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Star Sword

Discussion in 'Critique & Feedback' started by Louis Calabrese, Sep 20, 2017.

Page 4 of 8
  1. #61 Alexander Schiborr, Oct 9, 2017
    Allright, hope it helps a bit.
     
  2. #62 Louis Calabrese, Oct 9, 2017
    I kinda of get what your thinking. If I did a few more simpler repeats of the main theme at the beginning and not do the into like I have (it's the theme with long note's at the end, which is only done once at the beginning and once at the end) would you be ok with that and the rest of the piece?
     
  3. #63 Doug Gibson, Oct 9, 2017
    Love this video. The whole thing is worth a watch.

     
  4. #64 Alexander Schiborr, Oct 10, 2017
    Louis do me favor and write me a short 1 min or 30 second 2 handed piano track with a I /IV / V / I Progression. It sounds a bit hilarous, but keep getting 2 things done in this 1 minute:

    A Section (twice)
    B Section (1 time)
    A Section with a little extended ending.

    Right hand melody, left hand chords or bass.

    It is up to you what tonality or mood you use. You can go major or also minor. But do the me the favor. You can also use your already dorian idea from your existing track.
     
  5. #65 Louis Calabrese, Oct 10, 2017
    I have to change this up some, new melody, major key. But shouldn't the A and B sections have different harmonies? Like I-iV-V-I for A and maybe some bridge like V-I, V-I for B? Or a different melody in B, combined with A?

    Life will be in my way for the next couple days so it might be a few before I can post something.
     
  6. #66 Alexander Schiborr, Oct 10, 2017
    Yes, you can go slightly different ways. My recommendation would be: When your a Section has strong major tonality it would be good that your b- sections contrasts with a more minor tonality. For instance..in C Mj..a very common thing would be to use the parallel minor.
     
  7. #67 Louis Calabrese, Nov 7, 2017


    Sorry it has been a long time since I've replied, it's been an interesting few weeks. I tried to write something in the vein of what you were suggesting, please let me know what you think.
     
  8. #68 Alexander Schiborr, Nov 8, 2017
    No problem Louis. Thank you for sharing your piano composition. Let me say:

    ok the first 23 seconds we are one time through your idea. Though I have to say this idea is very simple and that is good. Why not. I can hear that you go through a pattern here and the I,I, IV, V thing. Though I have to say the V chord is very similiar to the IV Chord. I can´t make out such of a big tendency there, it is very settle. Though that is ok. You have 8 bars there for the first run, for the second run where you change your melody a bit which is fine. Though I would painstakingly pay attention to keep the first couple of notes the same and I would add maybe one or 2 notes to the tail of the melody. But why you chose 6 bars in the repetition? That took me a bit of because I expected an 8 bar run through. So then at 38 seconds I think you go into your b - Section. The first chord in your b - Section has a strong minor tonality which you don´t build on. You keep on repeating more or less your melody from the a section. How about that: You have all the time around the high C your melody, why not going for your b Section into a minor tonality and putting the melody a way more the mid registers of the piano. The brings you 2 things: A color change (for later orchestration) and imo you should try for your b - Section create a counterpart to your melody, and maybe feature something or your melody from your a Section, for instance a rhythmic thing or the scalewise motion thing? How about that. Imo the b Section doesn´t set apart from the A - Section and it is not so clear. For me it is practically a kind of A "second" version of a the A Section and later on your lose total focus for me.
    Make it more clear. A section is fine. But the b section needs some refinement imo.
    Please others here say something if I am wrong.
    Thank you, Louis.
     
  9. #69 Doug Gibson, Nov 9, 2017
    In the most respectful way I can convey this, I would highly recommend to keep studying with your teacher, and ask for their advice as much as you can. Work hard, and be patient. Also in the most respectful, and blunt way, I have to say your pieces seem to regress with each post.
    Your first piece was your best. I know writing music is difficult, and this is perfectly normal. I think that all feedback you get, and I think I saw you also posted on VI-C, is cluttering your mind.

    Without going into inner voices, reharmonization, or anything else you should be able to draw more material from the descending C major scale. Let me A/B one example for you. 1st is your 4bar melody. Then my take stretching it to 8. I kept it very simple. Only one harmony per measure, nothing fancy. Meat and potatoes.



    Good luck with it all. Wish you the best
     
  10. #70 Alexander Schiborr, Nov 9, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2017
    I will give it a try later also, hope to clarify more things.
    But @Doug Gibson Claude had for his first piece a strong reference available, I guess this time he works more freely and I can feel how Claude tries hard to make it right.
    I have to admit that the comments can be a bit overwhelming and probably also confusing Louis. Thats a good point.

