Clockwork

Hi and welcome to the forums!

• First of all it would be nice if you submitted some kind of pdf at least in order to better follow what you did here.

• Second, from my brief experience here normally dropping just a mp3 without any explanation of what you want (from specific feedback regarding orchestration, engraving, or any other particularity to just showing it to users here) is not a very wise choice. You can still do it of course but I'm afraid that since there are many posts which lack reviews (as you might have seen in the "Works with few reviews" tab) your work may pass unnoticed.

• Third, the "Untitled1111" piece seems a bit of a mess to me. There are nice bits and it doesn't sound bad, but "off" a lot. There are sudden pauses that I don't really get, the drum-set and cymbals feel off (everything can be really exemplified in the very first minute of the piece), and there's a general feeling (obviously subjectively speaking here) of that the notes and instruments were mixed up without any care or —in some parts— thought. I hear traces of a repetition of what could be an A section but overall I don't see any structure either.

 Well, around min 2-3 there is some vague question-answer structure using different instruments but that doesn't seem to go anywhere, seems like the instruments are talking to the air in different languages instead to each other in the very same one. Is this your first composition for multiple instruments? Just out of curiosity.

 I also noticed a big pause in 3:30 which marks the beginning of a second part, movement, etc, I believe. Just noting that imo that sudden pause doesn't sound conclusive at all but I don't know if this is intentional or not. I am also noticing strange or erratic phrasing between those good moments I made reference two paragraphs above. 

Didn't really like it as a set despite the rescuable bits, but if it is how you wanted it I believe it's fine. Either in case any of my words left you thinking, or that this is your very first composition for orchestra/multiple-instruments, here's my two cents:

  ♫ Learn from the masters. Either books about orchestration, harmony, counterpoint, etc. or just listening to new pieces from composers you didn't know & pieces you already knew, whatever suits you.
  ♫ Compose often. 
  ♫ Do not hesitate in racking your brain on your "in the workshop" pieces. If there's something you don't like, or something that doesn't convince you, keep thinking about it a lil' more.
  ♫ Find a balance between multiple voices & instruments. An orchestra may have lots of instruments but that doesn't mean you can make lots of harmonically/rythmically independient voices and expect all of them to be heard and sound good —necessarily always, I'm not saying that cannot happen—. Some voices will normally be heard more than others and I think working on the contrasts you made along this piece with more thought could output way better results to you.
  ♫ Keep in mind the structure of the piece you are making, either it's non-existent or very well defined, since otherwise you might get an uncontrolled, unsupervised mix of both that you may not be satisfied with. Same goes with phrasing.

I hope any of this be of any use to you. Keep composing!

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

P.S: In this forum there's a handful of hidden gems in the "Orchestral and Large ensemble" whose authors are likely eager to get some feedback, you may be interested in checking some of them =).




 

6 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

Hi and welcome to the forums!

• First of all it would be nice if you submitted some kind of pdf at least in order to better follow what you did here.

• Second, from my brief experience here normally dropping just a mp3 without any explanation of what you want (from specific feedback regarding orchestration, engraving, or any other particularity to just showing it to users here) is not a very wise choice. You can still do it of course but I'm afraid that since there are many posts which lack reviews (as you might have seen in the "Works with few reviews" tab) your work may pass unnoticed.

• Third, the "Untitled1111" piece seems a bit of a mess to me. There are nice bits and it doesn't sound bad, but "off" a lot. There are sudden pauses that I don't really get, the drum-set and cymbals feel off (everything can be really exemplified in the very first minute of the piece), and there's a general feeling (obviously subjectively speaking here) of that the notes and instruments were mixed up without any care or —in some parts— thought. I hear traces of a repetition of what could be an A section but overall I don't see any structure either.

 Well, around min 2-3 there is some vague question-answer structure using different instruments but that doesn't seem to go anywhere, seems like the instruments are talking to the air in different languages instead to each other in the very same one. Is this your first composition for multiple instruments? Just out of curiosity.

