Fantasy on a Theme from Castlevania 2 (contest submission)

Hi all,

This was my submission for the "Bits to Bangers" contest.  Though I was only aware of the contest pretty late, when I saw that the Castlevania 2 theme was one of the options, I knew I had to give it shot since it was one of my favorite games from the Nintendo era and I loved the music from that game in particular.

Because of time constraints, I didn't do as much with the theme as I would have liked and was admittedly pretty conservative with it and couldn't compare with the excellent submissions from the other competitors but it was a lot of fun to come up with something!

Hi bkho,
Just to add some tiny feedback (I tried to restrain myself of giving suggestions in the judgement process since I believed it was not the right place):

• In the phrase starting at 1:23 I think some more intense contrasts in dynamics would have been nice. What do you think?
• Have you considered adding pizz. sections here and there? Just a thought.

I can say that in my opinion (and I believe in others' opinions too) your entry was a solid take despite the issues you had. My kudos 🎩.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.
 

On 4/15/2023 at 8:40 PM, Omicronrg9 said:

Hi bkho,
Just to add some tiny feedback (I tried to restrain myself of giving suggestions in the judgement process since I believed it was not the right place):

• In the phrase starting at 1:23 I think some more intense contrasts in dynamics would have been nice. What do you think?
• Have you considered adding pizz. sections here and there? Just a thought.

I can say that in my opinion (and I believe in others' opinions too) your entry was a solid take despite the issues you had. My kudos 🎩.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.
 

 

Much appreciated.   I definitely could have expanded more and used more pizz among other textures.  I initially had though about writing a tone poem for full orchestra but only had about 2 weeks or so to come up with something and considering the time crunch, I was fairly happy with the result.

Hi @bkho,

Apart from my review I just want to add one thing: your music brainwash me, as when I was working today this track spontaneously played itself in my brain. For me the issue is only structural which does not quite affect how effective the music is. It's great to write music like this within 2 weeks' time so congrats on this!

Henry