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Hello Markus, thank you for your advice. I'll edit the post with your suggestions. My style is quite minimalistic (I love gorecky, Part etc). Probably this will be the II MVT of this SQ. The First should be quite more Vivace and less Tonal, the last will probably be a Fugue-Corale one, but i've never tried to compose one of them. Will see if it comes well. Thanks again.

Hey Mark (again!), Firstly, I love the tutti sections; they remind me of Chopin's concerto's for piano, particularly those grand tutti sections in the minor mode. As for my criticism, I have a few things to say: You have some interesting ideas to work with in those orchestral parts. At present, many of the parts are written in unison with a straightforward homophonic texture. That's okay for the time being, but you may wish to revisit to add complexity & color. The homophonic texture in places needs something more interesting. Bar 39-46, for example, is basically and entirely chord I (c minor). this sort of thing becomes monotonous without some change. The solo piano parts are a little underwhelming, particularly in contrast to the grand tutti sections. I notice too that in the initial sections, the two clefs are written largely in unison. This is Ok to an extent, but too much of this becomes uninspired and we long for some complexity and nuance. Towards the latter sections of the score, the initial momentum you established falls away and, to be frank, I lost interest. I am no stranger to the complexity of writing such large scale works. So kudos for you for trying. No doubt you will continue refining it for years to come. You do have some great ideas to work on!

Hey Filippo, Thanks for posting with us. You will get much better attention if you post your music here in the following way: Explain your intentions and approach to the music you have made Attach a PDF & MP3 of the score in question, rather than pointing us to a third party link. Make sure also that the PDF is of high enough quality to enable analysis. Listening to the opening, your music sounds minimalist. I like what I hear so far... :)

Hey Henry! This is actually a very clever piece! I loved the wit infused in the instrumental dialogues. My only question: was it intended for the movement to be predominantly - even entirely - in the minor mode? You see, I am largely familiar with music that contains a balance between the minor and major modes, which I understand as integral to narrative. Effective narratives in music tends to connect with human experience of this world, which generally centre on conflict and resolution - much like plot in literature. Switching between the major and minor modes is quite often integral to the movement between those two states; and the more skilled a composer, the more compelling the story telling. So, stepping back from the music itself (which I repeat is excellently done), what is the story you are telling?

Hello, i'm new in this community. I'd appreciate some feedbacks for my new project. I'm not a composer, neither i've studied any advanced musical theory (just the basics of harmony and counterpoint). https://youtu.be/plYqa90qEbQ?si=RW37P57Ywl95hg8O. This is the link where i posted the composition. Hope you like it, if you have any suggestion just write a comment under the video, I don't usually use Discord. Thank you!

First time properly hearing your music, Mark! Have to say you captured my interest with this delightful work. I feel the structure falls into place very well. I did feel the ending could have been more interesting but overall it works. Importantly, it feels French! Looking at your writing in more detail, it seems to largely be homophonic, right? Is this unique to this work? Very well done, Mark.

Hey Tristan, Apologies for the late reply to your request for comments. I listened to the majority of it and evidently there is a lot to unpack. I see @MK_Piano has already done a great job with the technicalities and orchestration, and even made some voice leading suggestions where needed. I don't feel I can or should add anything further to that. I am, however, interested in your inspiration for such a mammoth of a project - what were your influences and aspirations? And how do you feel it fits together? My won impression is that, stylistically, it seems a quite erratic. With all due respect, the part writing and orchestration seems a little immature and makes me wonder whether you are ready for writing such a large scale work. That said, your harmonic progressions, in several places, sound influenced by the Viennese and proto-romantic schools. I am well acquainted with Mozart's piano concerto's, for example, and I heard some resemblances.

1. It is good to use triad make full if possible. 2. Note that continuously from start to end for phrase, make characteristique for rhythm and line. Every VOCI(Deutschen) is good to be independant and irregular or having variaty. Don't use same rhythm too continuously in same VOCI. It makes sounds very poor.

Couldn't resist giving it a go I have taken your outer parts only, which I suggest be your focus at first before attempting 4 part harmony. My suggestion is not perfect by any means, but be instructive on how you might better approach voice leading in the outer parts. Composers of past tended to write the outer parts first before adding the inner ones. This makes sense, because the outer parts will form the skeleton that you will be working with. If you have nailed the outer parts, in that it sounds interesting and coherent, then the rest should follow suit. Inversely, you will be working with a shaky foundation... Example.mp3 Example.pdf

I'd like to listen your work in real instrument. Very Very good stuff and architecture what I've never thought.

