Mike

I think that snippet sums up the way in which you compose in a remarkably succinct manner.

What I tend to find with your pieces is that there's the odd section which I find really interesting, then the odd section which counteracts the interest I experienced previously.

Fundamentally, I think it's the blurred definitions of "atonal" and "wrong notes". When you're working with material which really is entirely removed from what we would normally consider Western tonality, you do it very well. For example, the opening motif in this piece (on the clarinet and then the flute). Sounds like it could have come straight from Ligeti's Chamber Concert for 13 Instrumentalists.

Then, at around 1:02, you move towards greater consonance, mixed with some discordant melodic material which, despite being discordant, still works. (Kind of like how Vaughan Williams develops the folk melodies in his works)

But at around 1:36, you move onto something which sounds like it wants to be tonal, but isn't. There's no score, but by ear it sounds as though you have tonal material stacked up in multiple keys. And not in an Ives-like bitonal fashion, either.

It's this "schizophrenia" - the uncertainty as to whether you're trying to be tonal or atonal - which will confuse some listeners. Almost like an outsider sitting down in India to play Raga music, only to use notes not from the pentatonic scale. Within the context of what one expects, or is conditioned to recognise, it doesn't work, and people won't find it accessible.

In order to write truly "atonal" music, it helps first to understand how exactly you are flying in the face of these once-established rules.

I hope that makes sense. If it came across as a personal attack in any way then please ask me to re-phrase, because that was certainly not my intention.

Have you been teaching yourself some orchestration, by the way? I love how you've spread some of the sonorities.