"Aldea's Kingdom" - Orchestral Work

Hello there,

I'm completely new to this forum so I apologize if the the way I post my work or conduct myself doesn't conform to expectations. However, I recently composed an orchestral work titled "Aldea's Kingdom", which is loosely inspired by Japanese Video Game music, and, as context, I composed it almost as an accompaniment to a title screen. Upon listening you will notice that there are two main repeating piano lines which I effectively use almost like pedal points. In this piece, I attempted to have instruments change around the piano lines, giving it new contexts and relationships throughout the whole piece. The main critique I can probably already produce about this piece is that it may be too boring in some parts. I've always been a sucker for long developments/buildups personally, but I would really appreciate if others can echo if the piece does seem too drawn out and in particular where. I'm of course open to any kind of critique at all, especially since this is really one of the first pieces that I have composed for an ensemble this large.

(The piece was composed in a notation software, where the music is represented by soundfonts. I realize this may not be preferable, so let me know if that obstructs the ability to properly critique the piece.)

Thanks in advance!

You may view the piece here, by using Musescore's player and following along with the score: Aldea's Kingdom - Daniel Mathieu Sheet music for Piano, Violin, Flute, Drum Group & more instruments (Mixed Ensemble) | Musescore.com

Nice piece. Although it takes so long dealing with almost the same ostinato, it is not boring. But some articulations / dynamics and/or transitions would make it different. The instruments are not ordered in the classy way. You don't need many instruments, so I would delete those staves. I think you must be careful with timpani, some pitches are in the very low end, which sounds muddy, and you have to thing about what a timpanist can do. Perhaps you don't need two timpanist. 

8 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

Nice piece. Although it takes so long dealing with almost the same ostinato, it is not boring. But some articulations / dynamics and/or transitions would make it different. The instruments are not ordered in the classy way. You don't need many instruments, so I would delete those staves. I think you must be careful with timpani, some pitches are in the very low end, which sounds muddy, and you have to thing about what a timpanist can do. Perhaps you don't need two timpanist. 

 

Thanks for your response! I'll try to implement more variety and interest within the ostinato, especially at certain transition points. To respond to some other things, it is absolutely true that my instruments are probably not ordered correctly, so I will take a look at that. However, the reason there are duplicated staves for certain instruments are usually for panning purposes, so that the Musescore playback engine can interpret it correctly. Also, you brought to my attention something that I forgot to do, which was to rename one of the timpani's to Taiko Drums. In reality the middle timpani is actually a traditional Japanese percussion instruments, which I have simply forgot to label correctly, and the bottom-most must have been incorrectly duplicated, sorry for that. I was also a bit aware of the issue with the Timpani range. I believe that a 32" timpani could produce all these tones, but, as you pointed out, the results might not be as expected. Thanks again!

I can envision this as a music score for game.  Have you thought about varying the base accompaniment  to provide more color and texture.   I also think you could make use of the orchestra palette and vary the instrument groupings.

35 minutes ago, MJFOBOE said:

I can envision this as a music score for game.  Have you thought about varying the base accompaniment  to provide more color and texture.   I also think you could make use of the orchestra palette and vary the interment groupings.

 

I'm glad you can also see this as an accompaniment for a game. I have considered varying the accompaniment many times but had some trouble doing so when I was writing the piece. I have no knowledge of musical form; I just let my ear guide me through this whole composition, so it was really challenging to find a moment where I could introduce these new instruments or accompaniment without it sounding jarring. The only time I seemed to be able to do so was at m.129 when the xylophone and vibraphone were first introduced, as well as the horns and trumpets which introduce gradually in that section. Sorry if I'm asking too much, but do you have any tips on areas or ways I could try to implement more instruments or textures while still sounding natural (i.e. like they didn't just come out of nowhere)? I really like this idea, because I think it could breakup some of the perceived monotony that some people have told me they felt while listening to the piece. Thanks for your comment!

First try to clean up the score ... use a regular orchestra template.  I would recommend using the lower strings or brass in place of the constant piano base line.  Why not take those notes and distribute them across other bass instruments.

1 hour ago, MJFOBOE said:

First try to clean up the score ... use a regular orchestra template.  I would recommend using the lower strings or brass in place of the constant piano base line.  Why not take those notes and distribute them across other bass instruments.

 

Thanks for the elaboration, I'll definitely use these ideas.