    Louis, when you read that. I have learned one thing what helped me: Transcribing pieces and "learning" them. I practise them very often, almost everytime I sit at the piano. SO why I do that: To internalize the way how the hands go for chords and what melody notes work with what chord progressions. And by doing that with a good amount of different pieces you will recognize "similiarities" which are appearing again and again. the other point of doing that is that you develop a feeling for the language, for the style, for the mood. It doesn´t happen overnight, it takes a few years.
    After some time you learn: Ah ok..here they often use spread open voicings with the third in the highest note to make that sound, ah here they used often this kind of chord progression or subsitute. Believe..it is all a bit of formulas you can learn. It is a VOCABULARY..first and then you build music with it.
     
    Rohann van Rensburg likes this.
  11. #71 Alexander Schiborr, Nov 9, 2017
  12. #72 Doug Gibson, Nov 9, 2017
    Claude ? I think Claude will handle the comments just fine. Louis might get mind fucked however.

    It's certainly true I can be a "Debbie Downer" or "Negative Nancy". I have a flu, and also my family tree is 1/2 German, 1/2 Scottish and living in New York.... I hate everyone. (minus my kids) That's common knowledge. I am not shy about this.

    I tried, and hope it did come across, to say "as respectfully as possible". I've been there, and in no way is it meant to be personal.
    My opinion is at the stage, the best thing to do is to build a strong musical foundation. The best thing for Louis would be to work closely with a
    mentor/teacher he really respects, and use the information from this, or other forums, as supplements for learning and motivation.

    My sense, and could be wrong, is a "gap" or confusion underneath all this is the source. What chord he puts on the 4 of a major scale only matters to the extent it is useful for him to hear. I could say Eb 6/9 (alright !) but it's not meaningful to do so right now.

    Hey..... I enjoy hearing you speak. Digging the German vibe !
     
    Rohann van Rensburg likes this.
  13. #73 Alexander Schiborr, Nov 9, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2017
    Oh, its damn true.. its ..damnn...true..I have edited my post. Apologies to Louis, and Claude as well! Haha.
     
  14. #74 Louis Calabrese, Nov 10, 2017
    @Doug Gibson @Alexander Schiborr

    Thank you both for your posts and audio recordings! Informative and helpful. You don't come across disrespectful at all, in fact I would say your being very patient with me. As far as being Mind Fucked? Yup, totally there, but guess what...I won't be when I come out on the other side. Oh, and Alex, my German friend is a bit jealous of your voice as it goes lower then his!

    I think what's been happening here is that I was taking criticism from this thread early on about keeping my melody in focus that I ended up massively cutting the length of my melody too much. I know in each case it's different but I'm guessing having a melody cover 4 bars is a reasonable length in many situations, no? To Alex's criticism, basically I haven't been changing my chords to match the melody in opportune spots to move the tonal progression of the piece. That's also clear in Doug's recording. And with inversions and alterations there's lots of choices, and they should be used. Do I follow correctly?

    I'll keep posting if your willing to keep listening!

    As far as instruction goes, I'd like to send you both PMs on that. Doug can I shoot you an e-mail or a private message on this (I'd rather not explain in open forum)?
     
  15. #75 Louis Calabrese, Nov 10, 2017
    @Doug Gibson @Alexander Schiborr

    After writing that piano piece above I was kinda frustrated with trying to integrate the feedback so I said fuck it and made a small orchestral sketch of something. I know, I know you'd say this should be all in piano first, and to be honest all this was written on the piano first just not as a full piece. In reflecting about your comments, I'm thinking, hoping this is a bit stronger of a piece? It's got an 8 bar A melody repeated 3 times. There's a main motif repeated 2 times at the beginning of each A melody repetition, with some additional counter melody added the second and third times through (and event that isn't much). I try to keep chords landing with the melody. The B section melody is a different but familiar and over a new tonality center. Right now there's 8 bars of this. My plan would be to add 8 more bars of the B section, then go back to A, where you'd hear a hint of B's counter melody for 16 bars to end.



    I have a hard time of fixing melody's I've gotten lots of examples for (such as the piano piece above). I feel like you guys gave me options in my head and not sure if I'd create something original from that - Should I still try?
     
