The Busy Workshop - My entry into the Christmas Music event!

Hello! I decided to join in the ongoing event...It's my first one since joining this forum! With this piece, I had originally started it just to play around but really liked where it was heading and decided to turn it into a fun little piece that in my mind, it the backdrop to a busy toy workshop in this holiday season or perhaps some holiday hijinks. As the usual, this is made in FL Studio using a combination of Spitfire Audio VSTs (both paid and free) and this time also Amadeus Symphonic Orchestra.

It was an early idea in the making of this to use the sleigh bells to signify a change in the piece. I really tried to embrace some different vibes with this song than I usually do! Hope you enjoy the song and have a great holiday season!

AWESOME!

AWESOME!

I love this! Your instrumentation was very smart, as choosing festive instruments can instantly paint a picture. Sleigh bells, chimes, pitched percussion galore, it's all great and idiomatic for your music. 

Even though strings and winds were very prominent throughout, it was really cool to hear glockenspiel (?) so dominant in their presence for the majority of the piece. This reminded me of film music, is that an interest of yours? 

Nicely crafted and certainly adheres to the theme of the competition. Well done, I'm very excited to hear how you continue to improve from your compositional growth. 🙂 

Hi @Layne,

The opening really reminds me of Vivaldi's Winter, but of course not as cold as his! I enjoy all those harmonic colour changes which you skilfully and magically arranged for the festive mood. I love the sleigh bells and glockenspiel. Maybe the later half has less change than the first half so it appears to me less moving forward, but the whole piece is very enjoyable and festive. Thx for sharing!

Henry

More Please~!  This sounds perfect for an introduction to an animated scene full of wondrous creatures ... Maybe you should collaborate with an animator.  You create a wonderful texture/color with a very light touch. Everything fits nicely in place. 😇

Mark

19 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

AWESOME!

 

 

 

 

 

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Damn, everyone is coming out slinging this year. You write this fantastic piece, Peter has his variations (ugh, of course he picked something in his wheelhouse), and Henry is writing a piece with a theme that I can't possibly go against ( 😉 )… wth am I going to do this year... is my song good enough... maybe the competition is too great, and my words will fall short... *sigh*, what am I to do... should I scrap everything and figure out a new approach to have my music worthy of such great competition...

Ahem, er... , um... so anyway...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AWESOME!

I love this! Your instrumentation was very smart, as choosing festive instruments can instantly paint a picture. Sleigh bells, chimes, pitched percussion galore, it's all great and idiomatic for your music. 

Even though strings and winds were very prominent throughout, it was really cool to hear glockenspiel (?) so dominant in their presence for the majority of the piece. This reminded me of film music, is that an interest of yours? 

Nicely crafted and certainly adheres to the theme of the competition. Well done, I'm very excited to hear how you continue to improve from your compositional growth. 🙂 

 

Thank you so very much for the kind words! Film music is a MASSIVE interest of mine. I have grown up on soundtracks...(I'm only 23, but I love them from all eras!) And yes! That was a glockenspiel. One of my favorite "wintery" sounding instruments. I am so glad you enjoyed the piece! Looking forward to seeing your entry into the competition as well!

16 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Hi @Layne,

The opening really reminds me of Vivaldi's Winter, but of course not as cold as his! I enjoy all those harmonic colour changes which you skilfully and magically arranged for the festive mood. I love the sleigh bells and glockenspiel. Maybe the later half has less change than the first half so it appears to me less moving forward, but the whole piece is very enjoyable and festive. Thx for sharing!

Henry

 

Hi Henry! Thank you so so much for the comment and kind words. I really took to the theme of this challenge and wanted to make something fun, lighthearted. Which is not my usual...but pushing myself on this piece turned it into something I am really proud of. Glad you enjoyed the piece!

1 hour ago, MJFOBOE said:

More Please~!  This sounds perfect for an introduction to an animated scene full of wondrous creatures ... Maybe you should collaborate with an animator.  You create a wonderful texture/color with a very light touch. Everything fits nicely in place. 😇

Mark

 

Thank you so so much! I am so glad that you had an image come to mind when listening to it. I would love to see it animated. Might have to look into that. It's always been a dream of mine to see something I have written put alongside animation or film.

