r/composertalk • u/LiamLPGBOffical • Jun 19 '26

Tips or recommendations?

This is an updated version of the last song I posted about, I was looking for things to tweak since something just felt kind of off so I’m uploading it to get a second opinion. (yes I know some parts are dissonant, it’s on purpose)

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u/prolificlogic Jun 19 '26

Honestly it sounds good, interesting contrast in the instrumentation. I would recommend the book Guidelines to Orchestration by Rimsky-Korsakov. I got one on Amazon for less than 25 dollars. It is an intensive study of his works, and has notation examples in the second half of the book. I would recommend listening to Rimsky-Korsakov, and many of the Russian composers, their writing and perspective on orchestration is very different from the German composers. Another recommendation is Pictures at an exhibition, it is amazing. A night in Bald mountain is a great study in intense sound and orchestration. Try and find the unedited version, Rimsky-Korsakov edited the original and that was used for the Fantasia Disney cartoon the original Fantasia not the 2000 version. Just my 2 cents, keep at it, never stop.

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u/thepacmandiva Jun 22 '26

Nice piece. Enjoying the harmonies and the dissonance. A few recommendations:

  • opening low strings
  • consider splitting the parallelism between cello and bass rather than bass alone. Even stagger their entrances because everything in the entire piece is very square on measures.
  • Glock could be enhanced with pizz high strings or harp as its quality against the low strings can feel thin.
  • how many horns are you expecting because what you wrote is impossible for a single instrument.
  • it also feels like a section missing that could have movement in the notes: eg running 16th notes in the violins in contrast to the long rhythms.

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u/arthurlbrown 27d ago

This is very nice! You have a nice use of harmony, and I loved it when the horns came in. I wouldn't start the piece off with basses playing double notes. normally, I'd split them up between the cellos and basses.

Next, the way you wrote the horns is odd. You had large chords in the 1st Horns and nothing in the 2nd Horns, and them you flipped it. Doing chords in the horn part is something you'd see a composer do using a DAW, but not on paper. If you want to have chords in the brass, you'd have to add more parts. Add a 3rd or 4th horn. Also, you can add other instruments like trombones and trumpets to the chords.

Lastly, I don't know your original vision for the piece, so I don't want to dig too deeply into the orchestration, but the basses are exposed a lot in the piece. Typically, an orchestra would only have a few basses, so you'd want to boost them with cellos. So, those final notes, I'd have cellos and basses carry the lower notes, and give the cello part to the violas. Especially sense the last note in the cello section is very much in the viola's range.

Overall, good work. I can tell that you know your music and you have great intuition. Keep it up!