[Nick]

Originally posted by ReamusLQ@Sep 5 2005, 04:52 PM
w00t for another composer. Right, so this is a pretty groovin' tune. I hope you don't mind, but I opened it up into Finale so I could read the score as it played for me. Now comes some of my own personal input that you might want to keep in mind for your next midi.

I really like the little motif/melody you have through out the whole song. I actually smiled when you did the little call and answer portion around measure...(checks)...25 and again around measure 50. This added a little more flavor to the song, and kept it from being too repetitive. My only advice when you do this, would be to increase the dynamic of the first instrument (the piano in the first staff?) because it's melody is kind of lost behind the Overdrive Guitar.

The little harp effect thing is cool too. I don't know what it's called in Cakewalk, but all I know is it sounds like a harp. Around measures 41, 57, etc. Whenever the sixth staff has running sixteenth notes. This adds more drive to the song, as does when the guitars start pushing the sixteenth notes. It's cool.

I liked the bass line, it was groovin'.

One of the neat things you did was the layering of the song as it goes on. It seemed (to me at least) that you introduced each of the instruments, then at the end you layered all of their melodies and lines on top of eachother so it became a whirlwind of sound, with the melody constantly being played. You need to be careful when you do this though, because when trying to create this effect people often have TOO much movement going on, and the effect is muddled and lost. You did a pretty good job controling it in this piece, but there were times when the sound started to become muddy instead of cool.

Overall, this was a cool piece. You need to work on some of the dynamics between the instruments, because some are naturally more overpowering than the others. The piano, for example, can in no way compete with the guitars in volume, so you should bring them down and the piano up a bit when they are doing the duet. Basically, whenever something has the melody, you want to bring those running lines around them down (the running sixteenths) so that they don't over power and distract. The melody is the salad, and the running lines are just little croutons and bread crumbs, there to give it a little more flavor. You don't want a loaf of bread in your salad.

My last criticism, is to make sure you don't become too repetitive. You had a cool melody, but it was almost run into the ground. What you should have done is composed variations on that melody throughout the piece. You could have done as one would have in a fugue, and inverted the notes but kept the rhythm. An easy way to write variations on a melody is to just write the melody a third down and adjust for the chords it's being played over. This makes people be like "Hey, I know that melody but it's...different..." Howard Shore did this a lot in the Lord of the Rings' soundtrack.

Those are my two cents. I would very much like to hear your next piece, you have talent.

Thanks. I'll keep in mind, what you've told. k: