Getting a critique

[Velensk]

I have been working on a short easy campaign (using Era of Four Moons) for the artist of the same.
(Thread for Era here http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=30513)

I sent it to her for playtesting. When she got back to me she hadn't gotten very far but she had decided that she wanted to compose music for it (and rename everything). She asked me to get a critique from the people who did the music for the game.

Link should download it http://www.lshelby.com/Media/HighlanderWarDrums1.ogg

[azrael1322]

Hi there,
Well I don't "do the music for the game" but I am an amateur/beginning composer, so I can offer some comments. The samples are the first thing that sticks out. If you want to make orchestral "wesnoth" sounding songs you will need some better samples (or some samples, sounds like this is general midi to me). Some free ones are posted in this forum here:

http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=28736

Also sounds like you are looping the drums. You want to avoid looping things because it will sound mechanical and non-human. Wesnoth's music is orchestral in nature, meaning each time a real musician would play something, it would be a little different. Looping and quantization take that away.

Lastly try to think about the overall song structure, there's no real clear "direction" to this piece. You have your one melody that repeats, but doesn't really get developed much, so I feel I'm kind of hearing the same thing again and again. If you want to keep working on it, there are some great stickies in this forum you should read. In honesty you have a long way to go, but that doesn't mean stop trying!

[West]

To be perfectly honest I couldn't bear listening to more than a minute and a half. I feel like a dick saying this but it makes no musical sense at all, and it sounds like it was recorded with a Fisher-Price keyboard. I can't help but wonder what this person's experience with music is?

A campaign with music like this would have me reaching for the mute button within seconds. Sorry

[Lavender]

I'm the person that has been providing Velensk with artwork for Four Moons, so this is my composition we're discussing here. :rueful:

I'd like to thank everyone who gave it a listen, and most especially those who commented.

The samples are the first thing that sticks out. If you want to make orchestral "wesnoth" sounding songs...

Um, actually, that wasn't my goal at all.
Velensk sent me the campaign and mentioned something about how he hadn't picked out pieces of music for the scenarios yet, and that was why they all used the same one. And I thought, 'wouldn't it be super-neato-cool if each scenario played the music of the culture (ie faction) that scenario was introducing.' (I am sadly prone to this kind of thinking.) So I was trying to create something that could come from the "Highlander" culture. The intent was to produce something that did not sound like it came from a western musical tradition, and that could reasonably be produced by a bunch of nomadic herdsmen and hunters. To get an idea of what non-western music could/ought to sound like I did research on middle-eastern, southwest asian, african and amerindian musical traditions before starting on the composition.

I'm not sure how much the fact people are assuming that I was trying to do something quite different from what I was actually trying to do, will have influenced the comments they have made. I suspect not much. But I figure it's best to clarify, just as a general principal.

...you will need some better samples (or some samples, sounds like this is general midi to me). Some free ones are posted in this forum here:

Thank you, that looks like a very valuable resource.
The music program I'm used to using doesn't seem to be able to do anything with these, but I have a copy of Garageband somewhere -- I will be able to use them in that, right?

Also sounds like you are looping the drums.

I made the drums the same way I made everything else in that file. By placing notes on a stave, and asking the computer to play them back for me. I don't think that is what you assumed I was doing, but it sounds like you would have considered it an even worse thing to do if you had known.

So, er...
How am I supposed to be doing the drums?

In honesty you have a long way to go, but that doesn't mean stop trying!

That's very kind of you. Thank you very, very much.

To be perfectly honest I couldn't bear listening to more than a minute and a half.

I apologize for having subjected you to such an unpleasant experience.

I feel like a dick saying this but it makes no musical sense at all, and it sounds like it was recorded with a Fisher-Price keyboard.

I suspect a Fisher-Price keyboard would be an upgrade.

I can't help but wonder what this person's experience with music is?

:wryly: I have at least as much experience with music as I do with art.
Most of that experience is with ensemble singing, however. I used to try always belong to two or three choirs at a time until health problems got in the way.

I'm sure the additional experience I've managed to acquire since then is insufficient to qualify me as a composer. But I'm afraid I intend to keep trying to learn as much as I can about composition anyway -- I'm just kind of stubborn and clueless that way.

[Dixie]

I couldn't say about Garage Band, but some musical softwares have a "humanize" function, which kinda is the opposite of "quantize". Basically, quantize takes something you've played on a midi-keyboard or something and makes it "tight", or on-time. Humanize would take something computer-generated, such as the midi-track from your sheet-music editing software, and make it a little less square, but probably not to the point where you'd think "Oh God, where's the time?" afterwards. How much "on-time" or "less-square" is is often variable on some settings you input, anyway, so you have control over it. If I am not mistaken, Logic Pro, which I use and is great for mac, has such a feature, so I would suspect GarageBand would have some form of it too.

Anyway, my personnal opinion after listening to it (appart from the fact that the samples are indeed not very good and that it feels very mechanical (square)), would be about the general direction too. As far as I know, such cultures' music is based around oral tradition, and pretty prone to improvisation. Think of blues, which is a direct descendant of traditionnal african music (some ethnic recordings fit so well over some of Robert Johnson's Blues that it is troubling): I would rather go for a medium-short repetitive form (which can be altered to some extent later on), with a theme and, variation kind of development. I mean, start by rolling up the main theme a few times (depending on the length of said theme) with a varying bunch of instruments, then make variations. In the first ones, you should be able to recognise the main theme fairly well, but it goes further and further away. You of course ought to get back to the main theme at the end, though. Maybe a few times in the course of the piece, too, depending on your liking, I guess.

