Two of my own compositions

DSLC

Hi, I just wanted to share two of my own compositions. They're both short, neo-classical works.

The first one can be found here. It's for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and strings. Despite the somewhat clumsy, inelegant introduction, this is one of my better compositions.

The second one - here - is for the same instruments minus bassoon. It's short, and very simple (technically unimpressive), but I like the melody (if I may say so myself).

Feedback welcome. Please just be polite; I'm very sensitive. I know I've a long way to go (and yes, I know, the quality of the strings leaves a lot to be desired), but without any sort of feedback or audience at all people just lose motivation (well, I suspect I would at least). There are other compositions on my site as well - here. Feel free to listen! The two linked to above are just the most 'classical' in style.

DSLC

Part of me feels I should apologize for bumping this thread after such a long time. I initially just wanted to edit it, but it turns out that - for some reason - I can't. It seems that the ability to edit one's posts is revoked after a certain period of time passes - is this correct?

Anyway, my site has been up and down for the last few weeks or so, and I just wanted to let anyone who might have been trying to listen to the tracks while the site was down know that I have moved them to a different (..more reliable) site.

My music is now on this site.

The two tracks mentioned in my initial post (..my most classical in style) are numbers 5 and 6.
I have only uploaded eight tracks on to the site so far, and my stuff isn't exactly John Williams quality, but ... whatever!

Apologies for bumping the thread!

P.S. Again, please keep responses polite!

bonzai bob

Hey man, i REALLY liked No. 6. It is very subtle, not overdone and has a lot of emotion, it's by far the best out of the two. No.5 is good also, but i don't like it as much, and it sounds very familiar after the 1.30 mark.

Were these all done on the keyboard or do you play a few different instruments? How long have you been playing?

DSLC

bonzai bob wrote:

Hey man, i REALLY liked No. 6. It is very subtle, not overdone and has a lot of emotion

Thanks man - I appreciate the comments!

bonzai bob wrote:

No.5 is good also, but i don't like it as much, and it sounds very familiar after the 1.30 mark.

I agree, the repetition of the first section doesn't seem to have the right amount of variation to prevent it from being somewhat monotonous; but I like to think that the middle section redeems it to a considerable extent. And, as I've already confessed ...the opening section is very clumsy. I intend to re-do this somewhere down the line; but I haven't had a chance to do much music-related stuff in almost a year now, so ...

I've only been composing since I've been 21 (..just turned 24 recently), so I still consider myself a novice in some respects. [ : end lame excuses : ]

bonzai bob wrote:

Were these all done on the keyboard or do you play a few different instruments?

(..takes a deep breath - aware that this might seem 'sacrilegious' to some people)
All the instruments in my compositions (..with the exception of acoustic guitar - sometimes electric - and voice) are 'sampled' instruments, and the notes are 'played' using a midi-sequencer and midi-controller keyboard.

bonzai bob wrote:

How long have you been playing?

I've been playing the piano since I was in primary school (..although I never actually practiced seriously until I finished school); the guitar since about fourteen (..again - never took it seriously until I finished school though). I'm not particularly competent at either of them now though TBH; I stopped practicing seriously quite a while back, and turned to composition instead.

Thanks again for your comments!

mike65

I'd take a listen but sadly cant connect to the files....

Mike.

DSLC

Hi Mike,
the only cause for your problem I can think of is that you're trying to save/download the files to your computer - as opposed to trying to stream/play them.

...because - although anyone (..including non-members of the site) can play/stream the tracks - only members can save/download the tracks. (..sorry, maybe I should have mentioned this already). In fairness, it's completely free to join up as a listener on the site (i.e. ArtistServer) - and there are a lot of amazing musicians in the site - e.g. FreeBrick and Chris Huelsbeck.

The green buttons are for streaming/playing the hi-fi version of the tracks; the blue buttons are for downloading/saving them; and the grey buttons are for streaming/playing the lo-fi version.

Nice of you to try anyway - it's not as if there's any obligation on you to do so.

..best!

P.S. Or maybe you're trying to play the links in my first post? ...they don't work anymore!

mike65

Whoops! Did'nt spot the second link! Listening now...

I'm checking tracks at random here- No1 I'm not a fan of (after one listen!) its just a bit derivative, No 6 much better - more concise. Gave up on No 14 - too long and a bit one-dimensional. Same with no 2 really - The piano is well played but the tunes lack much in the way of dynamics. Also the GM style drums/percussion don't help. No 4 - Agh these tracks are all in the same key! I'd say there's talent but it needs to cut loose. How sequencer based is your composition work? Do you hit record then play until it sounds good or do you take "one note at a time" approach?

