Short mainline submissions (unfinished)

[CheeseLord]

Hi all!! It's been a while sine I posted my last work (Broken Truth) and I've been busily working over the last few months. I also feel that it's time to ask THE question: Are the quality of my compositions good enough for mainline ?

I would prefer that you be frank when replying, as I'd rather be dragged out into the open and slapped than given happy positive comments when secretly you're thinking "This sucks!!" Of course, I hope my work would sound good enough, but I'm too involved with the composition to be of much use when commenting. Also as a side note, It would also be appreciated if you gave your opinions on which piece you think is the best overall out of these 3.

The 3 examples I'm showing are all fairly short.
The first one is here
The second is here here
And the third one is here

Hope you enjoy, but I'm not sure what you will think of these, so I'm hoping for the best.....

[PeterPorty]

Hmm... I posted in your youtube video...so I'll just copy that comment here.

Meh..I'ts not bad, I mean...sure maybe for a couple of times...but...I don't think this'll make it to Wesnoth's mainline....I actually did like the your Demo Reel song...a lot...but...as I said, I don't think it's going mainline, not much about the quality of the music, as in that area its pretty good, but more in a "type of music" kind of way...although Demo Reel might be ok...well, hope at least some of your music go mainline...bye

[Tyler Johnson]

That's pretty harsh PeterPorty. Instead of shooting him down, why not give constructive criticism instead. Besides, in the end it is the LOM's decision of the music is caliber enough for mainline.

That being said, you've made some great progress CheeseLord since the stuff I've heard before.

The first one I like but it's far too short to say whether it could go in or not. The samples are high enough quality and I like your instrumentation in this one, but right when the song sounds like it's starting to get good, it cuts off. I'd like to hear more of that one.

Same with the second one. I like what you did with the brass, but you definitely need to expand these to get some real responses to them, as they're far too short.

There have been submissions in the past with pianos, but I don't believe any of them made it into mainline. I'm not saying it won't work, but it's been tried in the past and didn't work.

What we're looking for is more romantic/classical era, and if you look back at that time, there weren't many composers who added piano into their compositions if it wasn't a piano concerto. There are a few Russian composers who did this, but that music wouldn't work for wesnoth at all.

What I'm trying to say is I would suggest avoiding piano if you can. Try to replace it with a harp, which has more of a fantasy sound to it, which is what we're looking for.

Drums of War is really good. But I think it's the cymbals that have an almost "machine-gun effect" to them. IMO the drums should be POUNDING in this one...they seem a bit too...thin.

They all cut off too soon to say whether or not they could go in. But I like the feel of what you're doing, just expand it and give us a little more.

You're definitely improving very fast though, i'm impressed. Keep up the good work!

-Tyler

[West]

CheeseLord, I've said it before and I'll say it again: I like your compositions and I'm impressed by the progress you've made in such a short time. But based on the simple fact that you haven't been doing this for very long, I find myself doubting that you have the skill and the persistance to create a full length mainline piece of high quality at this point. Before you think I'm being unfair, let me explain.

Learning the basic mechanics of orchestral composition can be done relatively quickly. Learning how and when to apply your knowledge, well, that's a whole different matter that takes a considerable amount of time. There are no shortcuts to gaining experience and maturing as a composer, it requires time and hard work, and then even more time and hard work. Listening to your short pieces I hear plenty of really good ideas but also plenty of confusion as to where you're going and why you're doing what you're doing -- both in terms of composition and mixing/use of samples.

Also, the persistance thing. It's really hard to form an opinion about someone's compositional skills from a handful of <1 minute snippets -- but it's plainly evident that you have a hard time sticking to a musical idea and following it to its conclusion. I know, sometimes you get an idea that can't easily be expanded upon or connected with other ideas. I know it becase I have literally hundreds of them myself. But at some point you need to really do your darndest to write some longer pieces and finish them because it's something you must be able to do, period. Small detached snippets of music are really quite useless unless you're aiming at a career as a jingles writer. Unless you start writing longer pieces you will never have a reason to learn nor get a chance to practice a number of crucial arranging skills. I'm not going to go into them here because I'm not good at the terminology, but what I'm talking about is making something that is several minutes long sound like a piece of music and not a string of unrelated musical ideas, maintainig the listener's interest etc. Right now, I have no idea if you know anything about these things. In fact, I'm suspecting that you don't.

So while I do believe you have what it takes to contribute to mainline eventually, I doubt it will happen right now. The only way you're going to convince me that my assessment is wrong is by actually writing a lengthier tune that is an actual composition and not a series of repeating parts. If you can't, then you're not ready for mainline work, simple as that.

As for which is best of the three clips, I have no idea. They all have potential but they're so damn short. It's like asking me if I prefer cinnamon, garlic or basil -- I need some kind of context to have an opinion.

[PeterPorty]

That's pretty harsh PeterPorty. Instead of shooting him down, why not give constructive criticism instead. Besides, in the end it is the LOM's decision of the music is caliber enough for mainline.

Hey! It's not harsh, I said I liked it, I also said the quality was pretty good, I just said I don't think it's the kind of music I'd be wanting to hear while kicking some troll butt... I don't think it's the same style as the other Wesnoth music...anyway, those are just samples, I'd like to listen the whole package, and of course...I'm not a musician , so...you might as well just ignore me.

--"In the end, it's not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away"--

[CheeseLord]

Hmm...sry for not replying to you earlier, had a busy week.

PeterPorty: I agree that some of this isn't too suitable for wesnoth, but at the moment, I'm trying to see whether quality wise, I'm anywhere near there yet.

TylerJ: Thanks. So the impression that I'm getting is that it's good enough quality wise ATM for the Demo Reel, but the piano should be changed, and it needs to be extended Drums of War is a slightly older composition, so it's not quite on par with my other stuff.]

West: You've hit the nail on the head ATM, my key problem is continuing a composition, and not just throwing it away and starting afresh.

I'm going to keep composing, and hopefully, just hopefully, some day I'll see one of my compositions in wesnoth too

[PeterPorty]

Well, as I said, quality-wise I think its very good