Writing this, I can't help but think about Simha Arom. Incidentally, I'm not sure your piece sounds very "highlandish" to me - all the rythms, tensions and polyrythms would rather evoc some tribal african music of something (not very pentatonic, though). In my opinion, scottish music ought to have lots of bagpipes (I don't know the english words, sorry, but a bagpipe ensemble would be comprised of various "bombarde", which is a small double-reedwoodwind akin to a small bag-less hornpipe, some "binious", which are smaller, two-pipes bagpipes, and bigger the "cornemuse", or bagpipe, with three pipes). Also, maybe slower, more "solonel" themes. Think of Amazing Grace, for instance. I suggest you go and listen to lots of celtic music

Well huh... Hope I haven't said too much rubbish Don't give it up!

[Ewing]

Thank you, that looks like a very valuable resource.
The music program I'm used to using doesn't seem to be able to do anything with these, but I have a copy of Garageband somewhere -- I will be able to use them in that, right?

Most (if not all) of the free samples in the above link are in the soundfont format. You might want to read this link for instructions on using them with Garageband.

I think using these resources will help get you closer to what you have in mind.

Good luck!

[Velensk]

I'm not sure your piece sounds very "highlandish" to me - all the rythms, tensions and polyrythms would rather evoc some tribal african music of something (not very pentatonic, though). In my opinion, scottish music ought to have lots of bagpipes (I don't know the english words, sorry, but a bagpipe ensemble would be comprised of various "bombarde", which is a small double-reedwoodwind akin to a small bag-less hornpipe, some "binious", which are smaller, two-pipes bagpipes, and bigger the "cornemuse", or bagpipe, with three pipes). Also, maybe slower, more "solonel" themes. Think of Amazing Grace, for instance. I suggest you go and listen to lots of celtic music.

Wrong highlands I think.

For reference the faction looks like the images below. If it inspires the impression of african tribes she may have the correct direction.

[Dixie]

Oh, sorry about the Highlands, then :S

Well, in that case you definitely want something way more pentatonic. The rythm is not bad, I guess, but too square for these parts, I think. You'd want something more polyrythmic, with more ternary rythms. Also, such music is heavily built on lots of super-imposed polyrythmic short motifs. Everybody gets a motif and improvises a bit on it, while still keeping mostly to it. Also, you might want less "clean" orchestral sounds if you're aiming for ethnic authenticity: such people, contrarily to occidentals, traditionnally like buzzing sounds. While those sounds, to us, might be associated to cheap or broken instruments, or poor musicians, they often go out of their way to get those sounds. Also, you really ought to look at Simha Arom (it's mostly in french though, sorry ) I tried to attach a file that might have been interesting to you, but I guess it's too big for the forum attachments... Sorry.

Here are some exemples I could fin on the net:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x85y78 ... ngui_music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTBOHSsQYKs

This one is way more modern, and actually it's not african, but it's just so great that I'm still gonna include it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bjPlBC4h_8

Anyway, feel free to do what you want, I'm just trying to give you ideas and suggestions

[Lavender]

I couldn't say about Garage Band, but some musical softwares have a "humanize" function, which kinda is the opposite of "quantize".

Yes, indeedy. I do appear to have have a humanize function built right into the software I'm already using (Melody Assistant, in case anyone cares), listed under the Quantize submenu.

I've actually got a lot of software capability that I either don't know how to use, or don't know why I would want to use it. (In case this wasn't blatantly obvious, I know a great deal more about music in general than I know about creating music electronically.) If a new feature didn't come with matching score notation, I mostly sorta went, "hmm, wonder what's that all about?" and then forgot about it.

I'm still suspecting the Fisher Price keyboard would be an upgrade, though.
[Googles musical keyboards + computers.]

Hmm... How important is velocity sensitivity going to be? Because I have a keyboard around the house that it looks like I can connect up to my computer if I buy the right connecting gizmo, but I'll have to get the money from my microphone fund, and that would make my goal of owning a "real" mic further away than ever. (I've been saving up for a microphone, because clueless as I am, I knew I would need one of those if I was ever going to do vocals.) The keyboard I have does NOT have velocity sensitive keys, and I'm wondering if getting it connected is worth spending money on, or if I should just make do with my "humanize" function until I can afford something better, and not waste precious funds on something that will be clearly inadequate.

As far as I know, such cultures' music is based around oral tradition, and pretty prone to improvisation. Think of blues, which is a direct descendant of traditionnal african music (some ethnic recordings fit so well over some of Robert Johnson's Blues that it is troubling)

I don't know why it would be troubling. That would be like being troubled that my brother looks astonishingly like my grandfather did at the same age. Or that my daughters look like me.

Hope I haven't said too much rubbish

Nope. I found your post very enlightening, and it's given me a lot of ideas to work with. Thank you muchly!

I'm not going to follow your advice about going pentatonic though. Not because it isn't good advice, but because I've been planing on doing pentatonic for the next culture over (the "Darklanders").

Most (if not all) of the free samples in the above link are in the soundfont format. You might want to read this link for instructions on using them with Garageband.

Aha! Just what I needed. Merci!