Sky Duel

Probably your best piece yet!

I was able to follow along with your ideas very well on this piece and I didn't feel like it was getting random at points. Everything felt clear, you repeated the ideas enough before developing them and you developed your main theme enough to keep me interested through the whole track. Well done!

One critique I do have however is maybe add a few more themes. I did get to a point where I felt it was just the same A theme repeated over and over with different developments (don't get me wrong, that's a great little excersise and I think you succeeded in that) but I wanted to hear maybe some other character themes. Who's the antagonist? What's their theme? how does that develop? how does it intertwine with the protagonists theme etc.

Started feeling that at around 1:20 ish. I think you had a nice little transition moment in the strings in that moment to then switch to another character (a bit like how Mike does it in the Race.)

Just something to think about. But other than that, well done again!

 

Agreed with everything @Duncan Formosa said. The theme is nice and you restate it in several interesting ways. Some random notes and nitpicks here:

0:56 nice, lush string writing. A standout moment.
0:32-ish (bar 16) - on repeat listening the woodwind run here seems unnecessary. It's stealing attention away from the trumpet.
0:47 - on repeat listening, this woodwind run too seems out of place. Maybe you can employ the woodwinds for some counterpoint against the trumpet? Or a call-response kind of thing?
1:11 transition could maybe be smoothed? If I may suggest something: in bar 36 instead of having the brass play two notes (1:06), let them play a whole note but fortepiano. Like a quick hit and get out. I think by dropping the dynamics with the fp you get a smoother transition into the strings on the next bar.
1:53 - the run that transitions into the modulation is fine, but there are one or two runs before that (over muted brass) that stand out on repeat listen.
3:56 again very lush strings, nice.

Overall, job *very* well done on this piece. Writing 5 minutes of melodic music and notating it all is hard work. I can only dream of writing 5 minutes! This quite the accomplishment and you have every reason to be proud of this work.

As Duncan said, having some kind of secondary/antagonist theme could add to the piece. If you decide to make some alterations however, I would put it away for a few weeks if I were you and come back to it with fresh ears (and eyes) at a later point. Maybe this is personal, but the tactic of distancing yourself from your work before addressing feedback is quite useful to me. Tinkering for too long or making changes based on feedback when you are still close to the work can often lead to mistakes.

For now, congratulations on finishing this work. Give yourself a nice pat on the back!

 

I don't think that having dissonance alone tells the listener there is an antagonist there. This idea could maybe work if you are trying to go with the antagonistic force being something inside the protagonist themself, but not for an external force.

Since the title is "Sky Duel" I'm imagining there's at least two characters so I would have definitely have had two themes to show that conflict.

Still, it's a good wee piece and you should be proud of it! Take a break and see if you can add to it later on