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The Composer's Thread


Justin

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Laurent Juillet: Sounds great and original. Something Herrmannish there.

so it's Prague or Slovak Orchestra?

I mean a real orchestra, my headphones are real bad...

Thank you for your kind words. The music is recorded by the Slovak Orchestra.

Absolutely gorgeous. Congratulations, you're enormously talented! Which orchestra is playing in that clip, by the way? And, did you orchestrate the score yourself?

Thank you for the listen and kind words. Yes I did the orchestration by myself. There were two composers for this movie, I just came on it one month before the sound mixing process. I was in charge of composing the end of the score, that's mean more than half of it. I orchestrated all my music, and also did the music supervision. I called my friend Jean Phillipe Bec for orchestrate the other composer's music with my directive, and he helped for the music preparation on the "Canyon", a lot of notes inside!!

I am sorry for my approximative english!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

My composition folio is simply a folio of various compositions. The brief for this piece was completely open. The only criteria was that it had to be 2-3 minutes. I'm first year.

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Happy news year, I hope great musicals moments for everyone in 2007.

You can listen an excerpt of Fair Play Soundtrack called "Canyon". I wrote this piece of music for the movie directed by Lionel Bailliu.

"Canyon" at MySpace

page0_blog_entry15_1.jpg

Good listening.

What a terrific piece! You have a great grasp of orchestration! Wonderful colours. The music is very convincing, professional, and powerful. Well done, sir.

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For people in the Boston area:

I will be conducting the premiere of my "Suite from an Imaginary Movie" with the MIT Wind Ensemble on March 17 at 8pm. There are three cues from a non-existent movie. "Main Titles", "Love Theme", and "End Credits". My piece is about 8.5 minutes in total.

Also on the concert is a world premiere of Kenneth Amis' (Empire Brass) new tuba concerto (he will be performing it with the Ensemble), a Mower flute concerto, the Mendelssohn Overture, and possibly Copland's Outdoor Overture.

Tickets are $5, but I can get you free tickets if you let me know you are coming.

Concert Information

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Thank you for the listening and kinds words pixie_twinkle.

You are welcome. I've never written anything for such a large orchestra as you used (especially in the brass!), and would love to do so one day. Are you a brass player by any chance? I ask because your brass effects in particular were very powerful, and a non-brass player might not have known how to achieve these. (The dramatic tuba sforzandi and the trumpet/horn crescendos etc.) I'd actually be very interested to see a score if you have it in a format I can open.

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Are you a brass player by any chance?

Oh no, I am a guitar player. Contact me by PM for the score, I probably have a Sibélius version of "Canyon" in one of my backups...but where it could be!!?? I will try to find it. Let me some time for that please, I am currently moving my studio.

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Maybe I'm strange, but that actually rocks! Reminds me of John Barry in places.

And yes, DO go to Jesse's site and listen to all his music samples. It is really a treat.

Especially the String Quartet No. 1 "Botanical", for a change of pace. Just lovely and a fine performance of it.

Jesse, you are an excellent composer with a natural talent, and I wish you much more continued success. ;)

Looking forward to the "Legend of Afterlore" suite!

Greta

HOW did I miss this kind post before? Thanks so much, Greta.

I just completed a game score. Very epic type music, owing much, admittedly to Basil Poledouris.

The game is "Pit Warrior" an Action RPG from Jagged Blade Software, and here are the tracks:

Track 1: Main Title

In the style of Conan or Baldr's Gate. The chorus uses Old Norse lyrics which were an actual curse found on old runes.

http://www.composerarts.com/MainTheme.mp3

Track 2: Town (loop)

A pastorale for exploring and powering up in the RPG element.

http://www.composerarts.com/Town.mp3

Track 3: First Battle (loop)

A harrowing battle to the death.

http://www.composerarts.com/Battle1.mp3

Track 4: Victory

A victorious fanfare for when the player wins, based on the main theme.

http://www.composerarts.com/Victory.mp3

Track 5: Second Battle (loop)

A battle march for hand to hand combat.

http://www.composerarts.com/Battle2.mp3

Track 6: You Died

Music for player's demise.

http://www.composerarts.com/YouDied.mp3

Track 5: Forth Rode Odin - (loop)

Boss Music. The most epic battle theme. The chorus uses text from Old Norse poetry about Odin's ride to Hell to confront his son's tormentors.

http://www.composerarts.com/ForthRodeOdin.mp3

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hello everyone,

I have just started my 5th symphony and this is the first movement. It is written in C minor (homage to Beethoven) and it is just a draft.

