Of Fire an Ice

Of Fire and Ice.mp3

A short piece that I wrote for a Roleplay I was taking part in a while back meant to capture the two personalities of a fire mage and an Ice mage as they worked and lived together.

This piece starts off with only a piano introduction before giving way to the orchestra in bar 9. From there it goes through a couple theme variations before ending back with the original theme. It is approximately 2:31 long, and stays in the key of B Major. There is a tempo change in bar 15, and again back to the original tempo in measure 67. It is the shortest piece that I have completed, and will be found on the album, "Dust of the Past" when I release it as soon as I'm finished writing and mastering the final track that will be on it.

Edited August 17, 20178 yr by xIceStormx

It has a lot of good, but this whole pedal the tonic idea you use for the majority of the piece gets a little tiresome for me. In the parts without melody and not much change, as an audience member, I wait to be dazzled by a variation... only to not get it.
I really think it can be longer and explore the dynamics between the two characters a little more. I want too much hearing the end of it.

I agree. The ice has "grandeur" and majestuosity. But those pedals or ostinatos are too much. In fact the final part is quite good.

Thanks for the feedback, I had been pondering removing the pedal and piano entirely once the Orchestra part came into. I had also thought about toning down the bass through-out most of the piece.  Should there be more movement in the bassline other than the repetitive chords? Perhaps also inverting the melody over the string section so that it's not the exact same from the brass?

As far as making it longer, I'm not entirely sure where I would go with, or expand on the existing melodies. I tend to use a lot of call and echo in my compositions, and I can see how some longer uses of that can get a bit repetitive. I was also on somewhat of a deadline when I originally wrote this. Not an excuse for sloppiness, but I know there are some edits that I can make that might help the piece.