Drifting Thoughts

I composed this peice about a year ago, it's one of the first peices that I used a midi sequencing program for the entire composition process. It uses triads and seventh chords as the main form of harmony, but I was experimenting with having harmonies move in a non-tonal progression (not meaning atonal). The resulting sound was this. Now that I look back, it's basically just in a minor key with a major tonic chord, oh well.

DriftingThoughts.mid

I liked the composition. The harmony, as you develop it, takes at times some modal colouration, that for me has many musical sense. Dont forget that early composers used to finish the minor pieces with a mayor chord (I think it is called the false or picardy third) The prolongated C in the conclusion is a good example

Also the rythm has a wide variety of ambiences and textures that gives life to the listen.

The orchestration is of my taste, the use of percusive elements like the bells against the sustained strings create nice effects.

I heard it trough a SC 8850 and the overall sound was nice.

One thing that IMHO that can be improved is the presence of the melodies, they are nice but somewhat confused against the overall harmony.

A nice piece

Luis

Hmm. I like the variations in texture, and how the melodies are being passed around from instrument to instrument. I would like to look at this more closely... not much time this weekend, maybe later though? If I don't get to it within a week, PLEASE send me a PM and remind me!

I like teh way you move your theme, then I mean between instruments. I find you way of variating actually kinda nice. Maybe because it reminds a bit of how I do :P

Your little experiment turned out rather well actually :)

Waiting for you next piece.

OK, when I saw a three post guy with a descriptive name for a piece, I thought this was gonna be some piece of scraggy for piano solo, but it's pretty neat :P your orchestration is very interesting, you never bore the listener, very game-ish as well, reminds me of DK64 or something. I suggest you don't double with the double basses at the very beginning, try harmonizing, or the sound doesn't turn out too pretty.

In the end, I suppose it truly is "drifting thoughts", you pictured it nicely. Looking forward for more music from you! :)

PS - The ending is too long, try cutting it.

Hmm. I still like the development of the main motive, with enough subtle changes to keep me interested. However, on a second listen, several things actually bother me about this piece.

For the first half, I like the way you're varying the textures and building up slowly, and I think the pizzicato strings and tubular bells are especially effective. However, as the piece goes on, you seem to be relying more and more on sustained pedal notes, which are interesting at first but start to bore me as the texture hardly changes from about measure 45 to the end.

Also, the horn part is absolutely unplayable by any human - it goes up to a fifth above what's considered the extreme upper limit of a professional horn player.

Third: measures 48-49 are so cliche it's not even funny. That said, I do like what you do to get back to the theme in measure 50.

Fourth: rhythmically, except for the main motive, the music isn't especially interesting - in fact, it's almost too regular. Everything seems to fall right on the beat. This is especially obvious in the last two beats of measure 47, where all the moving lines play exactly the same rhythm: those two beats are hammered into the listener's ear in a way that really breaks up the flow of the piece at that point. Somehow, listening to the context both before and after that, I don't think that's what you intended.

Finally... I'm not especially convinced by the piano playing obbligato throughout the piece. I'm guessing you're writing from a pianist's perspective, and copying lines from the piano to other instruments?

Just as a side note, it seemed to me that the primary theme you were using really wanted some counterpoint... most of the countermelodies that I heard sounded more like ornamental flourishes than thematic material.

I fixed the horn part, as I said I composed this a while ago before I was fully aware of the ranges of instruments. I still feel foolish for not looking through to see if there was something to change.

Hmm, I don't really know what to do with measures 48-49 other than what I have, regardless of how ridiculously cliche it is...

I see what mean with the pause at 47, and uh yeah it does stop the flow.

I am actually a bass player, the piano part isn't entirely obligato. I guess it could be trimed down some more.

And the ending is a rather poorly concived mokery of the main long endings that exist in orchestral music.