"I love your melody! You use it throughout on many different instruments. The variety of orchestration keeps me interested the whole time.

I think a good reverb would help to make the beginning sound a bit smoother for the strings and piano. Two lines then three lines at about 15 seconds. Then four. Very nice build in the strings! At :23-24 there’s a clash you might want to address.

That takes us to section two.

At :33, consider adding a bassoon with the low strings on the melody. It can fold beautifully with the sound of the strings without overpowering them.

At :39 – nice addition of Brass (Horns and Trumpets?)

At :50 going into the piano. You should make that transition smooth, perhaps by adding a reverse cymbal that cresc till it goes to the piano. Only 2 beats of that will work fine.

Back down to the piano, then Horn melody with strings.

The chord at 55 sounds far too jazzy for the rest of this piece.

Is that a bass drum (ethnic) or a timp at :57? If it’s timp use a harder stick sound, if it’s an ethnic drum consider doubling it with other ethnic drums.

At 1:06 the addition of staccato strings is excellent. The low brass coming in here works very well too.

At 1:15 I like having just the stac. higher strings and the low counter line, laying in wait for the melody’s return. Trumpet on the melody at 1:23 is an excellent choice.

At 1:37 I’d add a sus cymbal to soften the transition.

Nice orchestration of trumpet/horn with harp and then strings. The sustained string line gets in the way of the brass counterlined here. I’d take 10-20 percent off the volume of the strings.

At 2:12 the timp should come in softly with a cresc. it comes in too strongly.

You now double the trumpet melody with the horn, EXCELLENT variation of the orchestration, and now a medium-low line in the strings.

Is that a tuba at 2:27? Excellent choice if it is. There should be basses along with it.

2:34 – Nice variation of the basic material.

2:51 - Good ostinato in the strings with a low horn melody, but add something for the transition.

3:09 – LOVE THE MODULATION!

Overall I think what it is missing the most is full chords. Either with clarinets and bassoon, or horns or trombones as held chords or rhythmically. It’s missing the middle, as I’ve said before, the nougat, the butterscotch. I also think you could use more ww’s in a few spots with a few frills for the music.

This is heavy on the brass and strings, a bit light on the winds.

However, this is an excellent job in general with great development of the use of the melody, which is an excellent melody!

Very well done!"

"Firstly, congratulations on what you described as your first full-length orchestral piece. This is a huge achievement and I really hope you enjoyed the experience! You have some fantastic ideas, your sampled orchestration is really strong, and you have done a great job at exploring the orchestra. I hope my feedback will allow you to take this even further.

It's a great idea to imagine a story when you're composing, and your idea definitely provides the opportunity to explore a variety of emotions, which in turn lets you explore different styles and orchestration techniques.

Well done for coming up with a distinctive thematic idea and exploring it throughout. Within the first 10 seconds the theme is already familiar to me, great work! I love how you're passing it to different instruments in call and response right from the beginning.

This next thought may be too on the nose – it's only an idea, take it or leave it! Your story is about a mouse, so I feel like you could really lean into creating his character at the beginning. The pizz string line definitely feels mouse-like to me, the heavier lower strings it interacts with don't. Could you keep the opening lighter & more delicate to evoke the image of a mouse? The pizz strings work well! You could also explore short articulations in the woodwinds (as you do later). You could also build a sense of anticipation before the adventure – magical, curious, a little nervous maybe? I'm thinking delicate high string pedals/trems for example.

You were absolutely right to move away from the first theme at 0:23; this avoids it becoming too monotonous. It's a lovely lyrical idea which provides excellent contrast to the pizz/staccato opening theme. It's also a beautiful harmonic progression which feels well thought out.

0:31 – beautiful string countermelody. Can you smooth out the entry of this line? It comes in a bit abruptly. Use your modulation/expression automation and fade it in slightly.

When your opening theme returns at 0:40, really great that you're passing it around different instruments again. I love how you take the last 2 notes of the theme at 0:55 to transition to the next section. Great work – I'd love to see more of this fragmenting of ideas!

1:00 – Percussive hit and trem strings - my first thought was DANGER! But your horn melody said, no, heroic adventure! I don't know if this was your intention but I really liked that moment of uncertainty.

The tremolo strings feel a little flat dynamically. Use the modwheel to get a little movement in there, even if they're supposed to stay at one volume - it helps it sound less like a sample. I do feel they could come down in volume around 1:06 when the basses come in.

