A Perilous Crossing

You look across the chasm as you take your first steps onto the dainty little bridge made of thin planks of wood and held together by feeble sprigs of bamboo.  As you step onto the first plank, the bridge lazily absorbs your weight swaying back and forth with the wind.  You cannot help but honestly doubt the bridge's structural integrity, but you have no choice.  You proceed bravely across while the rest of your party waits behind, not daring to test the bridges' stability by crossing simultaneously.  Will you make it across safely?

I composed this short piece as my first foray back into composing after the end of the spring semester.  I must say - it feels good to get back into music (I missed it).  This piece is intended to be inspired by many of my favorite video game music tracks that I've been posting on this forum.  The instrumentation is for a small orchestra with the only brass present being Horns in F, as well as Marimba, Glockenspiel, and Acoustic Guitar.  I made the score and mp3 with Musescore 3 although I have recently downloaded Reaper and started messing around with it and downloaded some free string orchestra vst's but I don't yet have all the vst's I need for a full orchestra and for all the instruments I use for this piece.

Let me know what you think and thanks for listening!

Hi, Peter!

This is an interesting piece. I'm not sure what to make of it musically as it never settled into a convincing tonality — but maybe that was the intended effect in order to compound the suspense? I noticed quite a bit of doubling and would've liked to have seen more sectioning of the instruments: the woodwinds doing "woodwind" things, the strings doing "string" things, and so on. I also wasn't able to visualize the hold-your-breath moments of crossing a flimsy bridge. To me, the suspense would be captured heartbeat to heartbeat and not in the driving rhythms you put forth here. But that's just me.

Anyway, it's a nice piece and I'm glad you shared it with us!

2 hours ago, Tónskáld said:

This is an interesting piece. I'm not sure what to make of it musically as it never settled into a convincing tonality — but maybe that was the intended effect in order to compound the suspense?

I did try, in this piece, to write a melody that wasn't obviously a "tonic" melody and to finish the piece on a non-tonic chord that would nonetheless sound finished and like it was a good, happy ending regarding the short story presented in the description.

2 hours ago, Tónskáld said:

I noticed quite a bit of doubling and would've liked to have seen more sectioning of the instruments: the woodwinds doing "woodwind" things, the strings doing "string" things, and so on.

Although I do use a lot of doubling between the various woodwinds octaves apart in the section where the woodwinds take the melody the 2nd time through the main theme, I thought I used lots of imitation between the strings and woodwinds especially where if the strings have the melody, the woodwinds answer with a countermelody and vice versa.

2 hours ago, Tónskáld said:

I also wasn't able to visualize the hold-your-breath moments of crossing a flimsy bridge. To me, the suspense would be captured heartbeat to heartbeat and not in the driving rhythms you put forth here.

You're probably right there.  I don't think the timpani the way I used it really has a place in this piece given it's description.  But I've been told that this piece sounds very "RPG-ish" which was definitely intended.  This piece was inspired by many recent additions to the "Favorite video game music tracks?" thread which I started:

If you have time check it out and thanks for your review!

Hey, Peter, this is a really cool short little piece! I almost get FF7 vibes from it or maybe even a GBA Castlevania game. It would make a great cave OR mountain climbing soundtrack. It worked really well for me and had some cool lower lines at times. And the way some of the higher lines interject and create their own special moment was really beautiful!

Thanks for sharing! Any time you want to share something, feel free to reach out. I guess the best thing to share is my insta if you want to follow (@erickthedude03).

I love this piece ...!

Sometimes it seems you wrote two different pieces at the same time, that fit together so well. How did you do it? 

4 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

I love this piece ...!

Thanks Luis!  I'm glad you like it!

4 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

Sometimes it seems you wrote two different pieces at the same time, that fit together so well. How did you do it?

Thank you!  I think when I wrote the contrasting B section of the piece I must have been aware that the A section was already over-saturated with the following themes:

Notice that basically all the voices have the same shape and are based around the same little descending motif.  So in order to make the B section contrast I felt I had to break away from that motif and come up with something relatively new.  As a bit of foreshadowing I included elements from the B section in the Piccolo and Glockenspiel countermelody during the A section, hopefully unifying the piece a bit.  The B section also mirrors the A section by using the descending motif but then returning back up:

Thanks for listening and for your review!

Much has already been said. An energetic piece and all I have to say is it didn't quite fit the atmosphere as you described - which doesn't mean it wouldn't in a game. (I recall an assault course where the ground fell away sharply - not a chasm but a drop of about 20 feet. I had to walk along a telegraph pole from the bank to where it rested in the fork of a tree (The next bit was a rope swing to another part of the embankment). I was apprehensive to say the least, trying to remember the thing about "don't look down". (Put the sh--s up me to be honest.) But then that coloured my expectations. What you describe I wouldn't like to do! 

I loved the ending however, a musical question mark if ever. Was that the point at which the person stepped on the bridge or about what they might find, having done a successful crossing?

11 hours ago, Quinn said:

I loved the ending however, a musical question mark if ever. Was that the point at which the person stepped on the bridge or about what they might find, having done a successful crossing?

That's a good question.  I think despite the successful crossing, the ending was meant to leave the listener feeling like the adventure is not over, but that they've nonetheless arrived at someplace new.  I've heard the ending described as a "false ending" which I can't help but agree with.  The ending is just one waypoint on a larger journey and I feel that musically as well, the music could continue from here on out in a completely unrelated way.  Almost like another movement of music is expected to come up next.

12 hours ago, Quinn said:

(I recall an assault course where the ground fell away sharply - not a chasm but a drop of about 20 feet. I had to walk along a telegraph pole from the bank to where it rested in the fork of a tree (The next bit was a rope swing to another part of the embankment). I was apprehensive to say the least, trying to remember the thing about "don't look down". (Put the sh--s up me to be honest.)

Did you go to boot camp or something?  Sounds grueling and physically demanding!

9 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Did you go to boot camp or something?  Sounds grueling and physically demanding!

Hah! Nope. In the UK we have a part-time army thing called the TA (territorial army). They give open days/weekends every so often. I didn't join up but thought I'd see what it was about. The unit is quite close to where I previously lived. The worst about it was the food!

Very cool piece! Ideal for an action adventure movie.

I'd be interested to hear it with a higher quality selection of virtual instruments.

I found this website very useful for expanding my instrument range on Reaper:

https://blog.landr.com/best-free-orchestral-vsts/