Hello everyone! I'm a high school senior trying to gain as much insight on the game music industry as I can. I've taken up the task to teach myself a ton of music theory and production to better myself as a composer and as a musician overall. Most of what I listen to is from a wide variety of anime and games, and although I'd like to say I'm heavily influenced by Japanese composers, my music is hopelessly all over the place in terms of genre and style. 

I originally wrote this post to ask for feedback for all of what I've written so far, but it felt like such an open ended question for such a wide variety of music that I've divided my music into sets. I'm here to ask for any feedback on what I have written in this playlist.

With that being said, here is a link to the first set of music. Thank you for your time:  

Hi James, 

I enjoyed Crystal Cave! Nice mix and evolution. It would be great to hear a new, contrasting section to broaden your melody and give the song a bit more depth and length. Forest Demo is more of an underscore - which is okay. I also like how the two cues collaborate and work off each other. 

Overall, very nice! You definitely have some talent and skill happening! Keep exploring ideas and more production techniques. Thanks, 

Nate

Thank you Nate, 

I've been trying to work on song structure and arrangement recently by copying down pieces from composers I admire into my software and then analyzing them. This was due to the fact that I wasn't really getting much from just listening for structure and arrangement, and its still a huge challenge for me to understand what makes a piece flow with itself. Do you have any suggestions for other ways I could approach understanding structure and arrangement? 

Best regards, 

James

A fellow self-taught composer, whose name is also James! I think what you have is an awesome start! 

I love the subtle differences in your Crystal Cave tracks. Makes for an excellent transition.

I have been doing something similar with a forest-themed track I worked on a few weeks ago. There's a peaceful piece that the player will hear while exploring, and there are also 3 different battle-themed tracks they will hear when encountering enemies, and ultimately, the boss. 

I wish I could answer your question on how to understand structure and arrangement. I'm more of a listener when it comes to that kind of thing, and I also use a lot of trial and error when composing a piece. I will tell you that understanding it comes with time and dedication to your craft. I've been working on music for a little over 3 years now, and have learned a lot since the beginning, without having any prior knowledge on music composition.

Keep up the awesome work!

-James, aka, Bits & Pieces

When thinking about game music, my thought was that all of your shared pieces are familiar with certain works of Nintendo. To get you an example, the atmosphere of your soundtracks reminded me on special levels/areas of Mario Galaxy, which easily could be replaced by your tracks. I'm not very familiar with Animes and such games, so I personally can't tell you whether your music would fit. 

Talking about your pieces themselves, they are great for ambient scenes, especially for sci-fi scenarios. Your soundtracks have something spacy to it, like you would be in the space dealing with the non-existing gravity and endless distances. 

It is rather harsh to give you a proper statement on your skills without knowing more about you and your plans. You definitely are above the skills of an amateur, for sure. 

As already said your soundtracks are rather nice for ambient scenes, but still lacking of variation (unless the full versions of them contain these). 

It indeed is a great method to analyze soundtracks of other people, get inspired and learn more about the different variations, which should be your next step to go. Work with a whole structure of a soundtrack, which contains multiple parts/sections - always letting the same melody play over again might get boring after that.

Thanks so much for the feedback! Sorry I couldn't reply right away. I actually attended GameSoundCon last week and there was so much to learn and so much to follow up on with other people. I transcribed some pieces from Octopath Traveler, and I learned a bunch from it. My ears feel especially perceptive, so I can actually hear individual parts a bit better. 

Once again, thanks a lot for the feedback, and I'm always looking for more. Please be critical, though! I seriously want to improve.