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Summoning the Warlords


Bjarke

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There is one major problem with the piece: it is unnecessarily fully orchestrated throughout. This is what me and my brother call 'teenager orchestration.' (I'm not assuming your age by the way, I just think it's a fun nickname for this kind of orchestration error I see so much.)

There's no point in using so many instruments at once, especially when your wind and brass players would be completely exhausted from several measures of blowing hard and moving their fingers so fast, assuming they're super human and would be able to play it anyway. (The problem is not the dynamics or tempo, but just the duration each instrument plays). I understand it's supposed to be bombastic and crazy, which it is, but the orchestration is much too unreasonable. Plus, by thinning out the orchestration, you're forced to come up with more varied and interesting orchestration.

For example, near the beginning starting at bar 14, I feel the winds are redundant as they're drowned out by the trumpets and don't add anything to the texture, I also think the horns could be reduced or removed for this section, the strings fulfill their role nicely and the horns might want a break. And later at around the 1:35 mark, I think it would work better if the melody was restricted to the horns instead of all that brass and winds. And possibly adding some more counterpoint and fun percussion would fit the piece well and greatly benefit it.

Keep in mind, the piece really wouldn't lose much volume by making these kinds of changes, and in favor of making the orchestration both more varied and therefore more interesting to listen to, and also playable, I think it should be obvious why scrapping the constant tutti and updating the orchestration would greatly improve this piece.

Of course, the specific orchestration ideas I gave are just my own thoughts and I'm not saying you have to take my suggested orchestration, I encourage you to come up with whatever fits your vision, but whatever it is, be sure it is both varied and playable, and stray away from teenager orchestration.

I also suggest optimising the score, for example instead of writing out all 6 horns on different staves, write 3 staves, 2 horns each. I also see no reason to split the strings into divisi for the whole piece. This just makes the score look cleaner and easier to read.

Have a good day and happy composing!

Edited by ComposaBoi
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I agree with this general impression. The work starts out so powerful that it's hard to top it throughout its length.
And it's true that massive dubbing doesn't lead to a concrete result.
I have always studied that dubbing lines has to be for a justified reason.
On the other hand I think the material is very good and particularly the handling of the brass is spectacular.

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  • 1 month later...

Given the title, the kind of melodic material you're using and orchestration issues already brought up by @ComposaBoi I think one possible avenue for the future rearrangement of this piece (assuming you are still considering revising it) is to rewrite it as a Fanfare - possibly for a reduced instrumentation for just brass and strings or an expanded brass section with just percussion and without strings might work too.  Btw - I love the ascending chromatic line you have at 0:23 - 0:37 I think that part is definitely a very exciting part and should definitely be kept in the piece.  I think you could have started that section really really quiet and have a gradual and massive crescendo as the line rises higher and higher - I think that would make it even more effective imo.  Thanks for sharing and good luck!

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