Calum

This is nice. I don't know if I hear the Kanno in it? But I only really know her cowboy bebop stuff. As far as the EWQL version - i'd say for your flute you should be using the key switch master instrument or have one legato flute, one staccatto flute, one crescendo, one diminuendo (etc.) flute and swap the melody between them to make it sound like a realistic performance - it's longer but waaaaaaaay worth it. Hearing fast notes on a flute sample that has a low attack like this one really gives the game away! It's nice folky writing! Some of the sequencing is a bit off though - with some slightly late notes or clunky playing - just reaally polish it and go into great detail - it makes a world of difference. Perhaps adding some legato strings playing the chords the guitar is spelling out would do some good as well. It feels a little too light to me at the moment (not much low end - add cello pizzicato?)

Greatly improved and it sounds good to me. Some of the vocal shouts still stand out as a bit too loud and dry for me! I think it's mostly the female "Oh yeah" which stands out. It's pretty solid overall though.

The violin is too low when first plays the melody. And as others have mentioned the bass is almost non-existent for the majority of the piece! Definitely needs to be turned up. You could consider adding some more interesting percussion parts to add to the intensity and offer up some rhythmic variation - the 6/8 vs. 3/4 thing is very interesting (to me) and is definitely a possibility here. I certainly get the narrative feel of this piece (as you described) so that came across well. Really, other than the piano solo, you never really branch off into your own thing. It's just repetitions of the source with different instruments playing the melody. I found the piano solo to be a little too long - or perhaps i felt it was drifting around aimlessly away from the source only to come back for 3 seconds at the end. Also levels are definitely an issue in this piece! Make everything sound as full as you can! I'd say definitely try to add harmonic and rhythmic variation here - that's what i think has the most potential in this piece. Also the main melody frequently makes use of arpeggios - maybe that's something you could look to extend? Keep it up! The string pizz at the beginning sound good but it doesn't sound you're including the 3rd of the chord in these accompanying phrases... just sounds like open 5ths to me - seems quite weak imho. Perhaps this could work if you beef it up with some low horns/DB/cellos and stuff.

Awesome game - thanks for the link - really cool.

Hey, The situation basically was that this guy who i worked with on a radio play before (I originally got in contact with him through my university) was entering a short film competition and he asked me to work on it. I had the script but didn't start on any ideas before receiving a roughly edited version of the film. I had 3/4 days within to do it and I had about 2 drafts until things were finally finished. I wrote the music to be very very closely sync'd with the visuals so it really worked receiving the film first for this project. But i have another short film where i'm writing the music first and it is being edited to the music, which is quite interesting - hard to know if what you've done is right but you've gotta have faith that you're on the right lines. That should be done quite soon, i'm halfway through writing the music and it's gonna be released about half way through april. Control-wise, i couldn't really change anything in the scripts - i entered once the script had been written. I had quite a lot of freedom because i know the guy quite well - there were specific bits in the film where the mood suddenly changes but other than that it was kind of up to me! But this bouncy/light/comedic film was a dream to score for me.

Thanks Kuolema and Dissidia, I understand thinking it's a little bit too cheery... i was caught in a bit of a harmonic/modal trap where it was difficult to introduce non-diatonic notes that weren't noticeably "different sounding"... There were times where i felt, perhaps this needs to be slightly more tense but i think i'm happy with everything as it is. There are always so many choices/directions you can take but i suppose i wanted to portray the comedic/rushed but very light and non-serious feelings of the film as she's rushing to work. But had i started with different material the whole thing could have been completely different! It's pretty interesting what kind of things could have been changed had i changed any number of different variables...

I wrote the score for Antonio Ruiz's short film entitled Boss. WATCH IT HERE I'm really proud of what i've done, so any feedback is more than welcome. I hope you enjoy the (very) short film - it's a lot of fun!

