All Activity

I am not intelligent. My fault I wasn't here back then.

Hi there, Tunndy! Long time no see! You have made a wonderful effort into this orchestration, and have an intricacy I am not in the mood of describing, because it is unbelievably intricate. I like the harp solo-ish part very much, and also the section right after that! There are both very smart. By the ending the polyrhythms are also very good. Compared to the previous attempts of orchestration, you have improved a lot. I see you have taken some of the advice from people or, at least beings such as me or @PeterthePapercomPoser.

A very thorough and beautiful piece of work. I find the music very visual, cinematic; you can almost see it in a film from the 50s or 60s. The level of detail in the writing is admirable. What's more, the sounds are fantastic. One thing I really liked is that you use a very “restrained” orchestra, with a romantic feel. In other words, nothing “hypertrophic.” But the amount of colors and sounds you introduce is spectacular.

Bravo. Great work. I really like it. The main theme is beautiful, and so is the development. I find the orchestration very balanced and brought to a climax very effectively. The sounds, which I don't know what they are, are not bad at all, except perhaps the strings, which tend to shorten the final part of their duration on long notes.

Great work. There are brilliant parts and some very original arrangements. However, I think that at times it is too literal with respect to the original song, which isn't bad, it's just a matter of taste. The introduction is very good, distributing the melody between the strings and the winds. I think the first verse forgets this dialogue a little and relies heavily on the strings, which then move to another level but continue to carry the melody. There are some tessituras that I think are unnecessarily out of place, if they are even possible to play effectively (double basses in 29 and 30). There are also several instances where the strings split into several notes and it is unclear whether they are double-triple stops or divisi. I also find it strange to see the piccolo and flute in unison, with the former in a very low register. In conclusion, I see a huge amount of work that sounds good. But orchestrating is not easy, and the orchestra you have chosen is quite large.

Yes they are traditionally used for ground bass. I decided to write a two part invention, as it seemed natural to me to use the lower strings within the lower voice.

A fascinating instrument. Tiorba is how I know it in my language. I don't know anything about how to write for this instrument. I thought, perhaps associated with the Baroque and its use as a continuo, that the lower open strings were for the bass. Although it seems that you use it differently.

Iv Decided that ai, and me do not get on, nor do i like being in a straight jacket, the conformity restrictions are more than i can bear. It reminds me of the 60'Rock Drummers, that were replaced by Drum Machines, i feel sorry for them, as i now know what it must feel like, to be replaced by a hidden mindless Robot. This track is my own composition, where i can Break Free from Conformity. The Death of ai.mp3

A lovely theme and a quite pleasant orchestration. It reminds me of an Italian Movie score from the 60's ... 70's ... Nicely done. Mark

...and here is the comparative analysis:

The idea of this thread is to analyze virtual instrument orchestral music productions not just by talking about them, but by actually making a comparison production of the piece in question in order to demonstrate the points one wants to elucidate in the analysis. As the subtitle says: learning by comparison. Contributions by other forum members are more then welcome - if you wish to make this kind of comparison (of any orchestral music production made with virtual instruments) for analysis and learning purposes and post a video of it here for discussion, don't hesitate to do so. In the first episode of the series, I am taking a look at an excerpt from Kevin Olsson's piece "Winter". Here is just the music first (the original and then the new version next to each other):

Using the kick drum to activate the mid side-chain.

Thankyou for your review, im not very good at this AI stuff, your right it is limited, because of preset requests.

Hi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1priRSr7zZcLCeQ4INN-oQfIjUj7DOsqy/view?usp=sharing

Hi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ajinQMxk-QgKfzxODtrkC7839OCZmPYx/view?usp=sharing

From my experience writing fugues, I suggest that you avoid sitting on the tonic at the end of your subject. Your answer is going to start on C# (V of I), so you probably should just start the answer a bar earlier.

Thank you for the suggestion! The score is also on IMSLP and I think it is great to see the orchestration and musical devices they use. One day, I too plan to add my addition to the repertoire on steam engine : D To add, I've updated the score in my OG post as I have now changed a few parts.

