "

why do you say that this "should" be used?. I mean, the important thing is that this sounds good. Isnt it?. It is like if harmony should be set in a rigid way (which is too mechanic, miss then point of what music is in my opinion and you may sound too common), but as far I know, the composer has freedom to use the harmony according with his/her taste and criteria. So I am not sure why you think this is like a kind of "error". I dont see problems except if I am making a mistake (example: note out of the chord or scale, and even in that case, it may be related to a decision oriented to the expressiveness in the music, as even some cross relations are accepted in some cases, specified here with examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_relation).

"0:18: melodic resolution missing"

Well, I know several themes were the composers who dint end the melody in the tonic, just to create tension or the effect of something not resolved. From my point of view the melody is concluded as it ends with tension and question. From the 0:18 it is just an harmonic extension and the harmony actually concludes the melodic intention/tension. I have heard things like this before. I understand what you say anyway and it may be a totally valid option, but would it be a bit common and predictable?. I have been teached by pro classical composers with high experience that you can do things like this and rules should be only a tool which you can consider for analysis, but it is never the best to overrule your instinct/criteria/subjetiveness by what is "supposed to be", as this would be a limitation to develop your own art.

I think the music is a science/art full of exceptions.

By the way, the theme has this duration because if was intended for a contest with limit in the duration of the piece (2.5 minutes máximum, and if I added another idea, I had the impression I wouldnt have enough time to develop it in a coherent way). So, thats why I wasnt able to incorporate more themes.

Cheers :)

Hi Ilv,

Well, this theme has a lot of classical influence, as this kind of music is a big influence in all my music. Nevertheless, we are in century XXI, so to me all music and possibilities are tools only, I dont see it that rigid "this has to be like this and like that". Also, this theme was intended to sound a bit "cinematic" so I pointed a bit to that área, where there is more freedom (although as I said, we are in century XXI, so I think we have freedom to act as our subjective feelings dictate).

In any case, I would like to know, why it is considered inappropiate in this context?, what would be the technical background behind this?, considered by who? (I mean, I really want to know if this is really written out there). I am quite sure somebody else used the progression I used before, as most of the possibilities I think have been already used through history. I think the most important thing is that it should sound good. The question is: does it sound bad?.

I did an example with your suggestion. I think it sounds a bit too happy and common with E minor. C# sounds with more mistery maybe and less common I would say. Apart from that, the fact that the harmony was constantly moving and marking, makes E sound less appropiate because of the notes D and C# sounding afterwards (end of the phrase), unless I had to go to C# anyway. I remember this was the reason why I did not use E minor, as well as I felt it sounded a bit less obvious.

I just want to understand why this is inappropiate, as it seems to be very subjective to me so far, maybe there is a reason behind, but I cannot see it. If both sound good and they cover the notes of the melody, why is it inappropiate?.

I see what you mean. I think it is because before all music was conditioned to what they considered to sound good or bad (example: the tritone was considered inappropiate, among other triads). I think this is because a cultural thing, music is always conditioned by culture. For example, to me this sounds fine, as I am used to different types of music, including some underground styles, where they do very dark music sometimes and this may be perfectly normal (probably they never studied music to get those preconcepts). I also am wondering now why I didnt try A mayor, as to me it sounds good too, but anyway...

I exposed this theme to different kind of listeners and nobody noticed this (and actually they liked it as it is, probably because that chord progression is only a moment which makes it sounding darker, but the typical thing is among most of the piece, so it comes back to the "safe zone"). Maybe you have preconcepts already set in your mind and perception which makes you detect this very easily. It may be related to your musical culture. But the question is, are there examples where this was used? (you said it is "almost" never followed). That would be interesting, as for example regarding the false relations, it is also almost never used, but there are examples out there.

There is a possibility too (I am just trying to understand) that I am wrong and my earing and perception has some issues here. Nevertheless, I am wondering how this is affected by the cultural thing as I mentioned. Also, I am wondering now how much of these "weird sounding" things are weird only because all the time people have used the same again and again. For example, I have noticed that the issues I had in the past with the false relations are common in self taught composers of classical music that trend to be more "dark", for them dissonances sound good sometimes, even though it is a broken rule. When you are exposed to errors, they trend to be normal. But they (the composers) were very imaginative and they trend to create their own style maybe because they were not exposed to those rules (and I have also seen that some creative composers ended sounding like any other musician because they were too politically correct following rules). I am not saying that rules are bad, I use them a lot, I am only saying that they are a tool and your criteria should be the primary engine here. I will consider what you have told me for sure, maybe I need to reconsider this when I do film music (there are non typical harmonies which are not common in the old classical music, so maybe I interpreted this wrongly). At the end, I think I will keep what I feel to be the best, even if it is considered a mistake. But I may change my opinion here, I really need to think about it.

Anyway, very interesting Ilv.