Hi everyone


I like to compose based on influences (well I guess everyone composed with influences imposed unless they're somehow entirely original), especially when I like the style of a piece I just listened to.
Most of my pieces are intended (in my mind) as instrumental OST's. Some I would compose with voice in mind but using piano as the medium.



Here are some of my compositions, I'd like some opinions and criticism so that I may improve and find my own style.

Orchestral pieces:
Spring blossoms - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RdWWR6Q-Ps
My Garden - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgRc4XnTnm8
Song of the Sea - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5qwIX_orj0

Solo piano
Friends - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnomXwLifxI
Star Gazing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrd2SvHOIbQ
Perhaps Love - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouF3D1efnqU

In my opinion,you should make use of octaves particularly for your right hand. It would sound richer and more beautiful for certain parts especially those that have tension rising(like chorus or something like that). Its very sweet, and I like the piano solo(I did not listen to the orchestral pieces). You are also very good at interacting your left hand with your right hand, especially when it goes higher,but for some parts(perhaps love) it seems like a sudden increase in pitch at which I think is not really good.

Besides that your chords used are good, and he progression is also not bad. Continue making more pieces! Btw, did u use actual piano for these sounds?

I completely agree with you kanzaki, about the octaves for right hand. I've noticed too that I don't use as much octaves as many other arrangers have, and it's a quite effective technique. I feel that my style is much more transparent, which is good for those sweet high register melodies but my thicker harmonies need some work. If it seemed like a sudden increase in pitch (dynamic wise?) then it was unintentional. Sometimes I'm too lazy to correct it haha.

I'm in the process of doing lots of transcribing and arranging to expose myself to more unique chord progressions so I don't fall into the inescapable pit of conventional chord progressions. I will also take better care with the pitch dynamics too (which you and my music friend has also noted). Hopefully after a few more arranging projects, I can start composing again with new perspectives and ideas.

I'm using Garageband on my imac '12 to do the recording and am currently using their grand piano VST and my midi input is a 88 semi-weighted keyboard. I'm waiting on a better piano sample (Alicia's Keys from Native Instruments) sometime next week which will hopefully not make my recordings sound too midi-ish like the ones I have now.

Hi PianoRaymond,

I figure I should write my comments while listening to your piece (Spring Blossoms).

The starting piano melody was very sweet and fitting of a very nice introduction of a typical slice of life anime (Just using as a reference). Though I must say the piano sounded a bit thin, which I think its with the sample you are using. While listening to your piece, I noticed a few parts which sounded great but could have sounded even better with a few glockenspiel notes or bells. The accompaniment I feel is good, but perhaps a bit of more pizzicato on the strings would make it sound more pronounced (I don't know may be my preference). I do realise that the whole piece is centered on only the piano, with the piano being the melody, which is ok, but would limit expressiveness. Maybe you can try using the strings (Violins especially) to play the melody without the piano melodies to make it sound sweeter (Personally I would use flutes and the tenor recorder). Overall, the entire piece was good but could have used even more instrumentation and mixing to make it sound better.

I can tell that significant effort was put into making this piece and I must commend on that.

I would try to find time to listen to other pieces (No telling if I can as I will be stuck in some place for quite a long while), and hopefully we can exchange comments again.

Cheers!
DunNotCome

helo PianoRaymond, i wan to thank you for giving me a comment on my thread, i went browsing and saw your thread so i decided to listen to your compositions and give my 2 cents, take them with a pinch of salt, or if you want you may take more pinches. so lets get started, on spring blossom ...^.^

firstly
ill touch on the composition, i think for all of them, the composition is pretty solid, that is to say, i think you know what you are doing and you can judge whether it sounds "right" or "wrong"

secondly
for the arrangement/orchestration of the composition, it is quite decent however some instruments can be kept out of each others' registers like in 0.17 the piano the strings, they seem to be playing too closely in each others' registers, when they blend together, ur piano starts sounding springy/not natural, it is better to spread the registers apart more, the higher register of a violin could be used. and the lower contrabass register used to layer the bottom.

this is subjective because sometimes you need to stack them together and have them playing in the same register to have a certain color, like oboes with flute, clarinet with violas, its up to you to experiment with them.

the string counterpoints in spring blossom is really well done, it is ear candy for me.

spring blossom however is lacking in percussion, i know that your piano playing the bass line acts as a "percussive instrument" but it can never replace the sound qualities of a real percussion, you have some pitched percussion playing in the higher register that is fair enough, the lower register how ever is lacking. but again this is a personal choice, some composers like their music to be on the lighter side more graceful, you can use tambourines as a sub, some percussions are not that heavy.

thirdly

on the mix, the mix is decent enough for me, i do notice ur strings cutting off abruptly, like when they stop playing the volume will drop very quickly, your bells too, you can try this put more release on the strings and bells, experiment and try reverbing too, it will give them the illusion of space. instruments with more reverb will sound more at the back of the mix, instruments with lesser sound more upfront same with EQing, if you cut the EQ it will sound like it is at the back.

