Improve This Idea! (Composition Challenge)

So I was sitting on the phone with Blue Cross, waiting to sort out a reimbursement claim, when the "your call is really important to us, just wait another 30 minutes" music kicked in and immediately started to penetrate deep into my mind. It involved some bass, and perhaps some very straightforward percussion, but there was little to no rhythmic variation or variation of any kind. I may have even embellished a little, but this is it from what I remember. Excuse the poor performances, my digital piano of 3 years is out of commission and I'm on a tiny synth with unweighted keys I'm not at all used to.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/trn659oq1xyocpb/Original Call Waiting.mp3?dl=0

Since being subjected to it for 25 minutes created a special little home for it in my mind whereby it would long outlive the evening, I decided to try the Beethoven thing of taking something I didn't like/found bland and improving it. Whether or not I was successful is another story, but it was a helpful exercise in the skill of taking anything and trying to turn it into something. It's extremely basic, and I was trying to write in the interest of having the skeleton of an idea that I could later orchestrate (had brass and/or strings mainly in mind here, which is why it feels slow). Tried to keep some semblance of the original piece, mainly in the initial upward movement.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1yrr05f7kjf9gjw/Spinoff.mp3?dl=0

So: anyone else want to try?

 

Thanks for the kind words! I think it's kind of boring as a piano piece (and listening back there are already things I'd change), but I'll try and orchestrate it (simply) and see how it works. Still working on translating piano to other instruments.

Thank you! Haha no that happened to be coincidental. Perhaps something related to that was in there subconsciously, but it also had to do with my repulsion at how cheesily and insincerely "major" the original idea was. I also can't seem to write things in major, so I'm at least shooting (in the long run, not to be confused with my current level of achievement) for sublime, or perhaps...regal? Dorian seems to be the closest I get to major a lot of the time, usually unintentionally.

Oh I wouldn't wish that upon you. I intended this more as a composition challenge, I'd love to see what those more skilled than myself come up with.

 

No takers? Was the original piece that lame?

 

Haha, djent guitars. Djent guitar, the way it's often played, is IMO the equivalent to "epic" music -- it's easy to rip off Meshuggah without really understanding what they do, and it's really, really easy to play. It sort of bastardized their sound (the way many "djent" bands do it, anyway). Way harder to write a catchy riffs and interesting, cohesive chord progressions while including weird rhythms, like this:

Doesn't mean I don't want to see a "djent" rendition of this piece though

 

Thanks for posting!

Just to clarify -- the first piece wasn't my own, that was my rendition of what Blue Cross was playing. The second example was my "spinoff", or my "I hope I made this better". I think your improvements and suggestions are just as valuable though, as that was the intent of the exercise here. Thanks for the critique on the second part! Going through it now.

 

Please don't misunderstand -- your insight is no less valuable simply because it wasn't my piece. And you raise a good point, I think "improve" was perhaps not my true intent (rather, simply taking one idea and transforming it into something else). Your suggestions are much more along the line of improvement which may actually be a better exercise. I'm trying to learn to more readily take ideas from disparate emotions, genres, etc and "steal" them, but I think actually attempting to improve a bad piece might be a better exercise at pinpointing and developing fundamentals, so thank you. I think I'll have a go at actually improving the first piece, rather than transforming it.

Ok, re: part 2:
-Good call on developing the A section. It was kind of an experiment to see how many repetitions I could get away with. I slowly built the extremely simple harmony in that section as the development, but the melody didn't really develop.
-After the B section -- it's true that I could have continued the piece. I think I might try now -- it was originally just a quick exercise, but development is really the difficult thing, so it would be a good idea to work that out.
-The ending of B. I stole that Gsus to GMaj thing from another piece, and I think it was a little too obvious so I went C-D-G with the melody instead of C-D-B. I agree landing on B (the chord third) sounds better.
-The ending definitely could have been more interesting. I'll see if I can improve that.
-I need to work on what you mentioned about envisioning rhythm for intended effect, i.e. pulsing. I sometimes get stuck in the rigidity of my original idea, even if it wasn't what I was ultimately intending.
-Melody in the same range. Good point. When it comes to repetition within the context of the orchestra, would range and instrument change be a good way to get a repeat/subtle variation of my B section? It's a question I have for transcription but haven't answered it yet. Perhaps dropping to a lower octave (would have to find a way to transition there) for the A section again would provide more colour and development options. Could switch the harmony to pads and higher effects, or keep the harmony ambiguous if I wanted to provide a sense of "movement onward".
-Re: Epic. You're definitely on. I think at most what I'd be going for is...regal? Majestic?