Discussions in D minor

Started by MarkMcD, June 06, 2017, 09:49:30 AM

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Rons_talking

Hi Mark. I haven't seen your score but based upon listening I can make two compositional suggestions you can take or leave. First of all, your composition builds nicely and the use of countermelody midway through is effective.

Your ostinato pattern of DADF, DBbDF, DBDF and back has a semitone movement (A Bb Bnat Bb A) in only one voice of the pattern. The DDF notes of the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th note of your pattern remain static. This can get too predictable and repetitious but there's an easy solution: change another note in a different voice. For example, start with your DADF, the go to D,Bb,D,E....then DABF as you have, then DBbDE again. That way, you've got the inner line of ABbBA already in use PLUS an FEFE in the highest voice which is more interesting and less James Bondian.

Often the theme has notes landing right on strong beats. This renders the chord changes less interesting and harder to hear. Again, an easy fix. Just use some slight syncopation to give the melody greater independence. Use rests and ties to throw the melodic accent off of the first and third beat in 4/4 or the 1st and 7th in 12/8. Just trust your sense of melodic invention. I often loosen the rhythms while revising to add interest and fun for the players/listeners.

It sound like you've worked out some of the orchestration kinks and diversified the texture. Good... 8)

MarkMcD

Hi Rons talking,

Thanks a lot, those suggestions are really helpful because I was a little concerned about over predictability of the ostinato and your reworks sound really interesting so I will definitely have a look and see what I can do.

Also I like your suggestion to loosen the melodic lines a bit so I will take a look at that too.

I very rarely think of my work as completely finished, I often look back even years later and see what I could improve.  I am hampered quite a bit by my lack of technical knowledge, I only took music theory to grade 3, and trying to wade through very dry theory books is such a hard slog, so I tend to work very much by ear, which works fine a lot of the time, but do find myself being lost in some aspects of orchestration and have to use a lot of trial and error.

So I am always very grateful when people offer comments like yours and I thank you very much for them.

Mark


MarkMcD

Thanks also to Cato,

I'm afraid the score is quite a mess, maybe not worth your time to look too closely LOL, but thank you for your suggestions.  I am always looking for ways to improve what I have so I will look at the rhythmic aspect of the bassoon as well as the clef.

Mark