This section could be a great opportunity for you to vary your theme. How about a minor variation to add a little more danger? Saying that, it sounded like you were about to embark on passing the same theme around again, but the basses extended the theme instead. This is a great technique.

Great use of brass stabs for punctuation here. There's a real sense of energy and adventure.

1:23 Your bass line is getting lost in the mix here. It provides a lot of driving energy so I'd like to hear it cut through more. I'm not sure from just listening, but it sounds like you may have sustained brass notes in the same register? TOP TIP! If you want a line to stand out, make sure there aren't other instruments playing the exact same notes (unless they're doubling the same line).

An easy way to check this in your DAW is to open the piano roll of the instrument playing the melody and all the instruments playing in the same register. If there is something sustaining the same notes in a chord for example, either delete or re-orchestrate. Can you move the sustained notes up an 8va for example?

What else could you do to bring out that line more? Could you double it with low brass in unison/8vas? Maybe a shorter articulation would give it more bite too.

1:36 – I love how this repeated note (which feels like a variation on the two note transition at 0:55) punctuates the next section. Again, great contrast created with lovely lyrical version of your main theme, well done. Could you thicken this out harmonically? The 8va doubling is lovely, but could you use 3rds or 6ths the second time round?

2:10 Beautiful! I so feel warm and happy. Lovely melodic interaction between the string sections and well thought out harmonic progression.

2:27 – Those short stabs are really well programmed. Well done!

I love how you're filling out the orchestration in this final section. Great use of brass and percussion. Is the woodwind in there? You could get them doubling up on some of the lines or adding some little flourishes for an even fuller sound.

I'm not so convinced by the short cellos 3:06 – they feel a bit jolty and pulled me out.

3:20 – Great build of drama and tension through dissonance and trem strings here. It's the first real extended sense of threat we've had and I'd like to have had a little more (I know the submission is supposed to be around 3 mins). I was honestly very surprised by the ending! I think you ended on a consonant chord, but the dissonant trems were still hanging over, so it feels like a dramatic cliffhanger. Was this your intention? I was hoping for a happy end!"

"First, I want to thank you for submitting your music! What an incredibly dramatic, tense piece that effectively lives up to its name! You’ve done an incredible job writing in a way that matches this kind of style. Everything from the rumbling low-end synth and percussion, to the dark/dramatic brass, to the melodic, touching woodwinds. Your vision for this piece is incredibly clear.

That said, it seems like you have all these great ideas but they aren’t necessarily as cohesive as we’d like. Roughly around 1:36, we start to hear more and more elements stacked upon one another and it becomes a bit difficult for our ear to understand what should be foreground vs background. Logically, I understand that you’ve repeated a previous phrase with the melody now in the strings and gave that rising movement to the brass. However, the balance across the ensemble is making it harder to know which aspect our ear should pay attention to. So the mix then feels muddy and some elements get lost.

I recommend two options to hopefully create a bit more clarity!

- First, fine-tune and adjust your dynamic and expression levels throughout each instrument or section to make sure you find a more natural balance for your foreground. And once you do so, you can then subtly automate the overall section volume to lower those background elements!

- Second, make sure you’re not overcrowding any one frequency range. A lot of low end instruments, especially those active percussive hits, tend to leave a resonating rumble that lead to a lot of low-end build up. Then any instruments that share a similar frequency range only add to the build up causing an overall muddy sound. So in your EQ, carve out and reduce frequencies that don’t serve the instrument.

Now, I liked your use of the string ostinato because it sets the pace for this race against time. However, I’d suggest switching up the ostinato to vary the feeling a little bit. At the moment, you’re alternating between two notes per chord. This is a great start but as you progress through, it slowly becomes a bit stale and predictable. With a piece that feels so dangerous and is constantly changing, it would make sense for the ostinato to do the same. Maybe you could introduce an arpeggio to expand the chord being outlined. Maybe you could change the meter or rhythm of strings while keeping the melody the same.

I’d even love to hear more of a drastic change across string sections. You mentioned that towards the end, you passed the ostinato on to the cellos and basses. But to keep interest, I’d like to see you make the change much earlier on in the piece. You always want to ask yourself how you can introduce new ways to vary the sounds.

You’ve actually done a beautiful job doing so harmonically. The piece changes tone throughout and it keeps me as the listener on edge- again, living up to this dangerous, dramatic love story. But we want a full picture- think not just how you can change tonally, but rhythmically, texturally, etc.

Thank you again for submitting your assignment! Overall, this was a fantastic piece to listen to and I’m excited hear more of your work in the coming weeks!"