Legend of Zelda Overture

[Evan Arnett]

Hi guys, I'm new here. I'm a 23 year old indie game and film composer and classical composition student. I've always been a huge Zelda fan, and decided to create an orchestral arrangement. It's conceived as a piece of dramatic concert music that could be performed by a real orchestra. Rather than being based on one single Zelda tune, I took a few of my favorite themes, developed and combined them. So the point was more to communicate an overall feeling of "Zelda" with my own musical fingerprint, hence the label "overture".

I'm excited to be joining this community of fantastic musicians, and am looking forward to the feedback I get!

http://www.evanarnett.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/zeldaoverture.mp3

[Lemonectric]

I don't know why some of the best remixes can get ignored like this.

I think this is pretty amazing. Arrangement is well done; I like how you've used different moods to convey the overall Zelda feeling. The sound quality is great, too, though I'm not exactly the best person to judge that.

I don't really have critique; I was just getting sick of seeing this excellent piece get pushed down the board. I know it hasn't been too long...but every second I don't have a review feels like hours. I thought maybe other people feel the same way.

Edit: Someone cooler noticed the topic. Mission accomplished. You can pay me later.

[DrumUltimA]

Wow, you sure are a composer. Where do/did you study?

Your samples are great. Especially in the solo lines, you managed to get a lot of expression out of the instruments. Beautiful

The opening is very dark, nice and mysterious, and the contrast to the next, greener section is great. My one gripe with the second section is that I'd prefer to hear more bass/pulse than I do. Perhaps introduce a bass line or a bit of rhythmic percussion at 1:28? I feel like this is supposed to drive, but I don't feel much push rhythmically, especially considering the string ostinato never really changes. Which I think sounds great the way it is, I just think you need a little more.

1:42 sounds great. Nice and dark. The thing I'm really impressed with is how clear your colors are. I feel like the landscape gets really foggy and dreary, all banjo-kazooie haunted house style. I also really like the chimes/timpani call and response in this section

The sunrise (as I see it at least ) in 2:40 is great. Awesome. And then recapitulation. Nice chime motif

I think in general, it wouldn't hurt to be even more complicated. You don't have that much counterpoint and none of your harmony is very complex... I feel like you could take more liberties if you wanted. But aside from that, I feel like you've got a very well put together arrangement on your hands. Well done

[Evan Arnett]

Thanks so much for the nice things you guys said!

Hylian- Thanks for getting me noticed. : )

Drum- I studied music at a local community college for a couple of years, and then transferred into the University of Texas at Arlington. It's not a really prestigious school for music or anything, but my teachers are all really good people. You have a great ear! I know exactly what you mean about the texture thinning out at 1:28. I mean, that's when it gets exciting, so it should feel MORE, not LESS intense than the mysterious introduction. That ostinato is, I think, written in 3 part harmony with vln 1 and 2 on the top two lines, vlas on the bass, and cello doubling an octave below (or maybe playing the chord roots, I forget) I guess I could go back and rewrite it in 4 part harmony with appropriate doublings and the CELLO taking the bass line instead, with the Cbass an octave below that. Or maybe the strings could just play sustained with the brass taking the rhymthic staccato ostinato. As for percussion, a snare line would proably make the most sense there, but I don't want it to sound cheesy, so maybe I'll see if I can introduce it halfway through or something.

Oh yeah, samples are EastWest Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra

As for the complex harmony and counterpoint stuff, well, I've taken all the classes, but I guess I still have a lot to learn as a composer as far as actually integrating all that into my music successfully. : )

[DJ_ReFluX]

I must agree with DrumUltimA... You are a great composer... I'd like to be like you!

I'm composing for a year now... But I never had such imagination as you had to compose that masterpiece...

You have my congratulations ^^ Keep going at it

[Sil]

I guess I could go back and rewrite it in 4 part harmony with appropriate and the CELLO taking the bass line instead, with the Cbass an octave below that.

