New composition - Piano sketch

Hey Carlos, tried recording some feedback for you, I hope this helps!

 

Hey Carlos, can you give me a link to some examples of the pieces you are referring to?

 

Okay, so I've taken a listen to your piece again and your two examples. I think the main issue with your piece is you haven't given the listener enough anchor points to follow you through the piece.

I'm quite glad you picked these two examples actually because I think it might help demonstrate my point a bit easier. So for Leia's theme, Williams really stretches out his ideas before we even get to the more obscure stuff. His intro takes about 15 seconds and it's just repeating the same idea twice. Yes, the Oboe might be playing different notes from what the flute was playing but the intervals and the note values are pretty much identical. Okay, he's established something and we are with him, but we kind of know this isn't the main bulk of the piece and it's just an intro so 15 seconds is long enough. I think in one of Mike's videos he mentioned something about intros not needing to be as long as the main theme because there's a part of us that just knows it's an intro so we can forgive it when we move on a little sooner. I'll need to try and remember which class that is and try give a better explination of that.

Then we get to the meat of Leia's theme. Now you said that your melody is way more simple but I'd have to disagree on that. When you really break down Leia's theme it's way way simpler (at least when it's first established.) From 15 - 47 seconds we're pretty much hearing the same idea repeated over and over. Same rhythmic pattern and the notes are moving in the same direction too. From 47 - 1:13 this is the closing statement of that theme but it's still cashing in on ideas that were just established. 1:14 - 1:30 this transition is just the same thing repeated twice, nothing too fancy, but we still know where we are going. 1:31 - 2:05 we're repeating the main theme and it's almost exactly the same thing we heard before but now the colours have changed so it feels new yet familiar. Then the moment we've got hooked, we know where we are with the piece, we're pretty much half way through we get introduced to this completely new idea, "ooh, what's this?" we think. But there's still little hints at the main theme in there so we know it's still connected. Then we're back to the main theme, new colour AND now we have a counter melody and all sorts of other changes but we aren't too distracted by all these new ideas because the main theme has been played so much up until this point we aren't too confused which is the main theme.

The Benjamin Button score is a different case (pun intended.) I wouldn't say there's a very strong melodic idea in here, it's constantly changing. But I don't think the goal here was to have this really catchy theme anyway. But as the listener we are still able to follow it easily because there's always a rhythmic pattern that gets established and played out for long stretches of time which is what we really latch onto.

In comparison with your piece, you establish a rhythmic pattern at the start for the first 15 seconds which is perfect and you kept that when your melody started. At that point I was on board with your idea. At around 25 seconds you change the rhythm which is a little jarring, especially since the melody has only been established for about 10 seconds at this point, then you do a little transition which feels a bit premature becuase it feels like your main theme has a lot more to offer. I'm sure you could do a lot with this idea if you just build on it some more, we need a lot more time with it. You did repeat the idea again after your transition but you changed the rhythm of that last note ever so slightly and I felt where I wanted it to go cause you established it earlier so it felt a tad frustrating cause I was looking for some sense of a pattern again and then you take it in all these different directions but it feels like we still don't know the theme quite yet.

At the moment the theme feels like someone starting a conversation and then being interrupted by someone. It doesn't feel like it develops and ends in a satisfying way just now.

I do just want to say though that I think you have good ideas in here! I know that I've maybe been quite hard on it but I think this has a lot of potential if you just develop it a bit more. We haven't got sick of the main idea yet, keep it going then switch it up just as we get to the point where we think we know it all. I hope this feedback helps and I look forward to hearing what you come up with.

 

I like your main idea, it has great potential . That chromatic motion in melody comes too early or you should confirm it immediately in the next harmony in my opinion (that is at least what I have heard in my head). And I think that you start doing too much too early, I wanted to hear more of that initial idea.
Other than that I can't say anything specifically and I can only suggest to work more on that idea on the piano. I have found so far that the process is really like sculpting, first you find a huge chunk of a rock, then you shape it very roughly and then slowly work from rougher to finer details. I personally almost always end up with more material than it ends up in the piece (that would be the debris that you remove from the rock while working if I may continue with that corny analogy hah xD).

Try taking fragments from the melody (I can hear some nice potential motifs) and try developing them on their own, then with more individual ideas it will be easier to assemble the whole piece and then I think when you really put the effort in the piano sketch, orchestration ideas will come to you much more easily and effortlessly.

I hope if anything of that helps at least a bit.

Oh and @Duncan Formosa I saw you recording feedback for people here I just have to say that's really cool, kudos for your effort! I will now go and watch this one since I first wanted to give my unbiased impressions to Carlos

 

I wasn't sure if the video thing was going to work. Seemed like a good idea at the time but I think I just stumble over my thoughts a lot, but thank you! I normally avoided giving feedback cause I don't actually feel I know enough to give a lot of feedback. But I figured since I keep asking for feedback myself the least I could do is try and give some to others in the hopes it's a little helpful.

 

That is I think something individual that everyone of us has to find out for themselves. I have found for myself that as soon as I notice that I am not making significant progress when composing, that means I should stop immediately and go do something else for a bit or even take a break (but I have found that it doesn't have to be too long to reset my mind so that I can proceed). But one way to mitigate that and keep on working is to work on other ideas for the piece outside of the whole picture, the "big picture" of the piece, that doesn't harm objectivity. Like as I mentioned, taking a bit of it, a motif, ostinato, chord progression or whatever and trying to develop it in different directions.

Yup it takes me time too to articulate my thoughts the best that I can and there is always at least some doubt about it as with making music, but that is all good, it is useful also for the person giving feedback, it is all useful practice.