Elvish Dreams

Hi everyone!

Here's my latest piece. Score to follow.
Previous versions were posted as Incomplete Works; but I've expanded the piece a lot this week, and finished it off.

The inspiration for this work was Bear McCreary's blog about his music for "Lord Of The Rings" spin-off series "Rings Of Power".

He wrote about using the G maj to D flat maj chord progression to represent the Elven land of Valinor.

The tritone separation of these chords evokes a sense of a mystical place that's forever out of reach.

My piece all grew out of that simple chord progression, and I developed an A-B-A structure.

Interested to know whether you think the music flows well, and if my orchestration works?

Also whether my renditions are improving?

I know the long strings and vocals sound a bit dodgy. Perhaps I should try using Logic Pro to make a better version.

Updated versions of the score will be posted further down the thread.

Hi Alex!

11 hours ago, Alex Weidmann said:

Interested to know whether you think the music flows well, and if my orchestration works?

I always love your distinctive voice. I love your added material in the A reprise section especially around 4:50 within that C minor section. It's a very beautiful lament there especially with the voices. Your music for me always flows well and differently. I don't think the rendition bad at all! At least it's much better than the Sibelius I am using and normally I don't care about the renditions since I only care about music! Thanks for sharing Alex!

Henry

Yes, a score would be nice ... you evoke/build step by step a lovely texture with your orchestration - the choir is a nice addition.  My only comment is you created a 7 minute continuous "mood" - (my preference) some different high point/low points would add a bit of tension and release in the on going scene(s).

Mark

Thanks so much for listening!

I'm really pleased you liked my orchestration Mark, as I have no training in that area.

Have uploaded the score now in its current state. Still need to add phrasing, dynamics, etc...

Some of the alto flute part probably should by played by a regular concert flute, and I'm going to divide the cello score between celli and violas. (N.B. I used a string pad for that part in the rendition.)

Not sure why the B flat trumpet has the same key signature as the non transposing instruments. Is that an error by MuseScore; or is that how it should be?

I'm delighted you think I have my own distinctive voice Henry.

Could be because I don't have formal training: so I'm mostly just writing from instinct!

3 hours ago, Alex Weidmann said:

Some of the alto flute part probably should by played by a regular concert flute, and I'm going to divide the cello score between celli and violas. (N.B. I used a string pad for that part in the rendition.)

Actually I love the distinctive sound of the alto flute not only for its low register. Some normal range for the regular flute when played by alto flute will add a colour of tension and stretching like viola playing normal high range of violin for me and I love that!

3 hours ago, Alex Weidmann said:

I'm delighted you think I have my own distinctive voice Henry.

Could be because I don't have formal training: so I'm mostly just writing from instinct!

Haha I don't have formal compostional training and write from instinct too but my voice is def. not as distinctive as yours!

Henry

19 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Actually I love the distinctive sound of the alto flute not only for its low register.

Ok, I'll leave it on the alto flute.

The virtual instrument I'm using has a lovely vibrato that sounds very naturalistic: so the timbre is nicer than my concert flute.

Think some of my trumpet passages in the first half of the piece might be better on the flugelhorn?

They're actually rendered on a French horn playing above its natural range: so flugelhorn may be a better fit?

Pretty sure Muse Score has selected the wrong key for this piece.

It chooses the key automatically based on the MIDI data; but looks to me like my piece should be in G major throughout?

The choral parts are occasionally straying into super soprano range as well: so I guess that could be a problem?

For those interested, here is a much improved version of the score.

I still need to work on the enharmonic spelling, and the SATB arrangement of the choral parts.

I listened to the whole thing and followed along in the score. The chord progressions did remind me of "Elvish" music by Howard Shore (and from what I can recall of the Rings of Power... I didn't watch much of that show). You can find complement chord progressions (G vs. Db, C vs. F#, etc.) in a lot of modern music, filmscore or otherwise. John Williams famously includes them in the opening Star Wars fanfare, and Holst puts them everywhere in Mars, for example; I wouldn't necessarily say that Bear McCreary has cornered the market on Elvish chord progressions, nor are you beholden to follow his lead.

