Adventures of the Misfit

A work in progress. Probably will make it much much longer over time.

Beautiful and colorful piece. Some impressionistic and oriental touches. It sounds very "cinematic".

So effortless yet complex... I loved it! Cinematic music at its finest, and just good all-around writing for orchestra. You definitely have a gift!

Thanks for sharing with us!

1 hour ago, Luis Hernández said:

Beautiful and colorful piece. Some impressionistic and oriental touches. It sounds very "cinematic".

 

44 minutes ago, Tónskáld said:

So effortless yet complex... I loved it! Cinematic music at its finest, and just good all-around writing for orchestra. You definitely have a gift!

Thanks for sharing with us!

 

Thanks guys!!

One of your best works, in my opinion.

What VST do you use? It sounds non-cinematic while also packing quite a punch.

I recently got eastwest hollywood strings, brass percussion and woodwinds (all gold) for christmas. They're really awesome and when they were on sale they were like $270, now I have a fully functioning orchestra. I was using mostly kontakt's stock plugins for my previous ones before "pardon my french" ...I was severely limited. Very happy with how it turned out, you can really automate all the instruments and get the exact sounds you want in specific contexts, which is a luxury I'm just becoming acquainted with. I can finally make flowing string sections that are pretty seamless in terms of texture without having to use up a lot of ram.

3 hours ago, Jean Szulc said:

One of your best works, in my opinion.

thanks by the way!

6 minutes ago, Left Unexplained said:

I recently got eastwest hollywood strings, brass percussion and woodwinds (all gold) for christmas.

Great gift 🙂 I'm considering buying a VST, and I'm thinking about the Native Sounds Symphony Essentials. Seeing the results of the Eastwest libraries I'll also consider them.

best of luck, be sure you know what you're getting before you buy it cuz once you buy it you're stuck with it haha

5 minutes ago, Jean Szulc said:

Great gift 🙂 I'm considering buying a VST, and I'm thinking about the Native Sounds Symphony Essentials. Seeing the results of the Eastwest libraries I'll also consider them.

 

not to diss native sounds, they have some of the best sounds around

Got a score yet?

On 3/10/2020 at 5:44 AM, maestrowick said:

Got a score yet?

 

:/ sorry for my own good I should start making them!

@Left Unexplained

Obviously, this is a genre you know very well. There is a definite cinematic style too this, but oddly reminiscent of the impressionistic styles, especially the first 1 minute of the piece. Another clear influence, at least I seem to hear, is Holst's  The Planets scores. Specifically at 1:00 minute really reminds me Venus or Neptune followed by a passage that calls out Mars and even a little playful interlude like that on Venus and even Mercury.  The passage at 2:30 reminds me of some of my own use of parallel harmony, which I tend to love. 

My one area, I think you can look at is the length. You have a lot of ideas happening here, and having a lot of ideas in a little space can often overwhelm the listener and make the piece as a whole feel disjointed or, in some cases, unfulfilling. I'm not saying that's the case in this piece, but personally, I wish some of the sections went on longer. You have a 10 - 12 minute piece squeezed into 4 minutes. Don't get me wrong, short pieces aren't bad, but if you are going to do them you need to limit the material you work with. In this case, I'm hearing almost a demo for a larger orchestral work, and the title seems to agree with me. It seems to me "adventures" would tend to be something grand and long, something that causes the misfit to grow, overcome trial, or at the very least experience a lot of... well anything. Maybe "Adventure for a Misfit" is more fitting giving the length.  This is less of a criticism and more of an observation.

That being said, I love the harmonies, the ideas, the melodies, and craftsmanship of this piece. Well done.

41 minutes ago, Morgri said:

@Left Unexplained

Obviously, this is a genre you know very well. There is a definite cinematic style too this, but oddly reminiscent of the impressionistic styles, especially the first 1 minute of the piece. Another clear influence, at least I seem to hear, is Holst's  The Planets scores. Specifically at 1:00 minute really reminds me Venus or Neptune followed by a passage that calls out Mars and even a little playful interlude like that on Venus and even Mercury.  The passage at 2:30 reminds me of some of my own use of parallel harmony, which I tend to love. 

