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Triumph and Tranquility


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My attempt at doing a orchestral piece in the style of film and game soundtracks (which nicely lets me practice writing for orchestra in a shorter and less complicated format). I'm curious if the begging section sounds out of place, as I wrote it several months ago and just recently returned to and quickly finished this piece.

The title doesn't have much meaning, in case you were curious, I simply picked something I thought might fit the song after I finished it.

 

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Hm... a lot of inconsistencies within the writing. It jumps around a lot, uses way too many crossed voices, and just doesn't follow the prescribed riffs at times (m. 55, for example). The beginning section doesn't sound so much out of place in atmosphere as it does key. G major? VII -> i progression to A minor can be awkward if you don't set up a proper V -> i cadence before that. This type of music depends a lot on buildup, in which high strings, high brass, and especially percussion do the absolute best. There was a buildup to a certain climax, which was admirable, but didn't support itself enough to be of any help to said climax. I appreciate the time you took to make this non-generic, but flow is definitely still important! Cheers!

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2nd Horns in m. 5-12 are too high. The notes are playable, but not easy to reach and the effort required for them really doesn't suit the tranquil mood you're going for there. If it were a transposed part, those notes would be no problem, but in concert pitch I would recommend anything above C on the staff be used very sparingly.

Otherwise, I don't see any big issues. I could tell there was a gap in time between writing the beginning of the piece and the ending, as it seemed to me like the music got better as it went along. While I agree that there are some issues with the flow of the piece (This is one of the things I most struggle with in my writing), I think you built to a respectable climax once the piece started to find its focus (somewhere around m. 60)

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Thanks for the comments all, helpful as always!

@Monarcheon I should definitely spend some more time studying the structure of more pieces in the style I'm trying to replicate and get a feel for how they utilize the instruments. Regarding key that's something I still need to get used to, I still primarily compose just by ear (humming or thinking what I want to put in and then just writing it in, sometimes I'll just play around with random notes to find something I think fits) and don't think much about the key and transitions into new keys, chords, etc. I know it fairly well, but it doesn't come to my mind right away yet. 

@fishyfry thanks for pointing that out about the horns, that's a big reason I wanted to start doing more of the small orchestral pieces. I have pretty much no experience whatsoever with wind and brass, so I know very little about their limitations.

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