on the instrument panning, for spring blossom it is fine, however in some of the other pieces, they seem to be unbalanced, i understand that in an orchestral sitting, as the audience facing the orchestra, the violins violas are on the left, bass cello right etc, you should not follow this panning for your compositions because it is not that accurate. as the audience in a real orchestra performance the sound travel into your ears as 1 sound, they do not have much "panning" that is to say, even tho the basses and cello are on your right, you will hear it much equally in your left ear too. but if you do the panning for your audio works, it will sound unrealistic and awful, the instruments are either right or left, not balanced. try to find your desired panning, every composition is different

i think i sound like a nag already, have fun composing and dun stop!

All of them are nice. I enjoyed particularly My Garden, which reminded me more than the others to Joe Hisaishi's music. I think there is too much sweetness in all your compositions. Maybe it is time to go for something different next time?

Haha. I am a beginner composer XD and I could be completely wrong in what I'm saying, but I'll state my opinions :P in risk of making a fool of myself.

Spring Blossom comments:
I really love the melody of this. It's really catchy and upbeat. The little pizz of the cello/contrabass gives it an exciting rhythm. With that and your chord progressions, makes it very delicious to hear. You transition really nicely from one instrument to another as well (well with what you can with midi instruments XD). The break in the middle and the rubato section was a very nice touch. The bells are very cute XD nice effect.

However, I just feel like the feel of it is just too similar all throughout the song, which gives it an overly repetitiveness even though you are doing something different in each section. I think the main problem is that
1. Your background rhythm is pretty much the same throughout the whole song, and this makes it incredibly easy for the music to just plateau off. You need to change it a bit even for 1 measure to make it refreshing. A great example, would be Howl's Moving Castle theme by Joe Hisaishi (Which ur piece kinda reminds me off :D). A waltz has an unbelievable amount of 3/4 and it becomes almost droning in a way if carried on for too long. So, he surprises you with two dotted half note blares in the middle of the phrase, temporarily changing the song to 2/4 (or 6/8) for 1 measure.

2. Your melody is too similar! What you did in the pause at the middle with the rubato, is the kind of refreshing thing we need, but your melodies are all similar in rhythm and tune throughout the whole song. Which is really good for a while, making use of a good motif, but after halfway through, it just seems to no longer surprise you. There are several ways to prevent this. One would be to completely change the melody (which I wouldn't recommend). Joe Hisashi does this in Howl's where he has several melodies that are very different in style and motif from each other, yet fit together very well when played in sequence. Or! You could do something like what Johan de Meij did in his Lord of the Ring's symphony movement 5, Hobbits. He just repeats the same melody again, but he either drastically changes the background beats, OR he just simply completely switches up which instrument plays what (E.G. suddenly your high strings are playing the pizz, the low strings playing the melody, the piano playing the background, etc). The latter is really cool, because you literally just copy and paste the music from one part to another and etc, and you have the exact same notes, but a complete new feel.

The only other major thing I did not like was that at certain points, the themes that different instruments play seemed to have... No logical progression. What I mean by that, is that your high strings seemed to be doing one thing, while your piano doing another, and the lower strings its own little thing. This can work well if you have distinct parts for each of them, with simple snippets of melodies that can act independently, but can still move together with the main melody. Yours, on the other hand, are several long complex parts put together. It's really nice for the first couple of seconds, but really quickly it gets confusing, muddled, and really hard to follow. I was confused as to whether I was supposed to follow the strings or the piano or the oboe. I think what made it worse was that, like someone pointed out, they are all in similar registers, so they become somewhat dependent on each other, even though they are trying to do their own little thing. Like too many people trying to use the ice cream machine at once to serve 1 customer. Ok that was an exaggeration XD but idk how else to describe it.

On that note too, I was a little disappointed in the lack of unifying movement. When I was transcribing orchestral pieces from Final Fantasy, I noticed one thing the composers did really well was know when to have pause, when to go in unison, and when everything moves together and when to separate them. Sometimes, a lack of movement followed by a little bit of movement will have a much more impact than having a lot of movement all throughout the piece. And you do that so well in the middle with the rubato section XD I just wish you put more of that, or at least sections where most of the instruments were playing completely together instead of moving around by themselves.

Well XD that was a long spiellll of comments. Sorry about that. I'm not very good at describing music in words. Again, I'm not a very good composer XD so take my comments with a grain of salts. Just stating what I think :D but great work.

Find some people to play it live and post it! It will be awesome!

Your piano pieces are breathtakingly beautiful! I especially like Perhaps Love. Your style reminds me of Asian music in that it's very gentle, delicate and always tugging at the heartstrings. The only thing I would suggest is to maybe experiment with different styles of music. Your pieces are beautiful, but they seem to converge around the same style. Maybe a little more variety would keep it interesting. Keep it up!