Variations on a Chase Scene

So this is my attempt at cinematic music.  This piece for orchestra took me an embarrassingly long time to write - I won't tell you how long.  It is now finished although I better submit it soon before I change my mind and second guess myself about deleting some parts of it - sometimes it seems over-orchestrated or too cacophonous in some parts but that might be the MuseScore rendition.  Although I think this rendition isn't really even that bad if you don't listen to it too loud.  This piece is in both 5/8 and 5/4 at the same time throughout most of it which is why the notes are sometimes grouped strangely.  So let me know if I've succeeded at the kind of eponymous cinematic mood that I was going for.  Thanks for listening!

EDIT:  I realize now after publishing this score that the trombone parts aren't too practical.  If this were ever performed I would give the 1st and 2nd trombone parts to two euphoniums and the 3rd trombone can be a bass trombone.

This sounds great. Your ability to increase the tempo and restrain it shows off here. Good work on this. How long did it take you to create? 

1 hour ago, Esper said:

This sounds great. Your ability to increase the tempo and restrain it shows off here. Good work on this. How long did it take you to create? 

Well - I remember that I was working on it's beginnings at the start of February so pretty much over a month and a half.  Thanks for the compliment!  I increase the tempo in order to accomplish a metric modulation where eventually the dotted quarter note equals a quarter note in the new tempo which means that the 8th and 16th notes in the old tempo then become triplet 8ths and sextuplet 16ths in the new.

Hey Peter,

On 3/14/2021 at 12:19 AM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

This piece for orchestra took me an embarrassingly long time to write

On 3/14/2021 at 1:26 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

I remember that I was working on it's beginnings at the start of February so pretty much over a month and a half.

I don't really see how this is an embarrassingly long time to write this. I think you managed to create an exquisite piece fairly quickly.

I love the rhythmic tactics you used. The jaunty 5/4 rhythms, accelerandos and as you stated the metric modulations were really cool and refreshing to hear. Even though the sound samples don't do this justice, I found myself playing it a few times out of enjoyment regardless. I didn't picture a chase scene, but rather I felt it was reminiscent of video game music...maybe a battle tune or something :P 

I'm glad you're still around and keeping this forum alive. You and your music deserve far more attention here than you've received; just know I'll be around to give your music a listen. You can PM me whenever you write something new, I'll always check it out. Great stuff man

Vince

1 hour ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I don't really see how this is an embarrassingly long time to write this. I think you managed to create an exquisite piece fairly quickly.

I think if you consider that the old historical composers sometimes have taken years to write an hour long symphony then I guess relatively speaking I took a fairly short amount of time to write a fairly short piece.  But these days I've heard of some youngins busting out an hour + long symphony in a few months.  Maybe that's because I still choose to write my pieces on paper though as I find the sequencer too intimidating as a compositional tool - I much prefer the empty page for some reason.

1 hour ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I love the rhythmic tactics you used. The jaunty 5/4 rhythms, accelerandos and as you stated the metric modulations were really cool and refreshing to hear. Even though the sound samples don't do this justice, I found myself playing it a few times out of enjoyment regardless. I didn't picture a chase scene, but rather I felt it was reminiscent of video game music...maybe a battle tune or something 😛

Yeah the inspiration for this piece basically was "let's write a chase scene that has a melody in 5/8 ... but actually it's in 5/4!"  I do realize now that it didn't come out quite as a cinematic piece as much as I wanted and I do tend to resort to writing VG music quite easily if I am not careful but it's a good contrast for me to take a break from more classically-oriented compositions.

1 hour ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I'm glad you're still around and keeping this forum alive. You and your music deserve far more attention here than you've received; just know I'll be around to give your music a listen. You can PM me whenever you write something new, I'll always check it out. Great stuff man

Thanks Vince!  It's good to hear that I can count on you to listen and provide some great and much needed feedback!  Btw - some ppl from here - myself included, have joined the Young Composers Discord server which is a really great platform to share music and talk as well so if you'd like an invite I can always provide one if you feel like chatting!

This is really good, I could definitely see this in a film or video game. I really like the mixed 5/8 - 5/4 feel, and how you changed the rhythmic emphasis (3,2,3,2 vs, 3,3,2,2... etc.), it definitely created an "action-ey" feel.

A few thoughts:

• I think it would sound better if it were a bit faster. I think of 120 bpm being a brisk walk, something like 150+ bpm would be a little more like a chase scene to me.
• I think the orchestration and dynamics could be more varied, especially in the second half (after A on pg. 15). It seems like the glockenspiel and piccolo dominate this section, I'm kind of curious what it would sound like if there were omitted, at least up until the return of the first theme at m.78, pg.26.
• Regarding the dynamics, maybe make the first part of the second section (starting at A) a little quieter on average, then build up to a higher dynamic at m.78. Right now pretty much everything in the second half is marked mf or above, this would give a little more dynamic variation like in the first half, and I think that would make m.78 a bigger moment (especially if the glockenspiel/piccolo return here too)
• There are a couple spots, like m.9, where there seem to be two different rhythmic "feels" going on at the same time. Here the 1st violins seem to be breaking the measure down as 2,2,3,3, while the timpani is breaking it down as 3,3,2,2, I'm curious if this was intentional? It could have to do with the Musescore rendering, but it makes it sound like the strings and timpani don't agree...or maybe this is just me...

These are just some subjective thoughts, overall I think it's really good, and I like the inclusion of Soprano Saxes. I'm curious what made you decide to use Soprano instead of Alto? Perhaps to reinforce the upper register of the winds the Altos can't reach?