Haha this is wonderful! It has enough depth to be really interesting, yet a very light touch for the precise textures.

While I find the ending a little repetitive and cheesy, the rest is beautifully structured and orchestrated. I particularly like the harmonic language - it gives a really festive vibe!

The sleigh bells are of course very Christmassy, but I think it would have been nice to introduce them again further from the end, just to cement the festive cheer.

A wonderful piece - I can definitely imagine it accompanying a busy workshop scene!

An easy piece to listen to although it doesn't sound to busy for a workshop. The scoring and rendering sounds great and as others have said, the percussion you choose gives the scene its character.

My only crit is the 3 or 4 repeats of the phrase as it closes from about 2'07". I wouldn't have commented on this but for the close almost being a repeat. I  thought 'oh no, not again?' but it did aside from leading up to the tonic from the leading note. 

Nice work, all the same.

Christmas felicitations to you too.

QUinn

15 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

Haha this is wonderful! It has enough depth to be really interesting, yet a very light touch for the precise textures.

While I find the ending a little repetitive and cheesy, the rest is beautifully structured and orchestrated. I particularly like the harmonic language - it gives a really festive vibe!

The sleigh bells are of course very Christmassy, but I think it would have been nice to introduce them again further from the end, just to cement the festive cheer.

A wonderful piece - I can definitely imagine it accompanying a busy workshop scene!

 

Thank you so much! Glad to hear you enjoyed the listen...as I've said in previous comments it's definitely not in my usual wheelhouse to make things in this style, but considering how fun this one was to make I want to continue to branch into some other styles!

As for the sleigh bells, I was worried I was already relying on them too much throughout the rest of the song! Might revisit this one after the event and rework the ending a bit.

3 hours ago, Quinn said:

An easy piece to listen to although it doesn't sound to busy for a workshop. The scoring and rendering sounds great and as others have said, the percussion you choose gives the scene its character.

My only crit is the 3 or 4 repeats of the phrase as it closes from about 2'07". I wouldn't have commented on this but for the close almost being a repeat. I  thought 'oh no, not again?' but it did aside from leading up to the tonic from the leading note. 

Nice work, all the same.

Christmas felicitations to you too.

QUinn

 

Thank you for the listen! Glad to hear you enjoyed it.

Listening back, the ending is something I might have changed had I given it a few more listens before posting. But now that it's out here and submitted for the event, at the moment I plan to leave it as is. Might revisit it later!

Just wondering, what does it bring to mind for you? Always love to hear different interpretations of pieces I have done!

It starts almost like a Christmas waltz in 4!  Then it gets quite sneaky and even creepy and mysterious!  The workshop must be empty before the elves enter and start working on the toys!  LoL  I love it when the melody lands on the b6 (presumably Ab in this key?)  It gives your shop a certain dark and mysterious edge to it.  The orchestration is also very sparse.  Over-orchestrating it with heavy string chords would of course be a mistake.  But I feel like you could have included a Viola or French Horn on long notes to give the piece some built in resonance.  That's just my personal approach.  Thanks for sharing and entering the Christmas Music Event!

Peter

3 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

It starts almost like a Christmas waltz in 4!  Then it gets quite sneaky and even creepy and mysterious!  The workshop must be empty before the elves enter and start working on the toys!  LoL  I love it when the melody lands on the b6 (presumably Ab in this key?)  It gives your shop a certain dark and mysterious edge to it.  The orchestration is also very sparse.  Over-orchestrating it with heavy string chords would of course be a mistake.  But I feel like you could have included a Viola or French Horn on long notes to give the piece some built in resonance.  That's just my personal approach.  Thanks for sharing and entering the Christmas Music Event!

Peter

 

Thank you so much! I appreciate the kind words and suggestions! I thought about horns, but also was afraid of it sounding too harsh. I like the idea of a viola though! I certainly want to revisit this piece later on. For the purposes of this challenge I will leave it as is, but a version two is probably on the horizon. It's my first Music Event on this forum, and I've enjoyed it greatly. Looking forward to the next one already!