03-07-2017, 03:37 PM
(03-07-2017, 03:01 PM)Rohan_Casukhela Wrote: ...My approach (to my ears) sounds so stale, it is essentially "add a layer of complexity after another without it sounding muddy,"...
It's not as stale as you think. I think you're suffering from a common problem that you've gone over the parts of your piece several times, so they've kind of lost their magic to you. Honestly, I think you're closer than you think to the sound that you want. I found your core musical ideas delightful, only lacking some refinement and more drawn out exploration.
Now that I've given your piece another good listen, this time with a decent set of headphones, may I suggest adding something with higher range overtones to the theme at 1:35? Give it some well placed glockenspiel accents, or piccolo runs, or something on the higher octaves of the xylophone or piano. In fact, you don't even have to do it right away; you could lengthen out that section, starting with what you have, and then do one or more repeats that explore these suggestions. At that point you may find that you have some material that stands on it's own, so you could try dropping most of the movement in the strings section, and then maybe allowing two instruments to comingle their parts as a simple melody/countermelody duo.
Anyway, there are plenty of things that you could do with this, I think you're on a good route to where you want to go. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with your workflow for getting started, I just think you need to keep traveling further down the path to find what you're looking for.