Arabian Dream score and parts 3.pdf Arabian. Dream. Audio.mp3

Hello @Gwendolyn Przyjazna! I am always interested in pieces featuring „exotic scales“ and modes and so I was excited to find out how your „progressive rock instrumental“ would sound like. Since you didn’t provide a score I could concentrate on listening: My impression is, that the harmonies sound very smooth together – not as dissonantly as in some of @PeterthePapercomPoser’s Persichetti excercises, for example „Persichetti Exercise 2 - 56 for Clarinet Duo“. Thus, producing a dreamy, melancholic sound where especially the transition section from 01:52 to 02:26 reminded me indeed at Kate Bush! I must admit that I had to lookup what the Lydian Augmented and the Spanish Phrygian scales are all about. And so I found the reason why they are gentler or even more similar each other than I expected in the pair Lydian/Phrygian: The Lydian Augmented scale is more „darker“ than the traditional bright Lydian mode (which sounds paradoxical at first glance), while the Spanish Phrygian scale sounds much more „brighter“ than the original Phrygian one due to its major third. You added the tag „counterpoint“ to the piece so that I was curious how a counterpuntual rock instrumental would sound like. But to be honest, I get the impression that for most of the piece, you only had one voice with a melody, while the other instruments accompanied in chords or long notes, so I have to admit that I didn't really understand what you meant by “counterpoint”. Thank you for sharing, I very enjoyed it!

Why? What did I miss?

Hello @MichaelJohn! Congratulations for your first jazz quintet. It is amazing when you achieve such a piece after studying jazz theory for only three weeks! Since you didn’t provide a score I could concentrate on listening. I really enjoyed the relaxed piano improvisation and the swinging rhythm. So, if you did not mention, I would thought that composing jazz is your bread-and-butter profession for a long while. With a classical (and even more counterpuntual) background, writing jazz music is a huge challenge for me, since my compositions are more „head driven“ and improvising is an art I have never learnt (yet). But that doesn’t matter since one could compose fantastic jazz music „on paper“ without the ability to improvise, the best example is Nikolai Kapustin who wrote outstanding jazz music especially for the piano while using classical or baroque forms or techniques, for example its 24 preludes and fugues or its sonatas in jazz style. So thank you for sharing, you have inspired me to take a closer look at jazz theory again in the near future.

Thanks for the comment! I used an Alto kalimba for this, thats the reason i composed in F minor actually because i saw the image of the range of the chromatic alto kalimba and its from F to F. I would post the score surely but its full of parallel octaves and fifths so i decided not to 😬 and also most of the violin parts are probrably unplayable with jumps larger than a 10th!

Hello @MK_Piano! Yes, that’s really a good swinging big band piece which immediately reminds at Glenn Miller’s „Chattanooga Choo Choo“. Good old steam trains seem to have inspired many composers and musicians because of their „sound“ which comprises „rhythmic“ elements (the start of the locomotive, increasing and decreasing speed, the rattling noise when driving over the track joints) and melodic elements (the puffing of steam, the whistling of the locomotive, or the squeaking of the wheels when braking) which animate to be imitated musically. Who would write a piece inspired by the noises a nowadays train produces? Another good example of a piece dedicated to a steam locomotive is Arthur Honnegger's “Pacific 231”, which is not a jazz piece, but rather a dramatic symphonic work. I liked it very much and I must say that the repetitive character mentioned by @PeterthePapercomPoser didn’t bother me, especially taken into account the purpose of the piece as soundtrack for a movie where it does not appear in its entirety but is cut into parts to underpin the individual scenes. Or whenever it would be played in a bar as the background music, the most visitors would not even notice it.

Hello @L.S Barros! I think this is a wonderful concerto! I don't think you suck at Baroque music at all! I found the whole thing quite easy listening and unique and enjoyable! Did you write this for the 17-key variety of Kalimba? Seems like a very restricted range to write for, but you seem to have pulled it off! Btw, do you have a score? You would probably get more reviews if you also posted the score. Thanks for sharing!