Dawn You've got some nice content here compositionally. I do think that you should work on writing some profound melodies instead of orchestrated harmony and textures which you've already shown you can do very well. The thing about samples at times, I can hear you are using primarily EWQL right? Correct me if I'm wrong about that, but anyways there are some negative side effects have on people who compose using samples, and you kind of lose that element of orchestration techniques because we would rely soley on how the samples sound instead of making good orchestration choices, that would also apply to real live players, I know it may not be important to people who never aspire to write for a real orchestra, but good orchestration techniques are extremely effective in mock-up productions like this one.
As for the "complex music theory composition" feel, aurally, I cannot hear anything too complex except some direct modulation, and a pretty average use of harmonic tensions. Anything that isn't a chord tone is just color, passing tones, or harmonic tensions. There isn't anything particularly complex here. Game music that is simplistic and minimal can have very complex musical elements such as modal interchange that actually sounds pretty "simple" or "normal" to someone who isn't knowledgeable in music theory or composition. For example, a good harmonic idea to try out is the use of minor iv in a major key, and things written more in a modal style doesn't make it more complicated, in fact writing modal music is actually taking a step back in music theory as modal music was from some of the early periods of music when things were just getting started; composers from the early medieval period and Renaissance (Perotin, Hildegard, Dufay to name a few) did some stuff like that sounded extremely complex but in a different sense.
Too much rambling on here sorry. I can hear some of the things you have done that was you trying to explore more outside of the normal game type music and that's great, more people should do that these days, and this would fit well in a video game. I would just love to hear a very strong melody next time! (Maybe the composing job didn't call for if this was for one, I don't really know)
Also for everyone else who knows music theory really well it would be great to see some of your compositional notes so we can kind of get an idea of what you were trying to do here, and it is great to see how you apply what you know musically in your work.
Just as an example I have one I recently posted, I give some notes and even post the orchestral score if you want to use kind of what I do with my descriptions as a template for your own:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/liste n/510038
If and when you reply to this, can you PM me your response as well, I might not get notified if you reply.
Thanks and best of luck to you on the contest and any of your future musical endeavors!
4 stars for some solid work!
Birthday 20 