  16. #76 Alexander Schiborr, Nov 10, 2017
    Hej Louis,

    I thought maybe you just concentrate on one thing first. I mean it is nice to have a good amount of creativity and output and we all love music and so when you are creative just compose and record the music. But..maybe it would be an idea here to stick to one track first, otherwise I feel it gets a bit unclear where the focal point of the pieces are where we are talking about. Having said that: Thank you for sharing your new piece. But I would recommend that we still stick to the previous one first and see what can be improved there? Otherwise it gets confusing because we flip from piece to piece without really having done something. I hope that makes sense. Of course that doesn´t mean you shouldn´t post new pieces but as it belongs to me I would first stick to your previous piano track.

    How about just making some slightly revisions in what Doug or I was talking about. You don´t need to change the whole track, just to make it a bit more clear. After reading your previous post and this I quote you"To Alex's criticism, basically I haven't been changing my chords to match the melody in opportune spots to move the tonal progression of the piece. That's also clear in Doug's recording. And with inversions and alterations there's lots of choices, and they should be used. Do I follow correctly?"

    <-- Yes that is completely fine hanging on chords, but here I wasn´t sure if you want to hang on a chord or let say a bass line note, or if you want to progress in your tonality (I,IV etc..)? It sounded for me like a mixed thing where it wasn´t that clear for me what your are going for. Inversions and modal interchanges are cool and they can generate highly surprise, but I avoid them to be presented right at the beginning of an idea when starting a track and hearing a motif for the very first time.

    In particular I have no example of classic filmsoundtrack where this is done in the first run of a motif. Even John Wiliams high energetic fanfarish ideas will mostly all begin with a very clear first run through, either a I/IV I /IV V /I for instance thing, or just a thing where he hangs on a basspedal pivot line before proceeding through some diatonic chords. While I know not everybody likes to write like Williams and Williams is surerly not the only composer out there, these thing is a bit of a fundamental blueprint for me which I see also with other great pieces or composers.
     
  17. #77 Alexander Schiborr, Nov 10, 2017
    Krzysztof Fokow likes this.
  18. #78 Louis Calabrese, Nov 10, 2017
    I figured you might suggest to stick to one piece, I wasn't sure how strong I felt to the melody but I'll work on it some more. I don't want to write what you both are writing and since it is better, I don't want to end up copying it.

    My comment about alterations and inversions was meant for addition for variety later in the piece. I meant to center on the fact that you place more chord changes along the melody that 'make sense'

    If you take my melody, the first bar it's all over a C chord. But when you played it on that first recording, you took the F note in my melody line and used an f chord back to the c chord. Both should work but yours is better.

    I remember Verta talking about lining melodies with chord. I thought I was doing that but not enough I guess.

    Do you think I'm loosing focus with my music because I'm not building symmetrical music using powers of 2? Melodies lines and progression have to be in either 2, 4, 8, 16 bar lengths or I loose you? My piece only has I-V-I and I-iV-V in it but I guess it's not perfectly even so you get lost. I didn't have a B section of 8 or 16 bars hence too short and not developed.

    You said at one point "don't think too much". I think that won't work with me as you've heard the music that comes out when I'm not paying painstaking attention to each measure and note.

    I will listen to your next recording soon. 30min long, I really appreciate the kind of time spent there.
     
  19. #79 Jeff Hayat, Nov 10, 2017
    I have two comments here.

    1. Wow - what an awesome thread. Four pages on the VI forum would have turned into a fuck-fest of epic proportions. Here, everyone has remained civil in an attempt to learn and be helpful, and it goes to show you that being nice really ain't all that difficult.

    2. Louis - this is directed at you...

    Do you think I'm loosing focus with my music because I'm not building symmetrical music using powers of 2? Melodies lines and progression have to be in either 2, 4, 8, 16 bar lengths or I loose you? My piece only has I-V-I and I-iV-V in it but I guess it's not perfectly even so you get lost. I didn't have a B section of 8 or 16 bars hence too short and not developed.

    So, here is one thing to keep in mind, if you are writing music for trailers and/or music production libs (in an attempt to get your music placed). The tracks need to be editable. It's not so much about form and development (tho those are of course good things to have), it's about editability. Not a concern, of course, if you are writing for film, or if you are simply trying to better your chops. But if you are trying to get your tracks placed somewhere, you need to give the music sup and/or editor the ability to easily edit your track.

    Cheers.
     
  20. #80 Doug Gibson, Nov 11, 2017
    Of course. I'm easy to find. My web site is www.douglasgibson.com There is a contact page you can use there.
     
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