A Regular Battle

Here's my take on a 'regular battle'

A Regular Battle

I like it, especially how the volume drops in the middle and yet the intensity is still there. I really like at around :50-:58 where the music swells into the final statement of the battle music- the colors there with the chorus and the col legno strings are really chilling! However the intensity seems to drop off at that point, I think due to 2 things: the rhythm in the strings that goes 'one two three-and-a four' seems to repeat a bit too much, making the music start to sound a bit redundant, and also the final statement of the battle music I think could use one more layer of complexity, perhaps a countermelody or some more instruments. As far as the rhythm in the strings goes, perhaps you wanted an ostinato there to keep the music intense, something like the famous rhythm in Holst's Mars from 'The Planets.' However in this case, I think the rhythm doesn't really push the music forward as much as it could, perhaps because it's moving in unison with the melody or perhaps because it's in a slower tempo. You could try a couple things (it would be hard to describe so I just put these ideas into a couple sound clips so you know what I mean):

1) keep changing the rhythm (like this): http://jaredcowing.com/rhythm.mp3

2) really good ostinati that are meant to build intensity often stay on the same note (sometimes called a pedal tone) while the rest of the music moves around it, so perhaps try keeping the strings on the same note while the rest of the music stays the same, something like this: http://jaredcowing.com/pedaltone.mp3

Both together would make it something like this: http://jaredcowing.com/both.mp3

Put together with adding a few instruments, you could have something like this, which I think would make a big difference: http://jaredcowing.com/addinstruments.mp3

..well maybe a piano sound is a little too 'pretty' for what you want, but you get the idea.

I hope one of those ideas catches your liking and gives you a few more ideas of your own! Great sounds in this piece, I like it!

hey , nice piece , its as you said a simple battle piece , nothing special in it , it is pretty good! but try to find your thing in composition and try to alter the piece more , and add another melody or a counter-melody as its a bit repetitive . and nice ending !

Glad you liked it guys. From reading your replies, it appears that some parts of this song get a bit repetitive. I agree with you guys after listening to it again. Let's see what I can do about it...

Thanks for those mp3's JaredCowing. I actually did get some ideas from those. =)

Pretty good! I liked the opening tambourinez. Added a good flavor to the beginning.

You could do with some dynamic curves on your instruments.

The tambourine seems out of place for this kind of music - I mean along with the chimes and all. You could possibly tune your snare drum 1 or 2 semitones down.

The stacc str the first minute or so don't have power to them. Make some thick chords out of it. Also they don't 'swing'. They are rhythmically not precise. Someone mentioned The Planets. Holst uses col legno strings to serve for his rhythmical accompaniment in the opening of Mars. You could maybe mix that in.

Where's the theme? I hear a lot of accompaniment

from 1:00 it's generally much better! I would've harmonized the last string fragments.

Your violins, tambourine, and bass sounded a bit off from each other.

Props to that sound at 0:50.

Yo, Nick, I gotta say I'm delightfully surprised. With a name like Regular Battle, I worried this would be overly clichéd. You create a nice amount of tension, however and are fairly original. I was hoping that you would expand your orchestration or at least change it after 1:20. The music feels like its reaching a climax there so it would make sense to build up the orchestration as well.

Nice work, Nick!

-John

Very nice. The sound is pretty good, all instruments come out nice and clear, big plus for that. The piece itself to me sounds more like a preparation for battle, than the battle itself, because you know... in battle music, stuff tend to go crazy really fast, lots of very dynamic percussion, super fast string ostinatos, a soaring brass melody etc... Hope you know what I'm getting at. This is great, I especially like the low end brass, is that from EWQL? The bells are a really nice touch too. All I am missing is pretty much a memorable melody line, but it works really well like a build-up to something with a large orchestration like this.

All in all, pretty good job, if you continue it and do an explosive middle section with an aggressive coda you got yourself a pretty epic piece.

Hey...I've heard this - you're Teloron from the Wesnoth forums right?? :D

Great to see you here!! I've already commented over there, so no neeed to repeat myself ;)

Sorry about the late reply guys. September has been a very long month for me. =(

About the lack of a theme. Well, this was originally supposed to be background music for a game, so I didn't really want to incorporate a theme.

Since this is a battle, it would be faster than this, but I'm fairly new to composing using an orchestra, and I'm trying to work my way up.=)

In answer to Phantom's question about the brass, yes, that is brass from EWQL Gold.

Since a few of the instruments sounded a bit off when playing together, I'll go back and see if I can improve it any.

Thanks for the replies guys!