My one area, I think you can look at is the length. You have a lot of ideas happening here, and having a lot of ideas in a little space can often overwhelm the listener and make the piece as a whole feel disjointed or, in some cases, unfulfilling. I'm not saying that's the case in this piece, but personally, I wish some of the sections went on longer. You have a 10 - 12 minute piece squeezed into 4 minutes. Don't get me wrong, short pieces aren't bad, but if you are going to do them you need to limit the material you work with. In this case, I'm hearing almost a demo for a larger orchestral work, and the title seems to agree with me. It seems to me "adventures" would tend to be something grand and long, something that causes the misfit to grow, overcome trial, or at the very least experience a lot of... well anything. Maybe "Adventure for a Misfit" is more fitting giving the length.  This is less of a criticism and more of an observation.

That being said, I love the harmonies, the ideas, the melodies, and craftsmanship of this piece. Well done.

 

 

thank you so much! I'm actually new to all of this (hence, no score). I compose mostly by ear and am now doing the hard work of becoming a conscious composer. I like that you bring up parallel harmony, I also really love it (Debussy being my favorite "parallel artisan").

because I am so new to this, there are many things that I am lacking, one of them being knowledge of form and I guess you would call it "meta analysis" because I'm so in the moment. I did intend for there to be more movements to the piece, but lacking a great deal of knowledge of composition theory I never felt the confidence to re-approach a piece I am so fond of (the fear of "ruining" it or not being good enough to finish it). It's hard to prove to yourself that you are who you know you are deep down, and it's also very terrifying to start a piece from scratch when you have no idea what you're doing. Nonetheless, I have found my calling and will continue to expand my consciousness for the rest of my life. :)

Thank you for your kind words, and more importantly for telling me what you think!

If I did a film I would like to have that music as my soundtrack haha. Really good work dude, I really liked it.

I liked this a lot, particularly the opening minute and the pulsing, repeating brass motif. If you're composing by ear, well, you've got a great ear! Well done.

I agree with Morgri in that it doesn't feel long enough -- but as you say, it is a work in progress. It's like the orchestral music that plays over the credits at the end of a movie: a review of the highlights of a longer work, put together in a way similar to that of a musical theater overture. The sections are interesting and exciting in themselves, but could use more cohesive material binding them together -- perhaps an overarching theme or motif that can crop up between / amid sections to aid in development and transition. I am guilty of not doing this often enough myself.

(I hope that second paragraph doesn't distract you from the fact that I really enjoyed your work as a whole! 🙂)

Also, your sound library was a great investment. Sounds amazing.

Very epic sounding.  The lush string section in the beginning reminds me of Nobuo Uematsu who's also a great self-taught composer/guitarist.  The parts for xylophone sound a little humorous in comparison to the rest of the piece which maybe was your intent (maybe you're portraying some wacky character?).  The mood quickly changes to a dark battle type of soundscape with the trumpet fanfares.  The interruptions of the fanfare at the end are a good idea to finish off the piece.  Nice job!

13 minutes ago, PaperComposer said:

Very epic sounding.  The lush string section in the beginning reminds me of Nobuo Uematsu who's also a great self-taught composer/guitarist.  The parts for xylophone sound a little humorous in comparison to the rest of the piece which maybe was your intent (maybe you're portraying some wacky character?).  The mood quickly changes to a dark battle type of soundscape with the trumpet fanfares.  The interruptions of the fanfare at the end are a good idea to finish off the piece.  Nice job!

 

thank you! I'll look him up. Yes I was trying to be like "oooh fakeout" and make the person laugh a little with the ridiculous xylophone part, but in a sarcastic almost macabre way.

thank you all for your suggestions and kind words! <3