 I also noticed a big pause in 3:30 which marks the beginning of a second part, movement, etc, I believe. Just noting that imo that sudden pause doesn't sound conclusive at all but I don't know if this is intentional or not. I am also noticing strange or erratic phrasing between those good moments I made reference two paragraphs above. 

Didn't really like it as a set despite the rescuable bits, but if it is how you wanted it I believe it's fine. Either in case any of my words left you thinking, or that this is your very first composition for orchestra/multiple-instruments, here's my two cents:

  ♫ Learn from the masters. Either books about orchestration, harmony, counterpoint, etc. or just listening to new pieces from composers you didn't know & pieces you already knew, whatever suits you.
  ♫ Compose often. 
  ♫ Do not hesitate in racking your brain on your "in the workshop" pieces. If there's something you don't like, or something that doesn't

 convince you, keep thinking about it a lil' more.
  ♫ Find a balance between multiple voices & instruments. An orchestra may have lots of instruments but that doesn't mean you can make lots of harmonically/rythmically independient voices and expect all of them to be heard and sound good —necessarily always, I'm not saying that cannot happen—. Some voices will normally be heard more than others and I think working on the contrasts you made along this piece with more thought could output way better results to you.
  ♫ Keep in mind the structure of the piece you are making, either it's non-existent or very well defined, since otherwise you might get an uncontrolled, unsupervised mix of both that you may not be satisfied with. Same goes with phrasing.

I hope any of this be of any use to you. Keep composing!

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

P.S: In this forum there's a handful of hidden gems in the "Orchestral and Large ensemble" whose authors are likely eager to get some feedback, you may be interested in checking some of them =).




 

 

First of all, thank you so much for the feed back and sorry for the lack of a pdf or explanation, I found out about this forum when I was in school and I only had the file of the audio.(though in hindsight, I probably should've waited until I had access to the pdf)

But yeah I agree with you on a lot of the points you mention in this, this is my first big band composition I've worked on.

The state that this piece is in now I believe I "finished" writing about a month or two ago

A lot of the lead parts from this are from other, smaller pieces I've worked (sloppily) put to together.

I've had a hard time with this piece, as I'v been very split on where I want it to go, and it certainly is in a finished state, rights now I feel it's more of a college of ideas, rather than a comprehensive piece.

Though I want it to have more structure, I think I really want it to thrive as a sort of a "controlled chaos" though I feel like, so far, I've pursued it in the wrong way.

I want it to have a structure, and separate movements that all in tie into each other, but I do want a level of disorder to create tension in a way that's not done a lot in orchestral music, but more of a way that would be utilized more in jazz

So far I think my best progress towards this idea is actually through the percussion. I want it to feel sort of off, but not random. In a way that a jazz musician may use techniques to create a level of unbalance before pulling together.

Though, yeah, a lot of the parts in this I feel are kind of lazily put together, looking back, I think I should of structured together parts that fit together more rather than parts that I had simply thought of before in the past.

The reasoning behind the strange pauses are a combination of the lack of being able to come up with a good transition, and trouble with the program I used to write this(musescore), when creating those transitions I should tried more to push the music into the next section, rather than just stopping it and then starting again with a new idea.

I believe that when it comes this piece, I think I'm going to scrap it and try to pick out certain ideas in it, to try to put to together a more comprehensive vision, though it reflects the basic ideas of what I want to achieve with it, I do believe it is a far cry from being the complete experience I want it to be

Thank you,                                                      Ethan Truesdale

Thank you for the detailed explanation. First of all, don't hesitate in asking here about specific feedback either here or on the unfinished works tab. BTW, what issues did you find on musescore? 
 
Whatever you do with the material you have is fine as long as you keep working and composing often. I believe there will be a big difference between, say, this piece, and the tenth one you may make in the future (of this kind).

Kind regards!!