I think It sounds making me have a bright feeling. Short length of work make me demands more parts. I'd like to hear your work more. 1. If You want not to make audience don't be listened your work's phrase cut by progress, All of VOCI(I don't know this word in english) must not be ended and started with consiquently. 2. If your work's style is not flaoting tonal, tonal's All of part must be related. and All of phrase is good to have architecture of clause in every phrase.Ex=>(a-a'-b-a) or (a-a'-b-a) + (a-b-a-b). Too many stuff is not required. Recycle the stuff what already used. I'd like to my advice may be help for your works. Thank you for making me listened your work!

Without going into detail, there are a few things to consider: Consecutives: If your intention is to maintain independence between the parts (which seems to be the case) then you should note the parallel octaves. I saw several between the outer and inner parts. My pointing this out is less to say your part writing is ‘wrong’ than there are missed opportunities to enrich the voice leading/harmony, especially when two voices move in the same direction to the same note without apparent justification. In on instance where there are parallels, for example (bar 7) the A7 chord initially lacks the third which is not great. Your choice of harmony, combined with melodic writing could be improved. Bar 8, for example, which contains only the tonic chord then proceeds to another tonic chord on the first beat of bar 9. I would personally look for opportunities for contrary motion where the upper voice is ascending. For example, with the ascent to the D in the first violin, perhaps the bass could descend to a B flat instead leading to a VI chord. I haven’t checked to see if my suggestion works, but try to think in that way. Allow your melodic writing to flow naturally while considering the range of voice leading opportunities (that is, the movement of the other parts) your writing permits.

As a pianist, those chords also impossible to play. Not even Rachmoninov would have wrote chords in that fashion! I think you need to carefully look at scores that use the harp, @Musicman_3254. Adler provided some scores to look at (and I included others) CPE Harp Sonata Caplet's Deux Divertissements Debussy's Sonata for harp, flute, and viola Belioz's "Rob Roy" The planets by Gustav Holst Pines of Rome by Ottorino Respighi

Hi! Welcome to the forum. May I ask what your experience is with music? Aka how much you know about music theory, maybe what instrument you play, etc. In efforts for us to give the best feedback, it'll be great to gain an understanding of your background. Thx in advance!

This sounds a lot more complex than it really is. The cool thing about this is that the music is quite unique, which is a paradox given how simple the music notation is. This probably has a lot to do with the instrumentation and dynamics. Quite an interesting piece, and unnerving too! Love to hear the vibraphone be used in a completely different context, other than jazz.

Thank you :-) I think it's appropriate to mention another composer on this forum who might have some depictions of mental illness in music considering that it's in his name - @BipolarComposer .

I'll start by giving some notes about notation. First, looking at the first page, 127 is not a real metronome marking. Metronomes are physical tools that have notches at certain points, you can't pick any number. Quarter note to 126 would be a valid metronome marking. As Luis noticed, the nat. marking has no place here. If you're preparing music, prepare one file made focusing on playback for the audio, and then another focusing on engraving for the score. If you handed that to a string quartet, they would be confused. Throughout the score, there are a lot of mezzo dynamics. Avoid using mezzo dynamics. Mezzo forte is not a "medium dynamic," it is forte but held back. It is for special cases to achieve a very particular effect. If you're using mezzo dynamics to balance, don't. Real musicians will know how to balance musically on their own. Try to have the number of measures per system be consistent and somewhat few. For an ensemble like a quartet, try something like 4 measures per system, 3 systems per page. The first page is a little too spaced vertically, and too narrow horizontally. And the final 2 measures cutting off abruptly looks quite ugly. Now to actual compositional devices. Since this seems to be written attempting to be tonal, judging by the frequent raised leading-tone, I would make sure you're more mindful to follow basic voice leading rules. For example, mm. 2-4 there are parallel octaves between the 2nd violin and cello, and this doesn't seem purposeful to me. It creates a very empty shallow harmonic quality. Throughout, the harmony is also very clunky and poorly voiced, with lots of doubled leading-tones, chordal sevenths, etc. Check what kind of harmonic function each chord is meant to have, and revoice focusing on clarity, fullness, and voice leading. The use of spiccato is odd to me. It's not wrong, but spiccato is generally paired with quicker passages, so I'm wondering if it's the effect you want, or if just a simple staccato would be sufficient. I also feel like the piece could use more direction in general. Where is it going and why? Right now, it sort of just goes back and forth harmonically between somewhere tonic adjacent and dominant adjacent. It'd be nice to hear more push and pull, and like it's going somewhere. It's sort of static as it is, give it some momentum! The piece is a good start, keep it up.

Hello, It's a nice waltz. It's always great to hear live performances of original works! It's perhaps a bit short...leaves me wanting a bit more :) Thanks for sharing!

