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Comedic Action Scene Music in Style of Japanese Composers

Discussion in 'Critique & Feedback' started by Marko Dvojkovic, Sep 3, 2020.

  1. #1 Marko Dvojkovic, Sep 3, 2020
    Ahoy!
    Here is a new piece I made, it was made as a standalone piece, but it evoked very specific things happening at various moments for me, so I made a little slideshow of screenshots from a scene from classic anime "Kiki's Delivery Service" (Didn't know about Miyazaki's movies up until recently and this one instantly became one of my favorite movies, it's gorgeous in all aspects).
    Anyway for better evaluation maybe don't watch the video for the first time.
    I wanted to make something that sounds like Final Fantasy Distant Worlds orchestral arrangements/Joe Hisaishi. I mean this sounds a lot more like a film score than video game music, but you get what I mean.

    I am curious to hear your first time listen reactions :).

    For this one I am pretty sure that there is some good stuff I made it pretty effortlessly and fast enough I guess, so I was I think still pretty objective when it was composed and orchestrated.
    Thanks, have a nice day!

     
  2. #2 Doug Gibson, Sep 3, 2020
    Some good stuff indeed! Nice work, be proud of yourself.

    Just out of curiosity, I have seen a few people making similar comments about their work in terms of speed = objectivity.

    Is this one of Mike's mantras? It seems to be popping up around here lately.

    I personally don't think it matters, as much as writing daily. It's like Mozart vs. Beethoven. Or Rossini was the fastest of all I believe. However, it took Beethoven what 2-3 years to write the 5th symphony. I think he stayed objective.

    I personally feel, yes, one needs to be able to handle the demands of whatever working condition is thrown at you, but also know the way you work best.
    Ravel took years to compose, and John Williams is often very slow when not writing for films. Others need the deadline and panic factor to just get started.Thus procrastination rules until the 11th hour and then wham...... outcomes the work.

    look, I want to be clear that I think you are writing music many people will enjoy, and it's at a pretty advanced level.
    So I am not going to give the type of response most people will give you.

    In a way, because most everything is really good, the few things that do not really stick out and become a letdown.
    Like seeing a Ferrari with a key scratch on the side of the door.

    The biggest thing is you have got to fix that ending. What happened? Imagine you are flying a plane. There are two moments you have to get right.The beginning and the ending. In the middle, you can move around.

    I just simply do not like the ending at all, and it is such a let down to what was a short but fun ride until then.
    It sounds like you just gave up, or got a phone call you had to take.

    The other and this is a much more minor issue: Some of the fast runs sound artificial. In particular, @ 1:02 it sounds more like a synth doing a big arpeggio. I don't think that is what you want, but it is really showing.


    The other aspects sound very very good, so I do hope you will continue to work on this piece and take it up to the next level.
    It will be a really nice composition for your folio.

    With best wishes

    Doug
     
    Marko Dvojkovic likes this.
  3. #3 Marko Dvojkovic, Sep 4, 2020
    Thank you very much Doug :)
    Well I mean while I was working on it, it was progressing very effectively. I understand that one can retain objectivity over longer period I think if you work sparingly on it I can imagine and make sure that the time spent on it is effective. Usually as soon as I notice while working on something, that I am not making significant progress I stop immediately and do something else or take a break, because I have found (at least in my case) that if I force myself to go on then it starts to stick in my head and I can't anymore wake up in the morning with a complete amnesia of the piece (that is indeed very satisfying when I can't recall how the piece goes at all the next morning), but yes I am still trying to develop my speed so I try to make those breaks, if needed, as effective as possible to move on as soon as I can.
    Hahahah, I love your humorous remarks, this made me laugh xD
    Well to be honest when I reached that point I felt like I gave all I have got and I thought that if I wanted to proceed I would need new material since to that point I am basically doing stuff with one melody and that one simple motif which seems pretty flexible, true. But also since it is a demo I like doing shorter pieces so that I can cover more different stuff and that kind of length is not a lot of work for me anymore. I understand that the end paired with the slideshow doesn't seem finished, I just couldn't find the most suitable screenshots to make sense of the ending of the little story I sculpted with the images.
    Yeah, I know it sounds horrible. I hate myself when I compose stuff like that because it usually falls apart with samples and it is hard and quite work to do to sound at least bearable, but I hate even more adapting composition and orchestration to samples so I just let it there. And it felt like very obvious choice to me to put the "motor" in fast strings arpeggios that bounce from section to section depending of the register, in that part.

    Warm regards :)

    Marko
     
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