My Latest Original Composition

[DrewCCU]

I recently made this for the latest Tune Contest. I was just curious to get some feedback on it.


https://www.mediafire.com/?njp5yj83dff9fda

I did my best to reflect traditional Korean instrumentation

Traditional Korean instruments consisted of:
Gayageum (aka Zither)
Sohaegeum (aka Violin)
Junghaegeum (aka Viola)
Daehaegeum (aka Cello)
Jeohaegeum (aka Double Bass)
Daegeum (aka Flute)
Piri (aka Oboe)

If I were to actually prepare this for a real orchestra to play, I would do a bit of rearranging and tweak some things here or there.

[Ghost]

I did my best to reflect traditional Korean instrumentation

I am not familiar with the instruments, but it does have a pleasant "easy-listening" vibe to it. I'd say it makes a good, inobstrusive (?) background. Pleasant really is the word here.

[Eric]

Well, I love it. I could see this being the theme to an epic romance. All of the instruments work nicely together. Very professional work. The only problem I see is that I'm now going to lose the tune competition for sure this month.

I'm assuming this is MIDI. What's your method of arrangement / recording / voice choosing / mastering, if you don't mind my asking?

[DrewCCU]

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

@Eric
Your work is very nice as well. Don't count yourself out so quickly. :-)
It's not midi. I use a program called Finale. I write each individual part on a staff. Finale, while it can be outputted as midi, also has the ability to use real instrument sounds (well, at least the instruments sound a lot more realistic than midi - you'll never duplicate a live recording digitally). As far as voice choosing and such, I have been involved in bands since I was in middle school. I was a music major in college, so I am very familiar with instruments and the way they work and how they sound. Aside from being around music/musicians most of my life, I take inspiration from other bands/orchestras/composers/arrangers that I like.  Music theory will only take you so far (and in some cases hold you back) ... in my experience it's all about experience. I still feel as though I have a lot to learn.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask - and feel free to PM me. :-)

[Eric]

Thanks for the information. I may try to see if I have access to Finale in one of the labs at school, just to mess around with it. You get lovely results from it, but I'm not sure if I would. I'm doing a similar sort of thing though, but using the program GuitarPro, writing staff (well, really, writing tablature -- I'm not great at reading/writing music), exporting to MIDI, using SoundFont to change the voices / volume / panning of each track, and then running through a mastering filter or two in Audition. Lots of steps, but the quality improves at each step along the way. Seems like you get better results out of the box with Finale.

I only play a variety of instruments similar to the guitar (bass, ukulele, banjo, etc.), and I think that limits my conceptions when writing music. I don't understand how all of the other instruments work, and so if I try to include them, they're still playing guitar parts.

In any case, I apologize for hijacking your thread, but thanks again!

[DrewCCU]

lol. No problem. You can still use guitar instrumentation and tablature in Finlae. It is very much a professional program.

[Viking]

Sorry for the late response -- just got to listen to this.  I hope I'm not resurrecting a dead thread at this point.

Anyway!  It's quite pleasant; the basic melody and accompaniment is nice.  I think it would make for good background music.  I can't comment on how Korean it sounds, but the melody is using the pentatonic scale (except for the odd C# thrown in), so it's probably fine.  The harp arpeggios seem a bit western to my ears, but I'm probably just being picky.

The only real criticism I have is that it seems like a bunch of the same thing -- basically, different solo treble instruments playing above long chords in the tutti strings, at a medium volume.  There's not really an overall musical arc.  That can't really sustain a piece for six minutes.  Now, if this is background music, then it's great (you don't want the music to get in the way of the action that's happening).  But if it's foreground music, then it should be more varied.  There are many things you could do to make it more interesting.  I've listed a few ideas below, but I'm sure you could think of others.

• Start with just a solo flute, possibly accompanied by tremolos on the zither, to establish the Korean character.  Then bring in the strings later.
• Give the tune to the cello at some point, perhaps accompanied up higher by the flute and clarinet, and maybe tutti violins.
• Toward the end of the piece, introduce a climax, where the tutti strings play the theme in octaves, including an octave higher than you have used, with a big spread in the accompaniment, including the lower strings playing on the C string.
• Use a bigger orchestra.  Since you've already got mostly western instruments, use some French horns and timpani in the accompaniment at the climax of the piece.
• At some point, give the melody to the zither, with an obbligato from the flute (and the strings as accompaniment).  There is already at least one point where the zither plays an obbligato to the flute, but I don't think I ever heard it get the melody.  In fact, the zither is in the background for most of the piece, but I feel that it's one of the more unique instruments in the composition and deserves a bit more "air time."
• Vary the accompaniment.  It doesn't always have to be strings; it doesn't always have to be long held chords.  Try a gentle ostinato, and/or using the chalumeau register of the clarinet, low flute and the harp while you put the melody in a solo stringed instrument.

As far as the production side goes, I have used Finale quite a bit to produce the background music for the games I've worked on.  However, I've really struggled with the GPO sounds in Finale getting me the result I've wanted (especially the strings and percussion).  Recently I've switched to using a DAW (Reaper, to be specific) with an orchestral sample library (EWQLSO in my case, it's pretty cheap these days).  I record myself playing the piece really badly on my MIDI controller and then clean it up massively so that it actually sounds decent.   Here's a link to one of my tests using that setup so that you can get a feeling for the variety and realism that this can provide.

Hopefully that gives you some ideas for how to make your piece even better!