Coastal Wind - Short Piece for Small Orchestra

Hello fellow composers! I wanted to share a short piece I wrote called Coastal Wind. With this piece, I was trying to evoke an open shoreline with gentle motion, changing light, and a calm but restless sense of wind over water.

The instrumentation is small orchestra: string section, double woodwinds, and horns. The piece is in a simple A–B–A form. The A section, in A-flat major, features a woodwind duet melody over cello arpeggios. The B section shifts to B major and moves the melody into a darker, lower register with cellos, basses, bassoons, and low horns, while the arpeggiated motion moves into the woodwinds and violin harmonics create a soft background shimmer. The opening material then returns, and the piece ends quietly as the cello arpeggios gradually fade away.

I tried to keep the harmony and form fairly clear, and focus more on creating a distinct atmosphere than building a large dramatic arc. I wanted the piece to have motion and energy, but still feel calm, lyrical, and restrained.

I’d really appreciate outside ears on the composition, orchestration, mockup realism, balance, phrasing, use of register, or simply whether the coastal/wind-like atmosphere comes across.

Thanks in advance!

Coastal Wind Score - CONCERT SCORE Ver1.pdf

Hi again @gmm !

I listened to this first following along with the score, and then, while writing this review. And I am firmly convinced that the piece is actually meant to be in 3/4. I constantly hear three quarters per bar throughout the piece and am hard pressed to find a single bar where a 6/8 meter would be justified.

That aside, I really love the middle section where the bass melody takes the focus of the piece while the arpeggios move to the high voices. Ab major and B major work really well as contrasting keys. Perhaps because B major is the relative major of G# minor, the parallel minor of Ab major. Very clever macrotonal scheme there. The piece exudes peace and tranquility. Wonderful job and thanks for sharing!

I much enjoyed your piece, particularly the lush harmonies and the build up to the full orchestral segment that is very tranquil indeed.

Coincidently I had reviewed on this forum, last week, a work by Bach in which he depicts the 'winds' in one of his cantata's; I discuss how he approached this. His portrayal was not of a tranquil wind but violent, turbulent & unpredictable. So when I listened your work I could not help but consider the differences in approach.

If your intention here was for purely atmospheric music (that is, background music to fit a scene without anything in particular to say) then this works very well. However if you intended to embed a narrative of sorts, there would need to be a story with some instability thrown that needs resolution (you could transition to a minor key and while not necessarily a need to venture into storm territory, perhaps a little uncertainty in the direction of the wind).

Alternatively - and if indeed purely atmospheric - you could add more color to the environment of the scene, with depictions of wildlife at the scene: you could give primacy to certain instruments to depict certain life forms (birds, crabs, sharks in the water 😅) as a tool for characterization.

Your work is great as it is now. This is just my humble attempt at offering some constructive criticism. One other thing I will add: I am a big fan of the atmospheric music of Jeremy Soule in the Elder Scrolls video game series. I studied some of this techniques recently and learned some interesting things:

1. The third of triads is often omitted for its effect of emptiness to the ear. While sacrosanct in functional harmony, it can be very effective in depicting scenes with vast open spaces (imagine you as a character in a role playing game wondering the wilderness). The omission also helps the music remain in the background.

2. His use of tonal clusters: outer parts may have a distinctive voice, but in-between he makes use of tonal clusters, with a broad range in pitch, that are essentially a mush of tonalities that most often don't make harmonic sense. But the tonal 'mush' in itself emerges as a lurid & mysterious. It makes a perfect accompaniment when, in the game, one looks to stars and celestial objects in the night sky.

I will post an example of this here for your reference. Hope you find it interesting. The effect of these tonal clusters in the strings is one of the sun's glare, it seems.

A fantastic piece that I really liked. And a very detailed score.

Nice relaxing piece: reminds me of Vaughan Williams. I could definitely hear the ebb and flow of the ocean waves.

I just have one small notational point: from Bar 28, I don't think it's correct to have those full bar rests in the harp. I would replace them with dotted crotchet rests.

Would also insert dotted crotchet rests into the upper staff for the same reason (rather than having blank spaces).

I'd also be inclined to use cross-staff phrasing slurs across each full bar.