@CrystalCanon Thanks for the extensive review! As far as the formatting goes, could you expand on what you mean by separate flows? I definitely agree with the triple-forte and the alignment part, that's just laziness on my side when editing, and it definitely shouldn't make it through to the final draft! The reason I sometimes wrote the hairpin above or below the staff was to make it clearer that it only applies to one stave. I'm not sure if that's actually a good idea in practice though haha. In retrospect, it's funny how composition works! Now that you pointed it out, I can see how bar 11 is so obviously out of place. I actually had it connected to everything originally, but during some voice leading edits I thought it was a bit too difficult to play for a piece like this, so I simplified it to the point where it doesn't really make sense anymore haha. It's always fun seeing people find all these different ways that the material is connected to each other. I never really thought about making that connection more obvious, but your comment actually sparked something in my brain. I really appreciate that feedback!

Opposed to orchestral percussion, percussion ensembles usually get alot more room, which allows them to position instruments where its easy to transfer. Also mallet bags assist with this. Truthfully the rule about giving alot of time for percussionists is only if you do not know what their set-up will look like. However if you can calmly and easily switch in a quick time, then there is no issue.

Hi @CrystalCanon ! Great job with the crafting of this piece as well as live performance! Did you perform this yourself, or did you record your friend playing it? It's very charming with many romantic era harmonic tropes (such as dominant 13th chords and modal interchange). Thanks for sharing!

Hi @PeterthePapercomPoser! I really enjoyed your short piece, with its flowing polyrhythms. It has a distinctly nonwestern sound to it, perhaps some gamelan influence? It’s definitely its own thing though. I find it interesting how seemingly arbitrary constraints can help define successful and engaging music. As Stravinsky wisely said, “Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength”. While I’m not superstitious, I also find it artistically stimulating to think of music in symbolic terms. For example, I naturally each pitch with a specific color. Besides, composers already tend to associate musical themes with concepts in individual works.

Hello everyone! I’m happy to be posting my first piece on this forum. It’s a short and unpretentious waltz for piano in A major. After a couple years of much reading and sketching, but without a single completed work, I decided to revive one of my old ideas, with the encouragement of my best friend. It took me a little over a week to complete, during a vacation in Paris, and it’s very satisfying to be able to put a double bar on the end! I’m dedicating it to my friend, who plays the piano herself, and now lives on the other side of the world. It’s in a very tonal and functional idiom, and I had no intention of making the piece stylistically distinctive, though I think a few elements of my personal style definitely found their way in, such as a certain motivic organicism, and penchant for harmonic variety. Any feedback is greatly appreciated! (Sorry for the bad recording—I figured it was still better than the MIDI output, especially since I don’t know how to configure dynamics playback in Dorico yet). Home recording - Waltz A major .mp3 01 - Full score - Waltz in A major.pdf

@CrystalCanon I completely agree that neoclassicism is a continuation (following a hiatus of more than a century). Of course, these composers looked to everything that came before, in response to what they considered “chaos” in the 20th century. But what prompted me to start this thread is the fact that many people automatically label music as neoclassical simply because it sounds like 18th-century music even though it was composed today. And that’s not the case. Neoclassicism has its own (new) characteristics. It uses dissonance—sometimes very subtle, other times blatantly so—along with polytonality. It employs surprise through rhythms and/or accents that become irregular and ever-changing. It shuns the idealized beauty of Classicism and seeks instead a sense of detachment and intellectual order (many composers omit violins for this reason). Here’s a very clear example:

For my 15th casting Fred asked the Muzoracle "How will I revive my sports career?" (Muzoracle is a storytelling/fortune telling/divination tool similar to the Tarot card deck, but with cards with musical concepts and 12-sided Musician's dice and Solfege dice. Perhaps it may be thought of as a special musical Oracle card deck.) My interpretation of the cards and dice are displayed below. Since the black 12-sided musician's die landed on D, the piece was set in that key and pertains to the Sacral Chakra. All the cards drawn were in the suit of Percussion (besides the two elemental cards in the 1st Position - Melody and Tonality). So I chose Crotales, Vibraphone and Woodblocks as the instruments for this casting. If you'd like to find out more about Muzoracle and how castings are interpreted go here: https://muzoracle.net/ This short musical representation of Fred's 2nd Casting is about a minute long. I created the following melodic/harmonic underdrawing guided by the cards and dice. I started the melody in the Crotales and only once the melody hit C# (Ti) did I introduce the Vibraphone and Woodblock accompaniment, guided by the position of the Accompanist card. If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! And I hope you enjoy listening to this short chamber work I wrote to represent Fred's 2nd Casting. Comments, critiques, observations and suggestions are of course always welcome. Thanks for listening! Fred's Casting No. 2.mp3 Fred's Casting No. 2.pdf