My first Orchestral piece

[bigbluebarry]

Some background info... I started a thread in one of the other areas re: writing orchestrations and the process that one goes through. That can be found here - http://taxi.proboards27.com/index.cgi?b ... ad=11397So... the other night I was trying to come up with something for an "a la Coldplay" listing. I put down the guitar and tried to come up with something on piano, which is not my forte. After coming up with a couple of different ideas that were ok, I ended up scratching that idea. And then once I decided to quit trying to force the issue, something else started coming out.Taking Dave's advice of starting slow (from thread mentioned above), I used my limited piano skills (THANK YOU QUANTIZE) and wrote a very short piece that's mostly piano but does have a little bit of strings at the end.Here's the link:Playing In The Snow - http://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_ ... m=trueIt's a rough mix so keep that in mind but any feedback on the piece or any suggestions for types of listings that this would work for would be greatly appreciated.Thanks!- Big Blue

[zoom]

Hey Blue!Not bad for your first venture into more symphonic styles! Now that you have some basics, let me give you a quick tip to continue your experiment a little further (if you want).I would suggest that you take all of these different parts and put them to different instruments. The piano arpeggio is one group, the melody is another, and the strings are what I might call more of a drone (aka atmospheric). Without getting into too much detail, you may want to try all sorts of different instruments with just this one piece in mind... changing up brass, woodwinds, strings and percussion. Not only will this help you fine tune your personal knowledge of the samples you have, but you may end up finding some great orchestrations that are only a few clicks away. Not to mention it will also give you an idea of just how powerful MIDI editing can really be! Dave, Mazz and Suz (among others) will probably have some great advice for you soon on this one too. As for the piece as it stands now, I would look for listings that call for more thoughtful/pensive moods in general... though if you experiment more with your samples, you may come up with several different slants on this track. And, you may also want to revisit your strings and try doubling some lines with different mics or different samples (or both)... it'll really help fill it out more.Cheers!

[timbehrens]

Hey Big Blue. I enjoyed listening to your piece. Wanted to thank you, too, for starting the other thread. Lots of good ideas in there on how to get started. I don't have a lot of informed advice for you as I'm just getting into orchestration myself... I would echo zoom in saying that it has a thoughtful/pensive mood to it. Like the title suggests, I can definitely visualize it being a background for children playing in the snow. Take this next part with a grain of salt, but here's an idea I had while listening to it. The piano part has a walking bass note in it, that repeats at about 20 seconds in. It might make for an interesting texture to let the top half of the part repeat, while continuing to descend down the scale with the bass notes... or find something like a cello to fill in that bottom half. Funny that you should mention Coldplay, because they do this a lot... have repetitive chords that change in texture as the bass moves below them. There's probably a term for that, but it escapes me.Anyways, thanks for sharing. Looking forward to hearing more, and working up enough courage to share a few attempts of my own.--Tim

[ideascapes]

BBB,Definitely thoughtful/pensive--I'd say more, "Looking for a Lost Ring in the Snow" than playing, though...or maybe a dream/flashback sequence of playing in the snow. In any case, it's well done and evocative.Smart to tackle this new genre with simple instrumentation at first--you could really repeat this exercise with guitar and french horn, cello and glockenspiel, etc., then build up to bigger pieces, experimenting with different mics/articulations, etc., as Tim and zoom recommended.Vince

[bigbluebarry]

Zoom... thanks for the feedback! And thanks for the tips. I'm definitely going to give that a try! Tim... thanks for your comments. I'll give your idea a try too while I'm experimenting with zoom's idea.Vince... thanks for your feedback! Man, I hope I can find enough time to do all of this stuff while still pounding out the rock'n'roll tunes too! - Big Blue