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Hello everyone! Time for hot debate. Which book do you use a reference when use check your engraving? Behind bars or Stone's and why?

MOLA guidelines, for some reason, say do not list the timpani part. I do not understand the reasoning behind this.

(Verse 1) Welcome to the playground, where the rules are all a lie You say you want a show, but you can’t look me in the eye Fists behind your lipstick, whispers in the hall You want me to be quiet, but I’m breaking down the wall (Pre-Chorus) You dress me up in sugar, but I’m made of something rough You want a perfect puppet, but I’m calling out your bluff (Chorus) I don’t wanna play in your fight club, Don’t wanna bruise for your fake love You want a winner you can pick and choose But I’m not here for you to use I don’t wanna bleed in your fight club, Don’t wanna break for your fake hug You want a trophy you can push around But you’ll never knock me down (Verse 2) Broken crown and knuckles, you love a bloody scene Cheering for the chaos while you’re hiding in between You want a pretty fighter, but I bite back twice as hard I’m not your little secret, I’m your battle-scarred (Pre-Chorus) You paint me with your rumors, but I’m coloring outside You want me by your side, but only if I hide (Chorus) I don’t wanna play in your fight club, Don’t wanna bruise for your fake love You want a winner you can pick and choose But I’m not here for you to use I don’t wanna bleed in your fight club, Don’t wanna break for your fake hug You want a trophy you can push around But you’ll never knock me down (Bridge) You want a show, you want a scream But I’m the fire in your dream Not your game, not your pawn I’m the war you can’t move on (Chorus) I don’t wanna play in your fight club, Don’t wanna bruise for your fake love You want a winner you can pick and choose But I’m not here for you to use I don’t wanna bleed in your fight club, Don’t wanna break for your fake hug You want a trophy you can push around But you’ll never knock me down (Outro) So ring the bell, let the punches fly I’ll still be standing, don’t need to try I don’t wanna play in your fight club But I’ll survive your fight club.

(Verse 1) Candy-colored daydreams, plastic on my tongue You say you wanna be my friend, but only when it’s fun Passing notes in homeroom, secrets in a swirl You want the shine and shimmer, not my shadow world (Pre-Chorus) Sugar on your words, but your eyes say “never” (never) You want my magic, but not me forever (ever) (Chorus) Glitter and sprinkles, you want me for the show Pretty on the surface, but you’ll never know Painted-on smiles, we’re faking through the day But I won’t be your cupcake, just to throw away Glitter and sprinkles, you want me when it’s sweet But I’m not your topping, I’m more than your treat (Verse 2) Plastic tiaras, you love to play pretend (pretend) Pick me for the party, then ghost me in the end Mirrorball reflections, you crave my shine But you can’t taste my darkness, can’t handle mine (Pre-Chorus) Cherry on your mood, but you melt so quick (so quick achu) You want my colors, but not my tricks (Chorus) Glitter and sprinkles, you want me for the show Pretty on the surface, but you’ll never know Painted-on smiles, we’re faking through the day But I won’t be your cupcake, just to throw away Glitter and sprinkles, you want me when it’s sweet But I’m not your topping, I’m more than your treat (Bridge) You want a sugar rush, I want a soul You want a fairy tale, I want control Don’t need your frosting, I’ll make my own Don’t need your crumbs, I’ll build my throne (Chorus) Glitter and sprinkles, you want me for the show Pretty on the surface, but you’ll never know Painted-on smiles, we’re faking through the day But I won’t be your cupcake, just to throw away Glitter and sprinkles, you want me when it’s sweet But I’m not your topping, I’m more than your treat (Outro) So keep your glitter, keep your sprinkles too I’ll find real magic—don’t need you

Thank you! I'm sorry I haven't wrote you back, it's just I'm new here and I didn't know how to reply to messages, and no I don't have this one in the works I just wanted to post this one to see what people thought about it, what do you think @pateceramics?

You have a very sweet voice, and it was very fun seeing the way you had labeled sections of your piano part to get a bit of insight into how you think as you write. I do the same thing on my scores while they are in progress. Lots of little notes to self in the margins about what might come next, or other possibilities if I decide I don't like the current one. The most obvious way to shrink the range would be some key changes for either the highest or lowest vocal sections. You are writing in a style where that would fit in very smoothly.