For the first couple of minutes, the piece certainly evokes a sense of wonder and etherealness. After that, however, I have to agree with Mark that it becomes a continuous mood for 7 minutes that changes pace and feeling only a little throughout the piece's duration. Its development is a little disjoined, in my opinion. Themes and variations are introduced over the chord textures that don't seem to have any relation to each other, and appear to serve merely as a way to make the piece longer for the sake of making it longer.

I didn't notice any bad part-writing. The vocal parts seem singable, though there should be some indication as to what sound they're singing.

It's a great piece overall! My suggestion is to develop your thematic material ahead of time and work it in to the piece as organically as possible. This should be significantly easier now that your mind has conceptualized the piece.

Keep up the good work!
Jörfi

Hi Jörfi,

Many thanks for your very perceptive review!

As a fledging composer, I find one of the hardest things is linking together different musical ideas (even if they are loosely related).

You can obviously hear that in the music.

It was supposed to have a loose A-B-A structure, with Sections C and D as a reworked recapitulation of Section A. 

Have attached a link to "The Rings Of Power" album above. 
My favourite is probably the theme for "Galadriel", and I definitely had that in mind when I wrote this piece.

Bear employs the string section to provide his ostinato; whereas I mainly used the choir for that purpose.

Haven't written much for brass in my previous works: so I tried to employ the brass section to build to a climax, then drop back down to ethereal vocals at the end.

Thanks again,

Alex

Hi again Alex!

Wonder how this would sound with better sounds, though it's already pretty good.

16 hours ago, Alex Weidmann said:

For those interested, here is a much improved version of the score.

Just a detail about this: in the first page, the copyright footnote is overlapped by the score lol.

I also agree with Mark and Jordan. While the mood you maintain is alright, I believe that almost all directionality gets blurred because of it. For example (to put one, I am sure there are other places where this is more evident, likely past section B, where I find a bit more difficult not to "get lost"), the point at which strings make their entrance would be a nice one to introduce some contrasts via silencing some other voices, maybe in the way of what I think that the section B starts with (?): a question-answer pair of phrases. 

 

On 4/11/2023 at 11:12 PM, Alex Weidmann said:

It chooses the key automatically based on the MIDI data; but looks to me like my piece should be in G major throughout?

Whatever the problem be, you can manually transpose a staff to the key you wish. Also, make sure you don't have the "Real sounds" button activated, since it de-transposes everything.
 (that's from MS3. If you are using the 4th version, I believe it must exist too).


Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

46 minutes ago, Omicronrg9 said:

you can manually transpose a staff to the key you wish

I feel like it would make more sense to respell the choral parts in C sharp major instead of D flat major (whilst keeping the key signature in G major); but the "respell pitches" command doesn't do that. Instead it creates a messy combination of sharps and flats!

Not sure if it can be done with MuseScore?

Might just have to go through and manually change every note that needs re-spelling.

Many thanks for listening as always. I'll see if I can rework the piece at some point.

Right now I'm working on something else, since I found a free Armenian duduk on the Apple App Store.

Hans Zimmer used this instrument to great effect on "Dune" last year, and I'm excited to try it out in my next piece!

25 minutes ago, Alex Weidmann said:

Not sure if it can be done with MuseScore?

We can try. Which version do you use? Can you share a screenshot of how it looks when you try to respell pitches? Selecting everything and doing arrow up + arrow down should make everything flat, at least in MS3. 
 

Hi Daniel,

Sorry for the delayed response.

I have MS3 and MS4; but for this piece I used MS3.

I've attached the score following a "respell pitches" command.

Doesn't quite achieve what I was hoping for.

The cursor up/down arrows change the pitch by one semitone, which is not what I want.

I need to keep the pitches where they are; but change the accidentals to favour sharps instead of flats.