The Mapmaker's Tale

"The boy grew up without parents. He was lonely, deserted. He was first heroic, but he fell into the darkest realms of despair. He was skilled in combat, and his enemies knew this and feared him. He had no external troubles, his problems were within himself. After all he went through, he never managed to meet any sort of companion, or get any help."This is a suite of themes that represent this character. It goes on quite long, but covers a wide array of themes and ideas. It has a middle-eastern touch to it, with the Santoor and various percussion instruments. The song centers around one main melody which represents the character's sadness.This song took a VERY long time, so please tell me what you think and rate it fairly. It is a mixing and composing accomplishment for me, and I'm glad to have it finally finished. Thanks!If you enjoy it, check out my "Son of the Wind God."- Ethan Revere Smith

The Mapmaker's Tale

I am not familiar with all the mixing issues and sample work this would take, but I can say I liked the feel of this piece. Good job. Have you considered playing it a bit faster? (not too much, somewhere around 5-10 bpm). I think it would give for an even better flow - not that I did find this tempo disturbing or anything, just a thought. Both of the songs you uploaded are very colourful and lively, but it felt to me that with of a bit of tempo change (you did do that, but limited) this would have really come through to my feelings. The tempo changes accompanied by dynamic changes and texture changes in a more musical sense, are a great way of doing that I'd reckon. Don't take this too hard, these both were much better than many other things I've heard here on YC (including some of my own although I have not tried this genre). I did like the Son of the Wind God better, and that is mainly due to its shortness I believe.

Wow- very realistic MIDI sounds! Quite a film music sound to the music. I agree with royreintjes about needing to have a different tempo in a piece this length. It's especially so because the music is very much the 'chord moves on the bar' sort of harmony, so there isn't really any harmonic rhythm independent of the overall pulse. There are also a few moments when the melody is on a long note and there's no other rhythm keeping the music going. It would be nice to have little basic counterpoint toward the end to renew the interest in the texture. I also think it ends a little bit quickly for a piece of this length. But I liked the way it was orchestrated with all the different colours and the percussion - exactly the right rate of change between the orchestral sounds.