Hi again @Gabriel Carlisle! Good to see you again! Regarding your score, I have some nit-picks: In the very beginning, French Horns do not read in Tenor Clef (also, are you British? Asking because your score is in concert pitch, and if you had the Horns in F it would alleviate some of the problems that are causing you to use Tenor and Treble Ottava Bassa clef which Horn players don't usually read) In meas. 69 - 70 the F#'s should be Gb's, and same in meas. 77 - 78 F#'s. As far as the music is concerned - brilliant piece! Very affecting modal mixture appropriate for Romantic era music. The melodies are lovely and dance-like as well. Very fitting of a composer hoping to get his foot in the door in ballet music! Many parts are quite jubilant and celebratory - great victorious moods full of tension and release. The ending was a bit drawn out for my taste, but I am biased towards succinct endings that get to the point quickly which is perhaps not a norm common to Romantic era music. Thanks for sharing and good luck in your endeavors!

Hello, I recently finished a piece, Introduction and Waltz, and am wondering if the score is MOLA ready. I'm submitting to a competition thats due on the 10th (parts are not required til a later date). Thanks a lot and feel free to also listen and give feedback!

@Aiwendil Exactly. Those who favor AI do not want it monitor and regulated. But there was incident in holiday contest where someone used suno. Imagine Suno was used in real life. Then what?

Exactly. Completely agreed. It wouldn't be appropriate to post, say, a Haydn string quartet in the "share your work" forums, because it's not your work. In exactly the same sense, it doesn't make any sense to me for someone to post an AI-composed piece here, because it's not the poster's work. What would be the point? Best case, you fool people into thinking it's your own work. What then? People give you feedback, assuming you wrote the piece, and that feedback is totally useless to you since you didn't, in fact, write the piece. I suppose maybe somebody will say, "Good job," to you, and OK, congratulations, you tricked someone into praising you. (Though, I must say, to date, I still have not heard an AI-composed piece of music that I thought was anything better than mediocre). This is exactly what I can't understand. What would anyone expect in response to a piece of AI-generated music? Sure, I could pretend that a human actually wrote it and write a critique of it based on that fiction, but I can't imagine why I would ever do that, nor can I imagine what use that would be to the person who posted it.

This is truly a STUNNING piece of work. There are many spectacular passages. You very adeptly allot enough time for each segment to Blossom. I am not trained in classical music (more pop, now easy listening), and I know classical music has a much wider dynamic range. There are a few sections on my system where I hear distortion. Even though levels are far within safe ranges, mixing something this complex is truly a challenge. I find that after I have set volumes, I go back to do some adjustments to individual instruments and groups of instruments. It certainly gives me a new respect for conductors. I might suggest going through the piece and each section, and shrinking the dynamic range by maybe 10 - 20% if that makes sense to you. I would search out the softest and loudest passages, and notice the db range. Another possible area is change lengths of different movements. Once you have clearly made your point, move on. Again, these are things I notice, and may not apply to you or other composers/listeners. I look at a long piece as a journey through a beautiful English garden. You might have a lot of one particular flower, and then a more exotic plant may be only one flower. You want to employ the yin/yang of things. consonance/disonance - bright/dark - soft/loud. Volume and tonal color changes of an instrument are the equivalent of brightening the spotlight on a certain instrument or motif you want to draw attention to. Employing these and other techniques creates a living, breathing entity that has plenty of variety. The sound palette you use can vary widely - or, in your case, create a consistency that keeps the 'wholeness' of the work stable Again, I cannot overemphasize what a beautiful thing you have accomplished. Keep up the brilliant work. Mark Styles

Follow up: If there is sub-forum for AI, how will that impact the forum as a whole? How do you review entries with AI? See, this is dilemma we are facing. My position stands: We should regulate and monitor if users Suno. Ban it from competitions. And not have a separate sub form AI. If AI is abused, then ban it. If it is used in with other sub forums, @UncleRed99 idea is great. Industry standards should be allowed. As usually, provide a score (if there is one) and an audio file.

This piece is called "Fortitude" for the fact I've developed an amount of it through my years on this planet (or should I call it an 'insane asylum' flying through space). I've been away from YC for a long time - several life changes, medical, and financial issues. The '173' refers to the version of it. It's not really meant to be in the title. I continue to use a large palette of sounds. I use several Virtual Instruments, plus some sounds from sample libraries, and even more exciting 'physical modeling'. The footprint for these sounds is minuscule. Using a Mac Studio 2024 and Logic Pro 11.2.2.

Here is a revised and extended version of this experimental piano duet as well as the score (it ends at measure 99). All feedback is appreciated

To anyone still following this post, I made a new fresh one here. It has the link to the music; would you please provide me some feedback?

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback

Ah, I didn’t catch the reference at first, so your comment felt out of the blue and a little like mocking tbh. Now it makes sense. Rather creative

Did you get the joke? Your title reminded me of “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” so I wrote a small parody.

