The Oracle

Hello Guys,I made this piece of music for a competition. (What a surprise... :D) The task is, the participants have to compose an original piece of music about an artwork. As you see, the artwork depicts some kind of ritual, so the title became "The Oracle" and I used symphonic and also ethnic instruments. What do you think?
This is the arwork below:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/XgBeQL

I think this sounds like ambience music for a discovery or exploration sequence from any movie. It has a slightly exotic sound owing to the "ethnic" instruments you use, but nothing else really stands out to me. It's not bad at all. In fact, I think you have an excellent grasp of how to fit sounds together for ambience like this.

Musically, though, it's a bit wooden. You use block chords beneath an extended melody and that's about it. It's a nice melody, don't get me wrong, but I don't think this piece is very memorable. It would play in the background of some film, the clip would be over, and I'd forget about the soundtrack accompanying it.

Clearly, I can't speak for the judges in your competition, so you can take what you want from my comments here. Generally, though, I recommend studying counterpoint and exploring ways to change up the harmonic motion of your music.

Thanks for sharing!
Jörfi

Hi @olivercomposer,

Personally I think the opening depict well for the picture with the exotic instruments. But I think later the gigantic bass section which is quite your norm not quite fit the picture for me. Do you use this passage to depict how grand the oracle is? I feel like it can fit for anything which is thus not memorable like @Tónskáld said. I am very sorry to say this but this is how I feel. Apart from this your piece is always great for its grand sound and thanks for sharing!

Henry

I love the ethnic and mysterious vibe!  The beginning gives me Chrono Trigger vibes - it could easily play as the background in the Magical Kingdom of Zeal!  The accelerando is a great transition to a more wondrous and awe-inspiring section at 0:54.  I think I hear that the macro-tonal structure is like a kind of perfect cadence (from G phrygian to C minor and ending on a C major chord).  I like your use of different modes to create different atmospheres throughout the piece!  Great job and thanks for sharing!

20 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Hi @olivercomposer,

Personally I think the opening depict well for the picture with the exotic instruments. But I think later the gigantic bass section which is quite your norm not quite fit the picture for me. Do you use this passage to depict how grand the oracle is? I feel like it can fit for anything which is thus not memorable like @Tónskáld said. I am very sorry to say this but this is how I feel. Apart from this your piece is always great for its grand sound and thanks for sharing!

Henry

 

I understand what you want to say about the "gigantic bass section", but I think you are wrong about this. Can you imagine, people pilgrimage to this Oracle or Shaman, and after that everybody is together, and nothing magical happens? Can you imagine the Shaman/Oracle doesn't do anything mysterious and magical? I just gave some additional thought to the picture, and magical things are great and monumental, that's why I used gigantic bass and orchestral sound with relatively many instruments. 🙂 
Thank you for your comment Henry!

1 hour ago, olivercomposer said:

understand what you want to say about the "gigantic bass section", but I think you are wrong about this. Can you imagine, people pilgrimage to this Oracle or Shaman, and after that everybody is together, and nothing magical happens? Can you imagine the Shaman/Oracle doesn't do anything mysterious and magical? I just gave some additional thought to the picture, and magical things are great and monumental, that's why I used gigantic bass and orchestral sound with relatively many instruments. 🙂 

Yup this is only due to different conception of the picture I guess. For me the Oracle is magical but also apollonian and mystical, thus using gigantic bass and orchestral sound does not fit my conception of it. But of course this is very subjective and thanks so much for your explanation!

Henry