Thanks for sharing, I can't wait for more!

14 minutes ago, gmm said:

I think it would sound better if it were a bit faster. I think of 120 bpm being a brisk walk, something like 150+ bpm would be a little more like a chase scene to me

First off - thanks for listening and reviewing!  I was hoping you wouldn't be able to resist taking a look at a full orchestra piece such as this!  If I ever want to write something bigger I will have to find clever ways to use the 19 staves I have available to me in the notebook I use for scores.  About the tempo - I think it might sound a bit too hurried at 150 bpm (which I guess would make it sound more like a chase scene potentially).  This is the tempo at which I imagined it as I wrote it.  Also - later in the piece when there's an accelerando coming up to the metric modulation - it would get ridiculously fast and I'm not sure it would sound natural.  I'm already weary of having the piccolo/glockenspiel lines be too indistinct in pitch and sound like they're just hammering out rhythms too and that would only get worse at a faster tempo.

21 minutes ago, gmm said:

I think the orchestration and dynamics could be more varied, especially in the second half (after A on pg. 15). It seems like the glockenspiel and piccolo dominate this section, I'm kind of curious what it would sound like if there were omitted, at least up until the return of the first theme at m.78, pg.26.

Yes I deliberately omitted the piccolo/glockenspiel line in the contrasting sections before A but I forgot to do that after A as well.  That is one of the reasons I was worried about the piece being over-orchestrated especially after A (besides the cacophonous section which btw - what did you think of that part?)

27 minutes ago, gmm said:

Regarding the dynamics, maybe make the first part of the second section (starting at A) a little quieter on average, then build up to a higher dynamic at m.78. Right now pretty much everything in the second half is marked mf or above, this would give a little more dynamic variation like in the first half, and I think that would make m.78 a bigger moment (especially if the glockenspiel/piccolo return here too)

I think you're right there as well - the dynamics are overall flatter after A than in the first section.

29 minutes ago, gmm said:

There are a couple spots, like m.9, where there seem to be two different rhythmic "feels" going on at the same time. Here the 1st violins seem to be breaking the measure down as 2,2,3,3, while the timpani is breaking it down as 3,3,2,2, I'm curious if this was intentional? It could have to do with the Musescore rendering, but it makes it sound like the strings and timpani don't agree...or maybe this is just me...

Yes - at m.9 I deliberately created different rhythmic feels which is something I do throughout basically the entire piece.  The whole idea of the piece is to layer a whole bunch of conflicting rhythms on top of each other which is something I bring to a climax at the cacophonous section at m. 82 (although I think it might be a bit much and sounds too jarring in my MuseScore rendition).

36 minutes ago, gmm said:

These are just some subjective thoughts, overall I think it's really good, and I like the inclusion of Soprano Saxes. I'm curious what made you decide to use Soprano instead of Alto? Perhaps to reinforce the upper register of the winds the Altos can't reach?

I think, if I remember correctly, alto saxes couldn't play high enough to reach some of the notes I needed (such as a high concert Bb above the staff in m.33) so I opted to use Soprano Saxes.

39 minutes ago, gmm said:

Thanks for sharing, I can't wait for more!

Thanks for your time and detailed attention!  I think you are probably one of the most detail-oriented reviewers on here and I really appreciate your attention!

3 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

First off - thanks for listening and reviewing!  I was hoping you wouldn't be able to resist taking a look at a full orchestra piece such as this!  If I ever want to write something bigger I will have to find clever ways to use the 19 staves I have available to me in the notebook I use for scores.  About the tempo - I think it might sound a bit too hurried at 150 bpm (which I guess would make it sound more like a chase scene potentially).  This is the tempo at which I imagined it as I wrote it.  Also - later in the piece when there's an accelerando coming up to the metric modulation - it would get ridiculously fast and I'm not sure it would sound natural.  I'm already weary of having the piccolo/glockenspiel lines be too indistinct in pitch and sound like they're just hammering out rhythms too and that would only get worse at a faster tempo.

Fair enough, it's just a thought. There was nothing magical about 150 though; might be worthwhile to experiment with tempos that aren't quite that fast, it's up to you.

3 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

(besides the cacophonous section which btw - what did you think of that part?)

I like the idea, and I think it's pretty good as is, but if m.82 is supposed to be the climactic moment it doesn't quite feel that way to me. If anything it needs to be more extreme compared to the preceding sections. Maybe if at m.78, if instead of having the sixteenth note runs in the piccolo and glockenspiel, you had it in some of the lower woodwind voices (and maybe marimba?), then built up to m.82 and added the piccolo and glockenspiel then?... not sure exactly... but my instinct tells me to try to hold back some of the voices until m.82, then add them all back in to make the texture explode. However, the dropoff at m.86 works well though, I like the contrast from the busy section right before it (m.82-85). If m.82-85 is made to be a bigger moment then this dropoff will be even more effective.

Another thing I noticed - I'm not sure how practical the trombone part is in this section. I would think they would have to gliss their way through some of the sixteenth note runs, and I'm not sure that would work with the cellos that share this. As an alternative, maybe have them mimic the percussive hits in the timpani?

3 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Thanks for your time and detailed attention!  I think you are probably one of the most detail-oriented reviewers on here and I really appreciate your attention!

Anytime dude. It's clear you put alot of work into this, so it deserves good feedback.

23 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I don't really see how this is an embarrassingly long time to write this. I think you managed to create an exquisite piece fairly quickly.

I'll second this. A month and a half isn't all that long, especially between work, life, etc.