All Activity

Absolutely! Form is where the depth of a composition lives! It's really simple. I always put form on graphing paper. Then the fun part in that is when you absolutely commit to form. It's not something you could half bake in music. Form, could exist as smaller compositions within the whole. Don't be afraid to be too violent with transitions. I think the difficult part comes when you try to make things too coherent, which is a viable solution too. But! Form is lost in that lucid 'elision' of notes where they become jumbled together, like melted cheese. On graphing paper, I create arcs of music on a concrete line and divide it mathematically. This also makes it easy to include advanced techniques in beauty such as: phi and the golden section. Try making a musical joke to in the form of ABACADABA. You'll have fun!

Thank you! I'm glad I was able to capture the intended mood of the overall work. Found the pattern while messing around on my MIDI keyboard the other day, playing with spitfire LABS VST3 piano sounds. Also, if you've seen any of my other works, you'll notice I tend to have a bit of favoritism for open-spelling chords & triplets / tuplets in general. 😅 I like the suggestions for the form, here. I sort of just allowed my ear to guide it up to the point seen in the post. If you have the time, I have an entirely different conceptualized structure written out in a separate score file, that was inspired by some creative liberty granted to @MK_Piano while in a discord call the other day. I will share this new info right here: Aurora-UpdatedVersion.pdf Aurora-UpdatedVersion.mp3

Hey @nathanstravinsky! I just finished my annotations and I am here to share! The attached PDF are my comments on your work. You will find a written out summary at the end. To add, I am attaching this 5-minute long YouTube video covering the Harp. I felt it important to make a dedicated video as some moments for the harp in your work were not practical for the instrument. For anyone else viewing this comment, it is a basic introduction to the harp for composers. Find both resources here: https://youtu.be/_Stiy-uh12k?si=luX9YTfy-8DASSxx N. Janco - Philly (ANNOTATED).pdf

Wow yes, absolutely! I have done some shorter text-based scores before, often with a lot of improvisation and have often had these sort of textures in mind, one way or another... But here's a question: How do you approach form or the overall arc of the piece in this process? Asking because it is something I often struggle with myself. -P

I very agree with your approach to create a new piece having a musical idea in mind, if not yet a melody or motif to be used as the main subject, but a rather „technically“ one – here your choice of the interval pattern you described. Even if you did not invent a new chord or a new scale, this is a unique, this interval pattern is a „unique selling point“ of the piece and creates the mood of the piece which is indeed „ethereal“. And with your realization and recording so far, you have really caught this melancholic feeling with the warm timbre of the cello and the soft piano. I especially liked the small details such as the grace notes, the arpeggiated two-note-“chords“ and the triplets. Now, to get the piece continued and finished, I think it’s time to think about the form. Since it is already lengthy and although it has just separate sections, the listener is somewhat lost not exactly recognizing the structure and find out where the climax is. And in that sense it becomes a bit repetitive because there is a lack of contrast to the overall calm and „airy“ mood. Therefore, I would suggest to consider to put the piece, for example, in Rondo form where you could use the existing material for the different A (or A’) sections and there were room to introduce sections with a contrasting mood (in the B and C sections). For such a contrast I could imagine passages with a more dramatic expression or a final, triumphant resolution. Another possibility would be to have a section with a more distinctive and memorable melody (e.g. a „real theme“).

While I was writing my review on your „Contemplation No. 5“ yesterday, I remembered that I did not reply to your friendly review of my fugue. What I especially appreciated is your imagination that there could be vocals added. And, yes, I also had this intention in mind sometimes to have a version with a choir. Not only because of the anthem but also as I can imagine that some of the motifs are suitable as sung syllables, such as the main subject could be „Dona nobis pacem“ and there is also another motif in a transitional passage which could bear the text „Herr gib uns deinen Frieden“ (which is the same in German). I’ve already tried to record a version with a „Choral oohs and aahs“ soundfont which gives a good imagination how it could sound, but with my current technical capabilities and skills it sounds to boring or embarrassing. However, if I once finished my project composing 24 preludes and fugues and I’m really bored, I could decide to compose a mass – so I had the inspiration of at least one of its movements, the „Dona nobis pacem“ (😊 haha, not considered really seriously now, but who knows ...)

This is something I came up with during my lunch break today. 08 Consolation for Piano.mp3 Consolation for Piano - Score - Score.pdf

Ya! Sure, thing! It's a very long process to create this music. I love the experience of rasterization, the beginning song sounds NOTHING like the end product. It begins, simply: pen and paper. First, compose the song. Envision it as best as know how. Then becomes the fun part. So, I use Finale to create the sound and score file including Garritan instruments. Once I have the midi, I convert the midi file to a CSound score. From CSound, I also create the instruments, usually heavily inspired by, Kim Cascone! He's wonderful! That's all it is! But, fair warning: the process takes weeks. lol

Gotta say, those VSTs you’re using are quite impeccable! Very light, fun, and intricate. Would’ve loved to see the sheet music though!

-

Thanks Peter. I've been told the harmonies in the bass clarinet with two bassoons sound rather heavy: so I'm going to modify those when I can get round to it. Will try Henry's suggestion of putting the melody in the violins too, for more timbral variety.

