I'm not very skilled at composing, so I decided to start on an 8 minute long piece (for practice?). I've experimented with as many styles as I could, and I am inexperienced in all of them. So it would be great if I could get some critique regarding my composition. Thank you :) This is my first attempt at that 8 minute long piece: http://www.aoikokoro.net/longebane/Interlude%20Battle.mp3 Linkified :) [Edited by - LongeBane on December 8, 2005 10:58:32 PM]

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Very nice, just a couple of suggestions. Near the beginning you have a nice theme (melody), that gets nicely revisited through the first third, but then gets lost. I would bring that back regularly to help tie the song together. That is the theme that people will be humming after hearing the song.

The second thing is you should play with the volume a bit more. You do in the last third, and you do so nicely, however the song could be greatly enriched if you put volume variations throughout. Outside of the land of midi this would be the task of the musician, but you do not have the luxury of intelligent musicians, so you will need to add the feeling yourself. The main part I would focus on is the starts and stops, a lot of them are very abrupt. There is nothing wrong with that if that is what you want (accentuated entries), but in most places this distracted instead of enriched the song.

Very good song though, especially for one “not very skilled at composing”. [smile]

Its nice, I like it. Im listening now. Ill write as cool stuff comes in. I like the intro, its nice. I think a little more percussion in the first bit would be a bit better, louden up the snare some, ad a Crash, maybe a low war drum. Like every 2 bars one hit on the low drum.

If its battle music, I think it should be a bit faster. Do you play Final fantasy tactics? Half way through REAKS so sweetly of its battle theme. I like the synchopation. I cant spell that word right. Reminds me of Soul Caliber or Blade about 3/4.

Nice break down. Good Build up. Maybe a more Evil sounding chord for the build up. Nice high brass. Needs a bigger Climax.

Your Climaxing end part got me pumped for some super full orchestra Rolling cellos with flute (I dont know what its called but it sounds fluttery) flutters, Maybe some Brass stabs. Sorry, Im a big fan of percussion to in classical-esque Game music.

All in all thats pretty sweet dude. Ive been making music for about 5 years, and I still think Im horrible. You have a good song there, You should make more. It reminds me of one of my songs kinda.

(Random Tangent)
I tried making a 8 minute or so song, i think in the end it was about 7:30, but yeah, it was a techno to funk to hip hop to classical to iron man to every friggin genre i could think of. Turned out like shit. Deleted the files and pretended it never happend, founf it a week later on my iPod, crappily enough im in Japan and cant switch my songs. Its on there till I go back. Weak. Well, thas what I though, then my beloved baby died, so i focused it with an air soft gun after taking it about. That lasted 14 clips. Damn fun time.

Good song! Keep it up!

I've finally finished, completing with 8 minutes and 32 seconds. This song will be used for a battle in which most of the town has been submersed in water, from a hurricane, and a dam which broke. I tried to use strings rather than percussion to convey this scenery. I also used the high timre of the oboe to illude the water.

Thanks for your comments, and I am very glad I am done (well, some adjustments could be done later, especially from critique). You can find the song from the same link, http://www.aoikokoro.net/longebane/Interlude%20Battle.mp3

I really loved the percussively-driven parts in particular, mostly around 1:00 - 3:00. For a typical battle theme, I think it'd probably be best for it to be under ~4 mins and a little faster paced, but I can understand why you'd do it this way if you wanted practice. :)