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Hello @mossy84! Thank you for your advice not to end a fugue subject on the tonic. (And this is, in fact, a good advice which avoids that the subject sounds „too finished“ and there is not enough momentum for the next voice entries.) But in this particular case, I violated this „rule“ - albeit rather unconsciously – in order to follow the rules for crafting a fugue subject in the style of Palestrina, especially having only one „leap“ in the opening fifth which is immediately followed by stepwise motion in the opposite direction. And I wanted to have a Brevis note in the subject to highlight its „renaissance“ character in the score visually. 🙂 However, I must admit that there is a kind of „rest“ in bar 4 where the subject comes home to its tonic key G flat for an entire Brevis – but that’s intentional and emphasized by the „messa di voce“ (which is challenging to be played on the piano at all... 😃). By the way, looking into another of my fugues with a similar, short subject (here is a YouTube link, I haven’t presented it in the YCForum yet), I noticed that I exactly did what you suggested, I started the answer a beat earlier, creating a kind of „stretto“ even in the exposition.

This is my "Piano Stream No. 5", composed in August last year. In 2013, 'Stream' was the name I had found would best describe pieces of mine composed in a style that ‎seems to me to recreate the unique experience of watching a stream in nature. It is a type ‎of fluid music, a type of music where the texture is always changing and is never the ‎same, that does not have an identifiable rhythmic pulse, that is in constant, ever changing ‎flux. A 'stream' is a rather happy, relaxed, spontaneous, and flowing piece. It is often in ‎variational form. A stream is more about creating a certain impression, rather than ‎introducing and/or developing specific themes. This fifth piano stream of mine is also my twentieth composition in the 'stream' form. With my previous stream (String Quartet Stream No. 3, Op. 288) composed all the way back on December 26, 2016, this stream marks my return to the form after a break of more than 8.5 years.

It's been a long time! I used to frequent this forum in my 20s, now I'm 42 years old, living abroad, haven't really written any music in the last decade, but I never fully gave up on writing music. It's time to fix my writer's block. I'm setting up this topic as a challenge to myself. Writing music in my 20s was something that came very slowly and painfully as I am a massive perfectionist and not terribly disciplined. So this plan is designed to cure me of that. - Only writing fragments for now. No aiming for completed pieces. - Focusing on practicing use of musical elements I like, experimentation over destination. - Loosely tracking my time in order to force something out the door, rather than get stuck on revisions. - Long term learning goal is to build the skills to write hybrid electronic/orchestral music for games. If anyone wants to take on this challenge with me, feel free, and you are welcome to post things here. For my part, the pacing is starting at one small post per week. As I feel able, I may increase that. Music will be hosted on flat.io and eventually Soundcloud, and linked here by Sunday evening USA-Eastern time, which is Monday morning my time. Feedback is welcomed, but I will be trying to take feedback lightly and focus on quantity of music creation, on volume, rather than refining the quality. First entry: https://flat.io/score/69930d12f4b7f4206442ca2c-sus-slash?sharingKey=4f68cd0e43730c91e48416b8978810ab0c63680a3161fb07fbfcbc75e85c135b02a6f15102ff10978621f147508f16a2ade8791783c86664bb7ed9f0e3b671f9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14lZ2g_oCxI For this eight-bar melody, I chose the musical element described in the above youtube video - suspended chords above a slash bass note, essentially sparsely voiced tall chords. I wasn't following any particular progression principles, just whatever sounded good, but trying to follow the structure of the chords described in the video. Couldn't quite nail down the last chord, sorry it's unsatisfying, but according to the rules we are moving on!

The intro really captures the exact vibe you're going for — I’m excited to see how you continue to explore these effects. At 1:30, the melody is spot on. I just wish it stood out a bit more and cut through the background more clearly. Around 2:30, I felt like it might have been stronger to further develop the 1:30 melody instead of introducing a completely new one. You used sound changes in the melody very effectively — it adds depth and rich layering, especially when the parts overlap.

