DEEP 8 COMPOSING PROCESS

You're quite good at composing ambient and creepy pieces. It's quite hard to criticize ambient pieces because they don't have to have a real structure to sound good. And if you can't think of a fitting melody you can still just throw some atonality in or don't compose a melody at all. I guess the art in those would be to make the listener "see" actual landscapes or places. And I actually liked your pieces a lot because I could imagine actual places and although the pieces were rather atonal they didn't seem random.

In the first version of Soul Tension for example the part around 20 seconds sounded too random, like if someone would just press random notes on the piano. But you changed it in the end which was a good decision in my opinion.

I like how you used the drum in Soul Sketch. It sounded like footsteps which enhanced the atmosphere. I imagined that those were mine footsteps while I was walking through an abandoned house. Then suddenly a piano starts playing...
Maybe an echoing sound would enhance this feeling. But maybe you didn't intend to make it sound like footsteps and I'm just rambling nonsense ^^

I don't think I can say much to your first piece. Except that I don't like the sound samples of those tremolo strings but that's not your fault but the fault of the VST I guess ^^

I actually had a similar problem. It was rather hard for me to compose pieces in major keys but that changed fortunately. A way to break your habits would be to try to give yourself challenges or let others give you challenges. Like for example "Compose a piece utilizing the Magical 8bit Plug and some chip tune drums" (this was an actual challenge which I got from a fellow composer) or "create an action track only with drums". This will definitely widen your horizon because you will be forced to try out new things.

Now to the piece:
I wouldn't exactly call it rhythmic. It has drums but not necessarily a rhythmic structure. But I guess it's still more rhythmic than the other ones ^^
I really like the chimes/vibraphone (I'm not quite sure which instrument is used) in this one. Especially at the part around 0:36 - 0:48.
The only thing that bothers me is how the higher piano part stands out. It's mostly because the chimes and the ride seem to be reverbed and because of the kind of sound this flute produces. The piano in contrast is rather clear and has no reverb effect applied to it at all. That's why it sounds rather off and doesn't really fit to the rest. Maybe adding a reverb to the piano would solve the problem. That's at least my opinion ^^

Keep on composing! You'll get better the more pieces you compose!

The problem was figuring out a nice melody and structure in major key, not not knowing how to locate them. I don't want to boast or anything but my grades in music class were always pretty good so I guess I should know how to locate the different keys ^^

But if you can't locate them then that's probably the reason why you are writing rather atonal pieces. Some music theory never hurts and it might make composing easier (especially if you want to try out different stiles). But I think that composing without knowing much about music theory doesn't necessarily make someone a worse composer. It would definitely help analyzing works from other composers and you may understand better which techniques cause which effects but what distinguishes a bad composer from a good composer isn't necessarily the amount of music theory knowledge. I'd still recommend learning the basics though ^^

The Magical 8 Bit Plug is a VST (basically an instrument sampler) which you can download for free and use in Cubase. It's not bad for composing some chip tune pieces or tunes which sound like they might be from the NES era. I'm using Cubase too by the way ^^

I'm looking forward to hearing the improved piece!

Do you mean "schräg" with oblique? I think I know what you mean though.

I actually think that it sounds better than before. The piano definitely doesn't stand out that much anymore and it fits to the rest of the piece. One of the main reasons why some might think that this piece sounds weird is because it's rather atonal and not many people like atonal pieces (I prefer tonal pieces too btw but I can still see the beauty in atonal pieces. Especially if those pieces are for a horror game ^^).

Here's a nice site for learning music theory which I found a while ago (and it's even in German :D): http://www.lehrklaenge.de/
Here's another German one which focuses more on the basics: http://www.musiklehre.at/
You'll also probably be able to find lots of books about music theory in your local library.
I've also been planning to give composition (focusing on video game music) and music theory lessons. While I still don't feel confident enough to teach video game music composition I think I would be able to help you out in regard to music theory if your up to it.

About the Drum piece: I'm sure that you'll learn a lot about composing for drums after you've tried to make an actual drum piece, so don't give up!

It's nice to hear that you haven't given up on composing!

Your new track actually kind of reminds me of some of Alias Conrad Coldwoods pieces, style wise. Especially Unreasonable Behaviour (link). Mostly because of the combination of this kind of beat and the choir. I wonder if your girlfriend was able to sing to it. I wasn't able to imagine this as a song that easily.

An easier way than learning pieces from sheet music is learning it with Synthesia. The problem is that you would have to find a Synthesia-video of the piece which you want to learn (this (link) is how it'd look like by the way) or a MIDI file which you can load up in the program yourself. But learning how to read sheet music is still something I'd really recommend. This way it will be easier to analyse pieces (if you ever want to).

The English word for "Tonarten" is "scales". I'm going to send you my E-Mail per PM. This way you can just send me your questions without spamming this forum ^^
Choir (A) means that the singers sing "Aaah", not that every note is an A. It would be pretty boring if they would just be able to sing one note ^^

Feel free to ask anything if you have any questions and keep on composing! I'll be rooting for you. And good luck with your game too!