Wells of Emotion

Hello, this is my first post. This looked like an interesting forum. This is also my first piece, and it would be fun to get some feedback. I made it months ago when I learned my band director was leaving to go to another school. I came up with the idea of making a song for him, and I threw this together in a few days. Its not very polished, but I think it's pretty good for my first composition. I tried to put all of my emotions into one song, and a lot of it was just me playing on my keyboard and trying to make it sound good. I made it in GarageBand. If you couldn't tell by the file name, it took me a while to mostly polish it off.

After the Intro, the sound is muddy, probably because the sections are not layered and/or conflicts in the low register (close intervals).

I think it's nice as your first attempt. The parts with less density sound better.

On 8/23/2022 at 12:34 PM, Luis Hernández said:

After the Intro, the sound is muddy, probably because the sections are not layered and/or conflicts in the low register (close intervals).

I think it's nice as your first attempt. The parts with less density sound better.

 

Thank you for your feedback! I agree with you there. I had a little too much going on.

I'm going to agree with Luis here. Sure the piece is an achievement for a first composition but you need a lot of work on your orchestration. It sounds as if you went straight into scoring having worked out that concept at a piano. I may be wrong so please correct me if so.

The muddiness arises from too much happening the the lower registers rather than spreading the chords out with the widest gaps in the lower instruments and closer gaps in the top. Also the timps give it a too leaden feel. One suggestion is to  look at those lower instruments (they sound like brass) and leave out any notes important to the harmony that are repeated in the higher instruments (i.e. the 3rds firstly and 5ths secondarily).

If you submit a score we could have a closer look at it.

(There are times when you want a muddy sound but that should be reserved as a special effect. A good example is in the opening of Honegger's Pacific 231, (bars 12-26) when it's fairly obvious why he went for that "muddiness"!)

On 8/26/2022 at 3:43 AM, Quinn said:

I'm going to agree with Luis here. Sure the piece is an achievement for a first composition but you need a lot of work on your orchestration. It sounds as if you went straight into scoring having worked out that concept at a piano. I may be wrong so please correct me if so.

The muddiness arises from too much happening the the lower registers rather than spreading the chords out with the widest gaps in the lower instruments and closer gaps in the top. Also the timps give it a too leaden feel. One suggestion is to  look at those lower instruments (they sound like brass) and leave out any notes important to the harmony that are repeated in the higher instruments (i.e. the 3rds firstly and 5ths secondarily).

If you submit a score we could have a closer look at it.

(There are times when you want a muddy sound but that should be reserved as a special effect. A good example is in the opening of Honegger's Pacific 231, (bars 12-26) when it's fairly obvious why he went for that "muddiness"!)

 

That's exactly what I did. I don't have a score for it, but I do want to remake it to get rid of the muddiness. 
I took a listen to Pacific 231.  I can see where muddiness should only be used as an effect.