Tell me what you think of it.

Here is the link:

http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=947278&T=1228

Enjoy!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello everybody,

to begin with I'd like to say that I really appreciated the music posted on this site, it's on a high level and it's easy to recognize that some of you are musical professionals.

Being neither a composer nor a musician, I just enjoy recording some music in my free time with my old keyboard. As I don't know much about musical theory, I'd really appreciate your comments and hints, since you are experts on film music (so if you dislike the whole piece, feel free to tell me so).

So this is one of my first compositions ever. It's a theme for "Jurassic Park 4", although the movie doesn't exist. What do you think of it? Should I find myself another hobby?

http://www.stefanwiesberg.de/Stefan_Wiesbe...sic_Park_IV.mp3

Thanks for listening and have a nice day,

Stefan

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Hello everybody,

to begin with I'd like to say that I really appreciated the music posted on this site, it's on a high level and it's easy to recognize that some of you are musical professionals.

Being neither a composer nor a musician, I just enjoy recording some music in my free time with my old keyboard. As I don't know much about musical theory, I'd really appreciate your comments and hints, since you are experts on film music (so if you dislike the whole piece, feel free to tell me so).

So this is one of my first compositions ever. It's a theme for "Jurassic Park 4", although the movie doesn't exist. What do you think of it? Should I find myself another hobby?

http://www.stefanwiesberg.de/Stefan_Wiesbe...sic_Park_IV.mp3

Thanks for listening and have a nice day,

Stefan

Hmmm.... I hate to say this but if you really serious about composing music....then you have to learn how to compose music and yes being an musician and learning musical theory does make things a lot easier when it comes to composing music, playing music and understanding the music. By the way you don't have the Jurassic Park theme that John Williams originally composed for. Yes I can understand you having a great time on your hands composing music for fun without having no knowledge as a musician.

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helicopter theme?

Okay. Having another closer listen to it I can just pick out the Journey to Island Theme but the rendition of it was poor. Oh yeah the timing was poor and it is very slow.

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http://www.stefanwiesberg.de/Stefan_Wiesbe...sic_Park_IV.mp3

Thanks for listening and have a nice day,

Stefan

On my scale of 1 , being it is awful and you should get another hobbie immediately, and 10 being you are the equal of John Towner Williams, I give your piece a 5.2

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Damo, Hornist and AI,

thank you for your honest comments! Although your criticism was very constructive and helpful (too slow, too weird, poor timing, ...), I guess I'll concentrate more on playing soccer than on playing music in the future :-). But thanks for listening anyways; now I'm really sorry that you've wasted your time on it, of course, but it's good to have some realistic opinions. And a 5.2 on a Williams scale could be worse and sounds really okay to me for my totally unprofessional purpose :-).

You're right, Hornist, there was this "Helicopter Theme" in it. I usually call it "Journey to the Island"-Theme, but I don't know its correct name. It starts at 0'48'' (first part of the theme) and later on at 1'09'' (following part).

Have a nice day, Stefan

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I actually really liked moments of the piece. Given a bit of re-orchestration, re-presentation (in terms of sampling), and slight re-harmonisation it could work pretty well as a piece of film music, in my opinion. I love the first harmonic progression as your theme enters - it's pretty powerful. I also think the theme deserves some credit for its seeming memorability.

I'm impressed you came up with that considering you say you don't know much about musical theory.

