Having a go at a trailer cue

[MJLeeman]

Here's a piece of music which I had written previously as an instrumental cue. I am trying to transform the general musical ideas in that cue into a trailer cue, and improve that process based on what I have recently learned and listened to. I would be grateful to learn about anything at all which might start to put me on the right general path in this genre. I think that I need guidance re swelling the music and quieting some sections, and also including some big percussion hits (and I reckon that I might need some specific trailer libraries for this?). The trailers which I have listened to seem to have much more stop and start than what I have written here, but I suspect that this is possibly due to a music editor's cutting, pasting, editing etc. of the origial submission.

https://www.taxi.com/members/nwRU7pygQr ... railer-cue

Michael

[Tonebonemarone]

Cool piece! I like the feel of it and I can really hear that being on a trailer for a nature documentary or a fun movie.

I'm no authority on trailer music or orchestral cues and I see that you're working off some reference tracks with many stops and starts but personally I don't find that all of the breaks in your piece are helping the mood or the build. Especially notable to me are the stops between the 0:37 and 1:31 mark; they seem to be premature and do more harm than good to the momentum of that section. The song is just getting established here and stopping between these sections is preventing a theme from developing which makes the overall growth of the song seem choppy. Also at the 2:00 mark; the song has just hit a peak in it's energy then the break drops the momentum a bit too drastically before going in to a mellower section. In my opinion, if you were to have things continue through that break (or even shorten the duration of the break) then the small break before the biggest section of the song (around 2:25 with the cymbal swell) would be much more effective.

As I said above, I'm no expert in this genre. I hope that feedback helps though!

[MJLeeman]

Cool piece! I like the feel of it and I can really hear that being on a trailer for a nature documentary or a fun movie.

I'm no authority on trailer music or orchestral cues and I see that you're working off some reference tracks with many stops and starts but personally I don't find that all of the breaks in your piece are helping the mood or the build. Especially notable to me are the stops between the 0:37 and 1:31 mark; they seem to be premature and do more harm than good to the momentum of that section. The song is just getting established here and stopping between these sections is preventing a theme from developing which makes the overall growth of the song seem choppy. Also at the 2:00 mark; the song has just hit a peak in it's energy then the break drops the momentum a bit too drastically before going in to a mellower section. In my opinion, if you were to have things continue through that break (or even shorten the duration of the break) then the small break before the biggest section of the song (around 2:25 with the cymbal swell) would be much more effective.

As I said above, I'm no expert in this genre. I hope that feedback helps though!

Thanks, TBM. I edited the track in an effort to try to make it less choppy, as you correctly describe it. Not sure if I achieved this aim. Also, my first attempt was probably longer than what might normally be asked for, so this is another reason why I made the updated version shorter than the original, and closer to 2-and-a-half minutes.

https://www.taxi.com/members/nwRU7pygQr ... and-beyond

Thanks for listening to the original track and for your comments above.



Cheers
Michael