Part of a piece sounds kinda messy
Hello,
I've composed a piece, but a part of it seems quite messy in D minor while it's not as messy in E minor. The problem is that if I kept it as E minor it would sound a bit less dark and serious, but most importantly the middle part (measures 53-141) wouldn't sound as nice (I composed the first part in E minor and the middle part in D minor, then ran into issues while trying to switch keys so I decided to make it all in one key). What should I do? What can I improve?
This is the link to the piece in E minor: https://musescore.com/user/36996215/scores/6530011/s/jK-nbB?share=copy_…
This is the link to the piece in D minor: https://musescore.com/user/36996215/scores/6529984/s/VA0AMi?share=copy_…
Comments
Well, It's fine like it is, mostly.
Some things to think about.
If this is to be played by a real group, watch instrument ranges. Oboe in particular. And good luck finding your flutes.
If you want a dark and serious sound, consider a string section. That will give you more sonic variety as you switch between instrument sections. Do you ever give the horn player a rest?
As far as key is concerned, It's hard to rely too much on MuseScore playback. There are many theories on the effect of key on the music.
In reply to Well, It's fine like it is,… by bobjp
This isn't really intended to be actually played. The piccolo and timpani go out of range, the oboe and horn barely stay within. I've never considered using strings because they sound quite synthetic, but I'll give them a try. The main problem is that with one key one part sounds kind of messy while the other doesn't, but with another key one part's now fine and the other becomes messy.
There is nothing inherently darker about one key than another, any perceptions you might have about that are purely subjective. There are, however, a lot of very real instrument-specific and culture-specific reasons why some keys might be physical easier for some particular pieces on some particular instruments, s that much is certainly worth keeping in mind.
More importantly, though, would be to sort out whatever issue you had changing keys. If that's what you want to do, you should feel free to do it. If you had trouble figuring out how, let us know what you wanted to do, how you went about it, and what went wrong, and we can try to straighten you out.
In reply to There is nothing inherently… by Marc Sabatella
The issue begins at measure 52. Anything before that had been composed in E minor, and the part after that had been composed in D minor. I tried adding a part in between that would ease the switch between keys (having the second part switch without anything in between sounded weird) but I wasn't able to find anything that would fit the mood and sound nice. I'm also going just for the sound, I'm not aiming to have this be played by anyone.