POST LINKS TO YOUR KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGNS HERE - LETS SEE WHAT EVERYONE'S UP TO! To address the first issue that'll come to mind, yes, this is borderline spamming but if you too have any interesting projects being funded via kickstarter i'd love to see them (and that might make this thread more community than "Hey Guys, GIVE ME YOUR MONEY") Here's the one i'm involved in: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1331957958/team-notion-the-game This is a game i'm writing music for. Old school 2d side scrolling beat 'em up, click the link for loads of details. It's going well so far. Feel free to donate if you like the sound of it or want any of those sweet rewards, if not then not to worry. Pic: Music: http://soundcloud.com/calumbowen/notion

I used to put itunes on shuffle, sit at my keyboard and just attempt to play along constantly. When i had nothing to do i'd just do that and it really worked wonders. Mostly I would work out the chords but also you find that you kind of automatically get a feel for what the intervals of melodies are too. It wasn't a huge effort to sit at my keyboard and play along, it was fun but i did it so much that it really really helped me out with ear training. So i'd say DO THAT!

tempo changes are one of those things that are so easy not to do! but i think that's a great idea. It's not strictly a 'horror film'... i guess i would describe it as a "dark montage" so it needn't be super scary or jumpy really. you can watch it here if you wish (the temp track in that video is not mine).

Logic's Ultrabeat ghost town kit and cinematic impacts from camel audio were the main tools at my disposal. I suppose the punchiness also had to do with eq/layering and stuff like that. Thanks for checking out the tracks.

http://soundcloud.com/calumbowen/the-flower-of-death http://soundcloud.com/calumbowen/notion Here's some stuff i've been working on recently. The first one's for a short film and the second is a kinda kanye-like beat (mainly the lead makes it sound like that).

I have very few problems with this - it's really polished up well! Great track. Congrats!

where can i just buy the upgrade? Maybe I'm being stupid but it seems like I can only buy it on it's own for like $499!

A community isn't a community if those "in charge" aren't actually people talking to you like people. Do you really want "We have received your complaint and will see that someone responds to this immediately. Failing that, please take a look at our FAQ section"? I really don't think driving home a distinction between "staff" and "fans" is really gonna help anything. I have no issues with this - i mean I like the page already... As someone keen to get more attention on social media myself I sympathise with the methods one has to use in order to get people to pay attention to you. At least OCR made it kinda fun.

I think the main thing that makes this kind of not work is that your lines don't lead the places they "should". And often the little countermelodies and harmonisations you have by moving around juuust don't quite work for me. E.G The trombone entry at the beginning... You should aim to make the notes you use be either 1). within the chord you are presently at or 2). be leading to one of those notes (most often moving in step). A lot of the lines i'm hearing are kinda strange and not consistent. For example there's a violin panned left near the end which comes in and leaves offering a few notes here and there. Most of the instruments need some reverb or more of a release tail on them. I get the feeling you weren't writing each line as a separate instrument but looking at it as a whole. This may not be the case but that's what comes across and it makes the piece sound very disjointed and angular in a strange way. I say, initially... start with a piano part and expand upon this. If you begin with huuuge orchestra straight away you sometimes get carried away and add things that don't really make an awful lot of sense. If you need more lines then try starting with 2 pianos and expanding out from that. Orchestration is really important BUT i feel (especially in this case) having a really strong foundation and starting point (the piano parts) will let you hear the piece clearly and give you direction. It might seem like a step back but i feel like you've gotten ahead of yourself a bit from the offset. Another thing to say is that tubular bell (if you want it to sound like a tubular bell) maybe should be down an octave as it sounds weak - almost like a low glockenspiele. I'd suggest doubling things more and not looking to fill out the chords with too much harmony and additional lines. TL;DR - keep it simple and write with clarity and purpose. Otherwise, I remember hearing some of your stuff from a while back and this is a pretty big improvement - it's an achievement to write a piece so big and at times you get the chord spacing and all of the harmonies spot on but i think it needs to be reigned in a bit for those times when there's too many lines that don't match up with the chords.

PIECE BY PIECE Here's a piece I finished for the TIGSource musical composition challenge - detective - finding clues - etc! I took the idea of piecing together different clues to find the answer as a compositional game/process. It immediately reminded me of minimalist processes so I kinda sought to make a big minimalist piece that was sort of a detective game. I went about treating each note as a clue and creating different chords out of it slowly, shifting them along, seeing what fits together and what (musical) deductions (chords) one can make. The first section is quite polyrhythmic and shifts into more dissonant chords before finding it's footing with a more consonant chord (one suspect, perhaps!), then after several suspects were made there is a moment in the middle where they all play unison and this is the realisation of the culprit! This is followed by the chord sequence played more locked together and celebratory and the detective thinks about the clues in light of the culprit he has now found - no more dissonances... the piece ends with a repetition of the culprit found unison section.