Okay now I've sounded off its only right and proper I open myself up for some observations. My music is here

Mike.

banquo

hey, what sample software do you guys use? I've got:

Garritan Personal Orchestra
kontakt 2
Sibelius 3 + Kontakt player gold
VSL Solo Strings, concert guitar, overdrive guitar, saxophones, and Performance set.
EWQL Platinum Strings, Woodwind and Brass.

anyone else?

banquo

here's a jazz piano piece that i redid for sax and piano. enjoy! [its not finished]

Barded Wire Blues

mike65

Jaunty Just needs a nice shuffling percussion loop now!

Mike.

ya-what-now?

Hey I really enjoyed these compositions!

I compose a little myself in my free time and do some in college too! If any of you are interested in learning more about composition there's a fantastic summer school that is run for young composers that I attended last year. It's ran by well-known Irish contemporary composers and you get to have a composition of your own performed and recorded by professional performers at the end of the two-week course!
It's for people aged 17 and over but if you show a real interest in composition and have a little experience(i.e. maybe you've composed a piece or two) they'll probably accept you. You don't have to be a music student or have your previos works performed or anything and they're really welcoming to composers of any style!

You may be able to find out more info here...hopefully this may help some of you!
www.cmc.ie

banquo

I wish we had a forum for people interested in sampling and composition i.e., "electronic music", but not dance. Most sampling forums are, unfortunatley, run by the manufacturer of a product so I'n usually hanging out in the VSL forum or the EWQLSO forum, never a generic "sampling" forum. mind you, www.northernsounds.com isn't too bad. still it'd be nice to have an irish-based one.

DSLC

banquo, I like your composition. Even if it's not finished, it's nice and catchy!

KVR have good forums dedicated to all (or at least a lot of ) things computer-audio related.

****************

As for what software I use:
....my old studio (..with which I composed the music on he site linked to above) was:

• Windows XP
• Cubase SE
• SampleTank 2 XL

My new studio consists (among other things) of (this is all free!):

• Linux Slackware 10.1 - the operating system
• Rosegarden 4 - an audio and MIDI sequencer
• Muse - another audio and MIDI sequencer
• Fluidsynth - uses soundfonts
• Lots of soundfonts
• Hydrogen - a really cool drum editor
• ZynAddSubFX - a soft-synthesizer (..which - I confess - I haven't learned how to use yet)
• Snd - a very powerful sound editor
• sox - a command-line audio tool (...very useful for converting sound files from one format to another for example; or adding reverb to a track - sometimes a graphical program is overkill for this kind of thing!)
• SWAMI - "an advanced instrument editor for MIDI music composition and a sampler frontend." I haven't had much use for this yet, but it seems like a very useful tool, if you wanted to make your own soundfonts for example.

All of this software (..in my new studio) is entirely free, but mostly only runs on Linux/BSD unfortunately.

mike65

Computer Music mag have a message board or 7 http://forum.midiaddict.com/ and there's harmony central http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/

Mike.

banquo

How exactly does a soundfont work? I've only ever heard about them.

mike65

Soundfonts are a brilliant way to get into music if you have no money and/or a low powered PC. They were the first affordable sampler format, made up of mulit samples of audio they can be played across a keyboard so if you can record a trumpet you can play it (admittedly wind instuments are tricky) they are best for sampling expensive synths.

The format was invented by EMU and licened by Creative Labs for the Soundblaster series of cards, now there are several free and not so free soundfont players which will work through software alone.

These days with affordable software sampling and much more powerful computers they are not as popular but its still a very handy format. I have about 300mb of them and were my introduction to PC music.

Mike.

DSLC

If soundfonts don't satisfy your needs, you might consider it worth your while looking into the Linux Sampler Project. Here are some tracks produced (..by someone else - not me) using the software - Tracks produced using Linux Sampler. It's not my kind of music, but that's not the point - it's still quite impressive (in my opinion)!
I don't use it myself, and it's in relatively early stages of development, but it seems promising. I think it's available for the Mac OS X, as well as Linux (...not for Microsoft Windows though).

banquo

Thanks DSLC. Being an windows user I'll probably stick with my VSL Pro Edition, EWQLSO Platinum and various other products.*



*pm me:)