Hello everyone, I'm back, this is my new piece, hope you like it! Op.9 Nr.2 Spring Symphony.mp3

Hi and thanks for nice review. I've found that recording to midi while playing an expressive piano piece without following the metronome creates the best result - a live and expressive piano performance. Because if I perform to a metronome the live feel is lost and sounds digital/computer like. But I WANT what I perform/improvise capture to midi anyway so that I have the performance captured as notes. I usually do not create a score with my piano works because of the work involved quantizing by hand every single measure! The printed score needs to be quantized to look correct, and be playable. This piece took hours of manually quantizing every measure to create a correct score. With my pop/electronic/etc music I do create notes in the piano roll to beats like you do. That type music I want played quantized anyway. But not an expressive piano solo piece that is not to played by a metronome. I should be that indication on the score!

The Wanderer of Time:

Hello @MichaelJohn A beautiful piece with a calm, serene mood which I very enjoyed to listen! I must say that I did not spend many attention – when reading the score – to the harmonic structure of the piece (as Peter did), because I was really captivated and fascinated about the detailed performance concerning articulation, dynamics and tempo! I would love if every piano piece presented here at the forum had that quality. I especially like the accentuation of the melody which is interwoven in the triplets, so that even if the score looks „simple“, I had the impression that were more voices involved as one could think from a short look at the score. I just did not understand completely your comments how you created the score and recording: The recording is a live recording resulting into a midi file which you have now reproduced with a better piano sound. That’s great, so we know that you are not only able to compose or improvise that piece but also to play it in that intense and expressive quality. But what about the „quantized notes“? I can’t imagine what a software would produce for a „score“ from a live recording with such an amount of rubato, fermatas and accentuation … I’m asking such silly questions since my approach to compose is quite opposite. I first write the notes down (even not as a „paper composer“) but using notation software and produce my score and midi files from that input. And, yes, I’ve always the intention in mind how I would interpret it on the piano. Therefore I always maintain two scores, one to print out and one for the recording with a huge amount of additional articulation, dynamics and time changes to achieve a satisfying recording result. And I must admit, it would a hard work to encode that amount of interpretation you gave your piece!

I'll try to listen to more of your improvisation, but to hear that gawdawful tune for thirty minutes...

Yes, now it looks fine! The chords and intervals in each hand can be clearly recognized. I would also decide to have the beam nearer to the majority of the notes and adjusting the length of the stems is obviously driven by the means to avoid collisions with the dynamic marks – what you’ve well done in the example. I have also not read „Behind Bars“ and other standard literature concerning engraving. I usually try to follow my aesthetic feeling which has been taught by the good old hand-engraved editions, for example the Mugellini edition of the Welltempered Clavier (Breitkopf & Härtel) which I use to play from. For my note engraving I do not use MuseScore (or other software with a graphical user interface) but lilypond (which has a different approach, you’re typing the score in a sort of „software“ source code in a simple text file and lilypond „compiles“ it to a .pdf and .midi file). However, that might not be everyone’s preference how to work when composing, there is an interesting „essay“ from the lilypond creators concerning what make it so difficult to let scores produced by computer programs look as satisfying as the hand-engraved ones.

Thanks Peter. Yes, unfortunately that's the aspect I don't have the capability to get right (tonality and enharmonics) so I always write atonally. I'm told I often veer quite far from the key I'm in anyway, so it seems usually to be more appropriate.

The Dance of Swords:

Hi @guy500 ! From a cursory look at the score and a short session listening to the beginning of it, it looks like you're not using the right enharmonic spellings. In the beginning you're in G minor so all your D#'s and A#'s should be Eb's and Bb's, respectively. Then at C you switch to F minor, so you all your G#'s and C#'s should also be Ab's and Db's, respectively (in addition to the Eb's and Bb's). That's just in accordance with standard notation regarding key signature and proper spelling of scales in alphabetical order (like you wouldn't spell G minor scale as G, A, A#, C, D, D#, F#, G because you're missing some kind of B and E in the alphabet). Thanks for sharing!

Love that!!!

Just finished my first String Quartet. I'd love your thoughts on it (constructive, though, please....), but most of all I need feedback on the score. I'm new to scoring (and have no musical training) and so am not confident at all with it. I'm especially worried about the notation around articulations/accents. I'd really like to know how much of it needs to change in order to make it playable by a real-life String Quartet. Track 26 - String Quartet no.1 - FULL VERSION (Jan-Mar 2026).mp3Track 26 - String Quartet no.1 - Score.pdf You can also listen and read the score at Track 26 - String Quartet no.1 (Jan-March 2026) -

My story is a bit different - I started at 52 - less then 2 years ago - with no musical training whatsoever (apart from badly strumming a guitar for a while in my later 20s...). I seem to be very prolific though - my first String Quartet that I've just finished is my 26th piece since July 2024....

To Beautiful not be scored to Film.

I get it! It's a choral arrangement, similar to the setting my college choir used! No need to worry about hand size. I just put it in piano score because I did it in two minutes.