Symphonic/Choir - The Warrior's song

Hello everyone. Here is my latest song (one of my first choir attempts, hope you like it). I wait for you opinions about the whole track!

Peter Szwach - The Warrior's song (.mp3, 5mb, 2:16 320kbit)

My inner warrior is pleased! :)

It's a nice track, some more rhythmic development would have been nice to see and a contrasting melodic part wouldn't have hurt, but otherwise it's very nice. I would actually make the choirs a bit louder to bring them out because they were nice.

I think you could thicken the orchestration a bit in some parts and add some counterpoint to the accompaniment as well. Lastly, maybe work on tweaking the recording a bit more to squeeze out some more realism - the samples sound great but they could have been manipulated to give a more realistic-sounding performance.

Great work! :)

Could someone tell me what is counterpoint exactly?

I just mean that you should have other melodies that are technically accompanying the main one but are still melodies themselves. The official definition is:

1. Melodic material that is added above or below an existing melody.
   
2. The technique of combining two or more melodic lines in such a way that they establish a harmonic relationship while retaining their linear individuality.

This is counterpoint yes? I thought the counterpoint is the most important point in the track... Thank you! Please make more suggestions!

Ah Counterpoint is the technical term. I lurve counterpoint very much when I' writing stuff. I just think it makes pieces sound so much more complex and intresting. Thats definatly something to use, but don't make it too prominent, make sure your listeners are focusing on the "main" melody of the peice.

to add to the discussion on "counterpoint", it can also be viewed as the element that differentiates the melody from the bassline.

for example

1. when a melody and bassline always move in the same direction, one gets a strong sense of parallelism, which tends to reduce the "richness"

2. when melody and bassline move in opposite directions, an effect of "richness" often is accentuated.

3. when melody and bassline have each their own independant rhythmic pulse, again the tendancy is towards a richer sound.

On the subject of basslines

avoid always having the bass change notes ON a strong beat (as well as when the rest of the harmony changes simultaneously). Sometimes, the tension caused by the bass sustaining a beat or a few beats longer on the previous harmony, while the upper parts move on to new harmony, can open up new colouristic doors for you.

an example of an effective way of using this is called pedal tones.

Let's say your first and third chords are C major and A minor. Each of those chords share a "C". By placing the note "C" in the bass for both chords, and by having that C hold through whatever harmony you place between the two chords (for example a chord of E major), you create a tension between the main harmony and the bass.

A good contrapuntal relationship between the soprano and bass lines (in other words, the melody and the bass) would allow you to play ONLY the melody with ONLY the bass line and still feel that the sound is "rich". From that point on, you can be assured that your harmony (the filling between those two important lines will be used to maximum effect.

Important rule of composition:

(As I've said before in another thread on compositional basics) no matter how lovely the harmony you place between soprano and bass, if the intrinsic relationship between those two voices is weak, the entire effect will be weak.

I enjoyed this piece. I liked the sounds you used. I thought it was kind of reminiscent of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" score.

Keep up the good work.

I liked it, nothing innovativ or special but its quite good.

But i didn't like the marcatto strings there are much to thin for that piece.

But especially what i miss is the orchestral filling, there are much horn etc but the detail of orchestral perfectionism are missing. It really has the mood of Hans Zimmer like music, and that kind of style is the style i don't like of him.

But it was good :) keep going!

Since I'm new in orchestration (and whole music community) I don't know how the orchestral pefectionism should seem like. Could you point me to some books/webpages related to those topics? Thank you!

wow you should join the Media Venture family. and what software do you use. I'm eager to know because I'm about to upgrade my whole music software from Finale and Sibeluis to magnus chour.