Continue listening, enjoying, learning, and enjoying learning. :o

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Damo, Hornist and AI,

thank you for your honest comments! Although your criticism was very constructive and helpful (too slow, too weird, poor timing, ...), I guess I'll concentrate more on playing soccer than on playing music in the future :-). But thanks for listening anyways; now I'm really sorry that you've wasted your time on it, of course, but it's good to have some realistic opinions. And a 5.2 on a Williams scale could be worse and sounds really okay to me for my totally unprofessional purpose :-).

You're right, Hornist, there was this "Helicopter Theme" in it. I usually call it "Journey to the Island"-Theme, but I don't know its correct name. It starts at 0'48'' (first part of the theme) and later on at 1'09'' (following part).

Have a nice day, Stefan

Don't think so negatively! It's better than a lot of stuff I've written, and I am a musician and know a fair bit of music theory. A 5.2 is high praise considering your music history (i.e. very little). I like the rendition of the Island theme; in its context it's not "too slow" or "too fast" - I don't think the idea was to have an exact replica of the original theme, was it?

The harmonies were unsettling, but I reckon in a movie about dinosaurs eating people it's entirely appropriate.

Keep at it! And the soccer too.

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Thank you Jack Chapple and Magical Me,

it's very charming to hear that there are also some positive aspects about my piece. Since I have only few theoretical knowledge, I didn't know whether it was totally inappropriate or even "false" in a sense.

Yes, I know the sound quality is quite poor (the composition is even poorer, of course :-) ). Well, I don't use any professional software like Giga Studio, but I've extracted single notes played by various instruments from the CDs I own. With some freeware I can change the length of these short sound clips and even transpose them (change the note). Then I combine these single notes to obtain a composition (I think this is similar to what Giga Studio does in the background). But it's quite hard to stay on the beat and to calculate the exact time factors my sound clips must be multiplied with (for every single note!). And since many sound clips sound too unrealistic if they are used in specific ways, I can only choose from a small range of possible instruments and instrumental "actions". So I hope this will be accepted as an excuse for the low quality :-).

Thanks very much for listening,

Steven Wiesberg, not Steven Spielberg or Steven Soderbergh (pherhaps I should direct instead of writing the music)

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This process of your composition sounds slightly complicated and unusual in a way which I don't fully quite understand how the process work. But these CDs that your own, your using some freeware programs which allows you to record the notes on various instrument to begin with by using a MIDI keyboard, right? You said that you have extracted single notes played by various instruments from the CDs you owned. That to me doesn't seem you composed the notes or not or did you failed to mentioned that? To me that does seem that the notes already there on the CDs but that doesn't tell me whether or not you composed it or not.

What is the name of these freeware programs are you using?

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I'm sorry, Damo, it's probably due to my bad English... so I'll try to explain it in other words:

1) I take a recording of classical / film music, lets say "The Planets" by Holst.

2) I put the CD into the CD-drive of my PC and transform the piece into a WAV-file (freeware "CDcopy").

3) Then I listen to it carefully and try to find moments when only one single instrument can be heard. For example a solo part of a flute.

4) I cut off everything before and everything after one single note played by the flute. So maybe a "d" played by a flute is extracted and can be saved in my personal collection folder.

By performing steps 1 to 4 a few times for various instruments and notes, I get a small collection of sounds. It can be enlarged by transposing the notes with freeware like "Goldwave" (e.g. transform the "d" into an "e").

5) Now the composing begins. Using non-freeware like Samplitude or Cubase, you put the single sounds (notes) on a time scale. So instead of writing the notes on a piece of paper, you put the corresponding sound files on this time scale. It's a quite similar process. When finally the piece should be recorded, all single short WAV-files are automatically combined to one large WAV-file, by using the time scale.

But some instruments are also played with my (non-MIDI-)keyboard, I just play on it in a normal way, record the sounds it generates and put them into the composition.

So it's quite weird and complicated, but cheap as I already have the software.