What you need is a model. Whether you’re starting out composing, or have been composing for many years, you should focus on finding models in classical or film repertoire to give you ideas on how to structure and texturize your work. Don’t expect to come up with some completely new and revolutionary feat of orchestration on your own. Ever hear "Good composers borrow, great composers steal"? Well, let’s just say that I myself could be going away for a long time.

Anyway, what you’re missing at 0:51 and throughout the ostinato is a bass foundation. You could just simply put a pizz bass down there on the root of each chord and it’d make a world of difference. Then you can make it slightly rhythmic, for example, with pizz on beats 1 and 4 of each measure, so you’re essentially doing a 1-5-1-5 march thing, except it’s not 1-5. Start small, then build it up with percussion: timpani, tambourine, snare, all that good stuff. Moments such as those at 2:23 with how the timpani comes in there are really great. But never neglect the pizz bass, it’s like 50% of what they play these days.

Everything you have here sounds great so far. Make it longer. Add more winds.

[Evan Arnett]

I first heard the whole "great composers steal" as attributed to Stravinsky, which is funny given his incredible innovations. I've also heard it attributed to Picasso, replacing "composer" with "artist". Anyway!

I know what you're talking about re: pizz bass, I'm sure I've heard that before here and there. I tried it in the track...and it works beautifully!

I also went back and listened to how Kondo handles the percussion in OOT Hyrule field and MM Termina field, and I've got some good ideas.

I might add some more Twilight Princessy stuff at the end, too.

An update is coming!

What you need is a model. Whether you’re starting out composing, or have been composing for many years, you should focus on finding models in classical or film repertoire to give you ideas on how to structure and texturize your work. Don’t expect to come up with some completely new and revolutionary feat of orchestration on your own. Ever hear "Good composers borrow, great composers steal"? Well, let’s just say that I myself could be going away for a long time.

Anyway, what you’re missing at 0:51 and throughout the ostinato is a bass foundation. You could just simply put a pizz bass down there on the root of each chord and it’d make a world of difference. Then you can make it slightly rhythmic, for example, with pizz on beats 1 and 4 of each measure, so you’re essentially doing a 1-5-1-5 march thing, except it’s not 1-5. Start small, then build it up with percussion: timpani, tambourine, snare, all that good stuff. Moments such as those at 2:23 with how the timpani comes in there are really great. But never neglect the pizz bass, it’s like 50% of what they play these days.

Everything you have here sounds great so far. Make it longer. Add more winds.

[Evan Arnett]

Okay! I'm pretty sure it's finished now. I filled out the bass and added percussion, taking ideas from the in-game arrangement and doing variations. I also added a bit more exciting stuff at the end that takes some ideas from the Twilight Princess orchestral peices and the orchestral game concert arrangement. I also redid the way I mastered it so that it's not so completely saturated by reverb and is panned a little better.

Here it is!

http://www.evanarnett.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/zeldaoverture.mp3

You guys think it's ready to submit?

-Evan

[Karth]

Dude, you're my hero. I've always wanted to write elaborate medleys like this, and you did it SO well. I'm not exactly a veteran, but I've been here long enough to know what's garbage and what's goddamn good. And this, sir, is the latter.

If you're ever up for some classical collaboration, and you're willing to condescend a little, please look me up.

Once again, incredible work. It'll be going on my playlist whether it makes it past the Judges' Panel or not.

[Evan Arnett]

Ah, thank you so much! That makes me feel good!

I just found out that the file is .5 MB too large! Doh! The limit is supposed to be 6 MB. So I guess I'll need to render it down to 128kbps. Darn, I really prefer 192!

Dude, you're my hero. I've always wanted to write elaborate medleys like this, and you did it SO well. I'm not exactly a veteran, but I've been here long enough to know what's garbage and what's goddamn good. And this, sir, is the latter.

If you're ever up for some classical collaboration, and you're willing to condescend a little, please look me up.

Once again, incredible work. It'll be going on my playlist whether it makes it past the Judges' Panel or not.

[Tensei]

Variable Bitrate Encoding is your friend.

Anyway, great mix, and definitely good enough for an OCR-submission. This should get accepted.

[Liontamer]

Check out the completed ReMix here: http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01628/

Please give it your review here: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=12371