Congrats on the achievement of making so much good music! I'm listening right now. I haven't entered the OHC yet but really want to. It's at a kinda awkward time for me in the UK (something like a 2am start if i'm not mistaken)! Pretty impressed by the length of some of these! A 7 minuter in an hour is some pretty good time/work ratio (although i've not listened to it yet ). Anyway, thanks for the big load of listening! Good job on the day's work!

Jean Of mArc said it all. Completely agree with all of that. This is a fun mix but there are a few things that stop it from becoming SERIOUS fun! I think the gold saucer theme was better, it snuck up on us! I can't really decide whether i think it should be completely left out. I like it. The lead kinda sucks when it comes in proper. I would say definitely give one of the violinists here a PM - that could lead to something really special - get one of them to play the lead on gold saucer.

This is pretty awesome. Could do with some drum brushes on a snare and a little kick as well BUUUT unless you can get that live maybe it'd ruin the mood. I felt the inclusion of golden saucer was nice buut went on a little too long without allusion to farm boy. It was just like here's farm boy and here's golden saucer, i would have liked to see the two intertwined OR have golden saucer as just a little bridge section and then return to farm boy. AH OK, now here's chocobo theme! I say if you're gonna make this a medley, make it a lot more even, farmboy dominates the beginning too much. This has great charm and you are a whistling god! I think the plucky dobro instrument sounded very robotic and a little out of time with the acoustic guitar. You could try double tracking the acoustic guitar L and R (seeing as it's kinda improvisatory and strummy this might sound a mess but if done well it would sound awesome) and just generally boost levels. Real cool so far though, I look forward to new versions.

www.soundcloud.com/calumbowen i post many things many often and have a pretty balanced but fairly low follower/following ratio.

I like it! It's got a lot of playful chippy stuff going on. It's feel-good and kept my attention the whole time. I don't have an awful lot to suggest, post more!

I'm offer a few standard strategies for changing key. The first and most common way is by using a secondary dominant - meaning, the dominant of the key you're about to change to. So if you're in D and going to E, the dominant of E major is B major so that's the secondary dominant you'd use from D. It sounds pretty cheesy if you're going "blah blah blah the song in D and then stick in a Bmajor chord (it would usually be Bminor in the key of D major) and then go on to play it in E major. The way you make your way you Bmajor can be what stops it from become cliche'd and expected. You could also use a neapolitan chord which is basically the chord a semitone above the one you're trying to get to. So you would stick in an Fmajor to go to the Emajor. What makes it neapolitan (probably...) is that it is in first inversion meaning that the third (of Fmajor, being the note A natural - but i also think it works if you use the fifth in the bass as well) is played in the bass. One way to go from D to E via a neapolitan IS through this progression: D, A, F/A (neapolitan), E. Or using the 5th as the bassnote - D, A/C#, F/C, E! Other things you can do are just immediately jump into the next key with no preparation - sometimes it works! A way you can soften the blow to this is, if you have a verse/chorus/bridge type structure, change key in the bridge or a less important or obvious section so that people don't necessarily notice but when the chorus comes in it has impact but is not an obvious change because you're already in the new key. Another way is to have a diminished chord which starts on the note a semi-tone below the one you're reaching for. So for modulating to E you would the chord would contain the notes D#, F#, A and C. You can change the bottom note as you wish as it creates different feelings for the modulation. Ways to get to that chord could be straight from D into that chord then to E (although that's a little cheesy) or from A as well. I'll end with a final way to get to the secondary dominant (mentioned before) which is to have another dominant chord one semi-tone above it falling to the secondary dominant which kinda softens the blow of just throwing in the secondary dominant. If you're going to E major the dominant is Bmajor7 so Cmajor7 is one semi-tone above that. SO, in D major the progression could be - D, A/C#, C7, B7, E. I didn't know how to pitch this music theory-wise so let me know if 1). you want clarification on any terms or 2). if i'm being patronising! I've probably made a bunch of mistakes in the process of writing this so feel free to correct me anyone as well. Hopefully this gives you some options to play around with but really there's no strict rules but the most common strategy is via the dominant of the key you're trying to move to!

sent a wip for house theme