Stefan

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lol. So basically you're creating your own sample library of cuts/edits of solo instruments from existing recordings. Certainly time consuming.. There are already some fairly affordable properly and specially made orchestral sample libraries out there, which would yield better results.

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Happy news year, I hope great musicals moments for everyone in 2007.

You can listen an excerpt of Fair Play Soundtrack called "Canyon". I wrote this piece of music for the movie directed by Lionel Bailliu.

"Canyon" at MySpace

page0_blog_entry15_1.jpg

Good listening.

Affectionate score is a BEAUTIFUL piece! Congratulations! you are very talented! keep up the good work!

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I'm sorry, Damo, it's probably due to my bad English... so I'll try to explain it in other words:

1) I take a recording of classical / film music, lets say "The Planets" by Holst.

2) I put the CD into the CD-drive of my PC and transform the piece into a WAV-file (freeware "CDcopy").

3) Then I listen to it carefully and try to find moments when only one single instrument can be heard. For example a solo part of a flute.

4) I cut off everything before and everything after one single note played by the flute. So maybe a "d" played by a flute is extracted and can be saved in my personal collection folder.

By performing steps 1 to 4 a few times for various instruments and notes, I get a small collection of sounds. It can be enlarged by transposing the notes with freeware like "Goldwave" (e.g. transform the "d" into an "e").

5) Now the composing begins. Using non-freeware like Samplitude or Cubase, you put the single sounds (notes) on a time scale. So instead of writing the notes on a piece of paper, you put the corresponding sound files on this time scale. It's a quite similar process. When finally the piece should be recorded, all single short WAV-files are automatically combined to one large WAV-file, by using the time scale.

But some instruments are also played with my (non-MIDI-)keyboard, I just play on it in a normal way, record the sounds it generates and put them into the composition.

So it's quite weird and complicated, but cheap as I already have the software.

Stefan

lol. So basically you're creating your own sample library of cuts/edits of solo instruments from existing recordings. Certainly time consuming.. There are already some fairly affordable properly and specially made orchestral sample libraries out there, which would yield better results.

Wow! You actually made your own sample library based on the recordings you have. Nice work. But that is time consuming. Like JackChapple said, if you want better results it recommended that you buy some specially made orchestral sample libraries out there if you that serious about composing music and of course to learn musical theory as well.

I am familar with Cubase however I don't like using real time recording onto a time scale since you must have accurate timing playback to the pulse beat to get the corect notation as you wanted which is something I not that good at. I prefer to notate onto a manuscript i.e using a notation software like Sibelius. I''m using a sample library within the program Sibelius called Kontakt player Gold. The sounds is pretty good. But there is better orchestral sample libraries out there then Kontakt player Gold.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Well i figured its time I uploaded one:

http://www.sharebigfile.com/file/120056/LM...ebrate-mp3.html

couldn't find somewhere to host it so i choose this

In this world of literally thousands of Zimmer-wannabes out there, You wouldn't even make the top thousand.

That's what I honestly think about your piece.

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Sounds fine to me.

And it's more like Lebo M than Zimmer, I think, although I seriously doubt imitation was a goal.

Everyone is welcome to their opinion. If you know anything in this business is that you must write what you are hired to write. Not many composers have the liberty of writing what they want or writing without the hassle of a producer or director. I just posted something I was working on that day. It is not a style I particually enjoy but that is part of the business. Write what you are hired to write, get your check and move on. If you make it to the A list you get more barganing room.

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Well i figured its time I uploaded one:

http://www.sharebigfile.com/file/120056/LM...ebrate-mp3.html

couldn't find somewhere to host it so i choose this

In this world of literally thousands of Zimmer-wannabes out there, You wouldn't even make the top thousand.

That's what I honestly think about your piece.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions of course but this sounds rather blunt and even mean-spirited. But PI didn't seem to take offence so I guess he's cool with it...

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Well i figured its time I uploaded one:

http://www.sharebigfile.com/file/120056/LM...ebrate-mp3.html

couldn't find somewhere to host it so i choose this

In this world of literally thousands of Zimmer-wannabes out there, You wouldn't even make the top thousand.

