The journey home

From the latest CGEmpire competition!

...The heroes kept on walking, the wind blowing restless. Soon the terrain changed. The sparse trees, which until then provided some kind of shelter, gave place to rocks. As they climbed the mountain the sun got hidden by deep clouds, and the wind changed to rain first and then to snow. The slowed down but never stoped. Every obstacle they overcame, they were not short of courage. Finally they reached the top of the mountains, stood there for only a brief moment, to catch their breathes and then took the path down, to the other side. At the bottom, the snow gave way to the everlasting greens and the familiar smell was reassuring enough. They were home!

http://www.cgespace.com/music/15/the_journey_home.mp3

EWQL Gold bundle and EWQLSC

This is really lovely, Nikolas!

I thought the harmonies really assisted the rhythmic figures in keeping up a sense of motion. It had a vaguely descending feel to it and then you brought it back up with a fantastic build.

Obviously it's not particularly melodic, but the textures you've built in and the progression is just spellbinding. Especially when the choir and woodwinds have their little conversation, that's awesome. In terms of following the given theme, I completely imagined that journey from start to finish just as described, so you did a good job of capturing it in music.

I felt that your ending was a bit understated though and that the choral parts could have been mixed just a touch louder. Otherwise, another gorgeous work. This is totally going on my iPod for the next time I've got mountains to traverse.

Thanks for sharing!

As I said this was in the list of the three tracks that was going to get my second vote. A strong reason why was one of the choices to vote is because of the strong presence the strings gave me of a journey sense. From all tracks this was one that gave me that sense of journey from the beginning. I really didn't notice much of the repeats in the track, they were covered very well with other details. The ending personally didn't give me any feeling of the heroes arriving to home or any visual of it. The rest of the track was potent with the visuals of a journey for me.

I guessed you track just by intuition of the tittle and of the feeling it provoke to me the track about the journey. Just made me think, this most be the one of Nikolas, the way it was done.

The rhythmic figures really gives a sense of motion, thus it fits the description of "not stopping" really really well. I really loved the string harmonies at the beginning. It conveys the image of wind, rain and snow perfectly! I agree it's not particularly melodic, but the rhythmic motif is already good enough to catch any listener's attention, while the changing melodic line on top of it gives it more variation.

The first instrument at the woodwind part (oboe?) plays a solid melody, though not too catchy. at 2:11, the most beautiful part comes in. I can see light, shimmering softly in the darkness, and the peril and danger has all but gone.

This is great, nikolas, thanks for sharing and I'm gonna listen to it again!

BTW, what place did you come in for this entry?

Thanks guys! Glad you like it! I also think that there's not much melodic movement, but the harmonies and the strings make up for this, I think! The first oboe melody is not really catchy, but the second (towards the end) I feel is just righ!

Nigel, it's difficult to say, as many people had the same amount of votes as me. I got 4 votes and the top one had 7 votes. another entry had 6 votes, 3 entries had 5 votes and a few had 4. So difficult to say. But it didn't do bad really.

Great texture work, although I might try to tighten the orchestration around smaller groups to represent the changes in scenery.
For instance I'd bring the woodwinds to the spotlight at the end (evergreen), and the brass in the middle (mountain) section, to create more specific associations with the places and colors.
The percussions and that string Ostinato could remain constant to represent the joureny, or maybe it's heroes.
Hope that idea came across and didn't get lost in the translation from thought to text.

I take it the quiet part around 1:20 is the little breather they took at the mountain top?
Great choice with the Oboe, but I think to justify it the whole thing needs to be much longer, otherwise it feels like a really short trip up the mountain.
"are we there yet?"
"why yes, yes we are!"

About the ending, I liked it melodically very much, but I think contextually it's too close to the middle section (taking a break up the mountain), mainly sound-wise.
I think maybe coming home should have a different color (maybe more Major harmony?) then a stop in the middle of the journey.

But maybe I got the contexts wrong and then this whole comment is just silly
Anyway, really great piece, keep up the good work!

Omri.

Omri,

I wasn't following the text exactly. I let the music carry me away and ditched the text after a while. The slow part in the end, was just an inspiration and it could translate that the village is destroyed, or something! but really I didn't care much about the text after a while!

Nikolas,

This is pretty neat! I like all of it until about halfway. It's neat that you have all that texture at the beginning that really gives me the sense that I am going somewhere, but I think that in order to really captivate your audience, it would be neat to hint at your melody early on, either by using a variation or just echoes of it. Basically, as others have said, it isn't [quite] melodic [enough].

I'm not quite sure about the interlude you have in the middle. Musically it's all right, but it doesn't seem that there is anything like that in the middle of the description. I would have probably put that section at the beginning, and left most of the middle to the development that you have.

I also have to agree that it doesn't feel like a very long trip up the mountain... I felt it more like a trip to the snow peak. I think another (at least) thirty seconds could benefit the effect of the piece.

Overall, it's quite good. As a standalone piece I like it a lot. I do find that when you put it with the description, it's not quite as shiny, however. No doubt it's good, but that's how I feel.

By all means, keep it up!
Alan

I like this one a lot.

Honestly, I didn't even know there was a choir until my second time listening through. I think they should be louder, especially since when you can hear them they are really beautiful.