@Vonias I don’t think anyone mentioned this, but it looks to me like you made the initial score in MuseScore (the font looks similar, and you wrote it on a “piano”). I noticed because you talked about the aeuouae, and it seemed you tried putting that in a descant and had trouble with the ai “replicating it.” Then you input that into Suno trying to get a close audio rendering of it (you said 100% audio input), and it gave you something similar, and that produced the second score which was rhythmically correct with the audio and had correct parts (SATB and Organ). This corrects any notion that he completely used ai, and didn’t use any compositional skill. @AngelCityOutlaw I was mostly commenting to try to help you with the vowels. As a Catholic who sang chant, the “aeuouae” are actually the last vowels of the words saeculorum amen. Almost every chant ended with the “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit…” prayer, of which the final words are “forever and ever, amen,” or “saecula saeculorum amen.” It would be different from the tradition to try to use those vowels as a descant apart from the words, or those two words apart from ending the song with the whole prayer (starting with Gloria Patri). The later choral tradition was just to end pieces with a longer, flowery “Amen,” so you could try that:) Cheers, and happy composing.

Although I hold that AI music is still technically music, however unethically created it is, AI music is certainly not composed. It's more so generated, and this site is arguably about the composition of music, not the music itself (although, it seems that many users haven't grasped this). For that reason, my mind is most open to being changed on Question 2. Currently, I've selected the second option—creating a sub-forum and barring AI submissions to be entered into competitions—but if someone was to push hard for banning all AI music on account of it being against the spirit of being a composer, then it's not like I'm gonna push back too hard. However, I'm sympathetic to the idea that AI is here and will be here for a while, if not permanently, so banning it outright feels a little close-minded when there's still things to be learned from it (more socially and economically than practically), just not strictly composition. I'm seeing a lot of exceptions being made for vocals/SFX creation after something has been written and making rules that are clear and foolproof to distinguish that is going to be hell, but I think it's better to have the word of another person as to the extent AI was used rather than just trying to use an AI checker or a filter. As pointed out before, those things are really murky and spotty. I don't really care about the “emotions” behind it, because—let's be real—tons of music gets written for a paycheck with no emotion or humanity. That's not a measurable quality, as far as I'm concerned. I also don't really care about the amount of effort or time put into a piece; some things are just easier for different people. As for feedback, have you seen Google AI? It could tell me the sky is blue and I'd look out my window to go check. No way in hell is that level of intelligence going to have reasonable critiques beyond just telling me what Roman numerals are being used, which isn't analysis in the first place.

@chopin Glad you liked it! Yeah, the whispers of the old theme coming back was a really captivating idea for me, but the best part is that I'm sure another talented analyst could analyze it in a completely different way than I did! @Luis Hernández Thank you! @Thatguy v2.0 Nonsense, the fact that you're able to even listen to it—let alone enjoy it—means that you're worth your salt! And yes, it's why I have so much solo cello rep... I can actually play it. 🙂 @Wieland Handke Thank you so much, that's a great image! And wonderfully wholesome for something that be construed as being so eerie. My respects and humble thanks to all of you!

Hey, this is great and has a lot of potential; I hope you keep writing! Lots of very cool moments and bits like the way you harmonize the very first “Shew me thy ways, O Lord”; vii˚7/vi–vi? How cool is that, especially since it's a lot more harmonically standard the second time around. I'll mainly focus here on “Shew me...” since it's a little easier to parse the score quickly: 1. m. 5's two-beat long semitonal dissonance is already striking enough, but having the suspension resolve upwards is even more noticeable. Not a strict problem, per se; it's just maybe a little overly noticeable. 2. m. 7, V7 without the third except in an ornamental figure, approached by 4-5 motion in first species. 3. mm. 8–9, “Shew“ is three quarter notes for a one-syllable word. There's a couple other measures where you have one syllable sung on repeated notes. 4. m. 11, unnecessary whole rest break in V1. 5. mm. 14, 17 & 22, similar issue to Point 2. Also, unnecessary breaking of the quarter rest in vocalist's part in m. 14. 6. m. 26, “O Lord” breaks the more natural setting of the scansion you had in mm. 10–11. 7. Keep “teach” as one word spelled correctly (don't double the “e”). 8. I would add some bowings; some are great, like the one you have in m. 13 in V2, but take a little time to make sure that the most natural style (down bow at the beginning of the measure, especially with all of these quarter notes) is preserved unless marked otherwise. Of course, Points 2 and 4 can be fixed with a continuo part with figures; I heard it in the background, but it just seemed to double the celli and bassi. Again, it's exciting to see where this could go! Solid start!

Thank you all for your feedback. I have nothing to disagree with, and I will certainly put the tips into practice if I ever rework on the piece.

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“I’m beginning to write a small oratorio, Everywhere there’s notes! Take a look at the fifths and tenths, some intervals are immense, At half past three my laptop screen’s aglow!”