That's what I honestly think about your piece.

did i miss something? That seems slightly unnecessary.

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I just finished a new piece entitled funeral march. It somewhat pays homage to Beethoven's Eroica symphony mov. 2. It is scored for a string quintet with a piano and harp. The piece is around 4 minutes 30 seconds long, and was rendered with GPO. Enjoy!

http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=964562&T=433

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I think the fact that this thread is called "the composer's thread" really keeps members who are not composers at bay. We want people to hear us who are JWFAN's, not just other composers, right? Before this thread, I could start a new thread with my work in it, and people would comment besides other composers. That was very nice. This thread is a closed little community! Why can we have multiple threads of other composer's minutae, but not our own?

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I'm not quite decided on that subject.

I think it's a good idea that JWFANners' composition are collected here, so it's easy to browse and see what has happened on the composition front over a course of time, find pieces by other composers you want to hear again etc.

Also for the smaller skecthes ans dabblings, for constructive feedback on "works in progress", that would otherwise clutter the board and sink into oblivion fast before anyone has really seen it, if they don't get somewhat immediate response.

However, I think it would be good to have indiviual threads for somewhat "greater", finished works, like a substantial concert piece, or a short film score etc. They would get more attention from the general public, and not be too frequent to oversaturate the interest.

My 2 cents ;)

PS.: ttmaster & Konstantinos, I like the pieces you posted on this page :)

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I think the fact that this thread is called "the composer's thread" really keeps members who are not composers at bay. We want people to hear us who are JWFAN's, not just other composers, right? Before this thread, I could start a new thread with my work in it, and people would comment besides other composers. That was very nice. This thread is a closed little community! Why can we have multiple threads of other composer's minutae, but not our own?

This thread makes me feel stupid!

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Again, here is another song i just finished writing today. It is somewhat of a movement of a violin concerto and is around 6 minutes long. The beginning has a sort of "Steward of Gondor" feel to it, and the ending has a john Williams type fanfare finale. Enjoy!

http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=968851&T=1484

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  • 3 months later...

I've attached a piece for Dumbledore's Funeral that I did over the course of the last week. It's just a MIDI; I also recorded it with samples, but that would be too big a file to upload here.

It uses strains from Fawkes The Phoenix, and I thought Hogwarts' choir could sing a song. I don't have lyrics, and I didn't use a choir at all, but the melody for it starts at around 0:55.

I also did an alternate opening cue for Order Of The Phoenix, maybe I will upload that later.

Funeral.zip

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It's been awhile since I posted a new song. Heres' the exposition of a rough draft of my piano trio. I know, the first theme is reminiscent of Mathis und Maler Symphony... it was told to me after I played it to someone. Nevertheless I kept it, since I could use that short and sweet motif for a good development section.

http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?AID=285685&T=544516

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I feel that this thread is just seen by the composers of JWFAN. Nobody besides the composers posts here! Why can't we post pieces in the main forum, like we used to? Who cares whether the music discussed in the main forum is for a commercial film or a small art film nobody saw? Most of it is better than the music being discussed in the main forums. Great music is delegated to this no-traffic thread, while crappy music like POtC multiple main forum threads with community interaction. What's this culture of "commercial = valid"? I request a change in the rules. At least change the title of the thread so it doesn't look like it is just for composers to talk in. Something like "Member music discussion". Ah, just let people post in the main thread and kill this damn thing.

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  • 6 months later...

Here's one of my more recent works. :P

http://www.screenedmusic.co.uk/track.aspx?TrackID=731

You can listen to more of my pieces at that very same site! It would be interesting to hear what people think influences me! Does it sound like I'm mimicking other compoers, or do I seem to have my own compositional voice?

what happened to it? in sadness and shameless self-promotion, i've restarted the thread!

Here's a listing to the newest song i wrote. Very simple but watever. Hope you like it! i know she did:p.

http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=1090453&t=3031

Wonderful recording!

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