Into the mystical cave - my latest composition

Hey everyone! 🙂

This is my first post in the forum, so i greet you all.

In this post, I present for review one of my last compositions, called "Into the mystical cave". It is small in duration and it has a soundtrack-like approach as it visualizes a trip through a mystical cave...I tried to put into the music the awe and wonder of exploring beautiful subterranean chambers. 

I use instruments from all families of the orchestra (and percussion). I would like your constructive opinions on the composition!

Enjoy!

Hello @elmarad40,

Welcome to the forum!

I love your usage of the whole orchestra! The opening woodwinds are beautiful and the string melody is expressive. The oboe melody in 0:47 is great with a climax at the end with the brasses, but I feel like the ending ends abruptly with those timpani since I feel like the climax can be longer!

I find the link between the passages not always in the most satisfactory way, as there are many gaps between them. Maybe you can add more fill ups between the beautiful passages!

I feel like here the mood is not mystical but adventurous with the bright orchestral and harmonic colour! 

If you have time you can also look into our fellow members' pieces and possibly review them! Thanks for sharing your piece and joining us!

Henry

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I feel like the ending ends abruptly with those timpani since I feel like the climax can be longer!

 find the link between the passages not always in the most satisfactory way, as there are many gaps between them. Maybe you can add more fill ups between the beautiful passages!

That's true. The main melody can be extended as it is introduced again in the second part. I am taking lessons in music harmony, i am still in a beginner's level from a theoritical perspective on orchestration so i am orchestrating and choosing melodies by instict and ear! 🙂

Thank you for the input Henry and the appreciation!

17 minutes ago, elmarad40 said:

I am taking lessons in music harmony, i am still in a beginner's level from a theoritical perspective on orchestration so i am orchestrating and choosing melodies by instict and ear! 🙂

Wow if your are in the beginner's level and write this kind of orchestral piece that will be amazing! Maybe writing solo piano pieces or chamber music first will be easier for you to practice with the harmony writing! That said it's certainly a good beginning with pieces in this kind of level! There are many great Symphonist here though, e.g. @gmm, @WowBroThatWasReallyEdgy, @Quinn have all posted great pieces within these two months! You cam check their pieces out if you are interested to their mature orchestral writing.

Henry

Welcome to the forum and thank you for your first submission. I just want to say right off the bat, this piece is WAY too short for a big orchestral piece! But, there's a lot of good things going on here aside from the shortage of listening time. Really nice harmony, great melody, orchestration seems fine to me (although without a score, its hard to tell). I did notice though when first listening, the intro seemed very empty. I'm almost sure it's the lack of reverb going on here. The flutes seem so lonely from the start, and the decay of the reverb is too quick. Which leads me to this...

The instruments you have seem high quality, but you need to higher quality reverb engine. The decay is too prevalent and leads to your piece almost sounding like its in a vacuum. You notice it much more in the beginning, or when there are solo instruments playing. But the composition itself is very well done. Although one slight criticism revolving around your composition would have to be the abrupt ending. Again, the decay of your reverb makes it seem even more abrupt, and almost unplanned.

Thank you for the input / review chopin. I tried a different version yesterday, as at some point i also noticed the incosistency of the reverberation.

You can check the new track here (with different application of reverb - and some extra EQ tweeking!)

Certainly a resounding piece but I agree with at least one point raised by others: it's too short. You manage to get a fair amount of thematic material into it which could be developed. As it's basically tonal, development shouldn't be too much trouble.

I also agree that it sounds too dry. It would be more atmosphere (be a little more '3D') with some reverb. It doesn't need a lot. And finally, I can't quite fit the rather joyous energetic mood with entering a mysterious cave. The mood really does need to change when actually entering.  (I've had the heebie-jeebies at the prospect of entering dark caves on the Cornish coast - and never get more than a couple of feet in. Perhaps there are people far bolder than me.)

I think if you want detailed comment, best to submit a score if you can so we can refer to bar numbers. Then if we spot something we can talk about harmony, orchestration and things. I'm never sure that breaking it down into minutes and seconds is much use because you'd have to check the timings back to make sense of comment - and we can't know how you've actually scored it...some scoring is obvious but not all.

So a bright, buoyant piece but could be longer. 

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On 3/17/2023 at 2:39 PM, elmarad40 said:

i am still in a beginner's level from a theoritical perspective on orchestration so i am orchestrating and choosing melodies by instict and ear!

Alas, 'learning' orchestration takes time. You may have an instinct for it in which case it won't take as much time as otherwise. But the surest way is to study how established composers have done it. Borrow or buy scores: start with simple, tonal works with which you're already familiar, get into more complicated ones as you move on. (Starting with an unfamiliar work can be tedious: you need to read the score bit by bit then construct what it sounds like in your head. That'll come in time but best avoided as a complete beginner. Edit: I've still miles to go with this and usually listen to fragments on record then work out how the composer got to that on the score) 

There are plenty of text books about orchestration but very little on 'how to do it'. Ultimately your aim should be to get the effect you have in your mind. You have a DAW presumably (for the work you submitted) so you can experiment. But if something doesn't work out as you hoped, try to analyse why it's gone wrong - alter the dynamics / mixing, the pitches, try other instruments - and so on. 

As for choosing melodies by instinct and by ear, you are definitely on the right track. It's about our ears, inner and outer, the inner ear being how you imagine sounds. Developing it slowly and surely is what it's really about. Knowing that what you've found instinctively seems right is a head start.

Great and good luck. 

Thank you for the input @Quinn. Certainly i need to get familiar , with scores of compositions i know and love,in order to get acquainted with their orchestrations and the usages of the different instrument groups. I listen a lot to soundtrack music. I will start by reproducing scores in my DAW

That would be fun to do! :)

Hi, yes a score would be nice to review.  The thing that caught my attention is that your harmonic language/melodic line/orchestration reminds me of movie scores from the 1930's.  A tonal fabric/texture I really enjoy.

Mark