I put together this arrangement of Bright Morning Stars in 2015, but just made a new score demo video for it. Enjoy! Bright morning stars are rising, and day is breaking in my soul. Where are our dear mothers? They're down in the valley a' praying, and day is breaking in my soul. Where are our dear fathers? They've gone up to heaven a' shouting! And day is breaking in my soul!

I’m trying to improve at improvising, I feel like currently I repeat the same ideas too much. I’d appreciate any feedback.

Imperial Rome The Fall of the Roman Empire, I wonder which Country is Next ? Imperial Rome.mp3

Hi all 🙂 As a new born violonist (started the instrument in october 2024), I thought I would give it a chance at composing a concerto for violin and orchestra with my humble technical skills knowledge (far from pushing the instrument to its limits 😉). Here it is. Three movements : allegro moderato / lento / allegro. There are various themes inside, main ones being : Theme 1 : enunciated straight at the opening (bars 1-4), it's developed further by various sections as well as by the soloist under several forms, Theme 2 : appears first bars 219 to 225 at the end of the first movement, then in second and third movements under several forms Theme 3 : bars 31 to 71 in second movement, then reappears in the conclusion of the concerto at the end of the third movement. Other leitmotivs (don't know if it's the appropriate term) emerge throughout the piece. The third movement is an allegro but strongly slows down at the end for a quiet, peacefull, opened ending mainly reusing colors from the second lento movement. In the attached pdf score : Allegro moderato : page 1 Lento : page 69 Allegro : page 102 Here's the video (let me know if it's better that I attach MP3s) : 0:00 : Allegro moderato 8:32 : Lento 15:57 : Allegro (timeline also in the description of the video) Best regards 🙂 Marc

Hello, friends! How are you doing? I am happy to present my latest composition to you. This one is more challenging to listen to, full of contrasts and wildness that are typical for me, even though I try to incorporate a certain system into my music, which may not be obvious at first listen. Thank you to everyone who decides to support me by listening, and I wish you every success in your creative endeavors!

The Birth of Inspiration A Burst of Creative artistic endeavors, without thinking. The Birth of Inspiration.mp3

Thankyou Peter, im very happy to see your review of my composition. heterophonic texture !!! wow i had to look that one up. Thankyou once again for making my day a Happy one, There's another Composition waiting , but not in a waltz style I dont know if that one also has a heterophonic texture ? , ill have to analyze that word in depth, Thankyou.

Hi. You are welcome! Oh! Now it makes more sense. 🙂 you too!

Hello On this occasion, and to increase my skills with regard to brass instruments, I have orchestrated a song by Mendelssohn, Op. 19 No. 3 (Hunting Song), originally for solo piano. The ensemble consists of four French horns, two trumpets, two trombones, and one tuba. I had to improvise to resolve some passages where the registers were very high, but it is not a literal copy, rather a version with certain liberties taken. I have respected the original key (A major, which is not bad for brass). But another might have been better, such as B flat major (but some notes were too high for me). Everything is untransposed and in separate systems (I am working on condensing it with the programme, but it's a bit of a nightmare...).

Another musical quote from "The Occult" by Colin Wilson. Let me know if you agree or disagree! And if you've gotten this far - thanks for reading!

Hi @interlect! Welcome back to the forum! I actually really like this piece! It has a sort of hypnotic/mesmerizing repetition which makes it really dreamy/magical to me. I love how the melody is scored as well; sometimes with solo lines; other times with a more heterophonic texture. Great job and thanks for sharing! I can't get enough of it!

Hello Tristan :3 thank you so much for the compliments. I would say though, I think I wasn't as bad in orchestration as you thought I was back than. I just really did not care about the quality of the pieces that I made in my youtube videos, so I would resort to copy pasting most of the time. with that being said, this is definitely a piece I could not compose last time we've talked have a great day

oh great points I didn't notice most of that and yeah I tend to lean quite a lot to the string section thank you so much for the reply

to be frank I actively avoided making this piece too diffrent from the original, as I share the proccess of creating my piece on youtube, and people really want to hear something the recognize instently. I appreciate the kind words a lot though, thank you so much.

totally fair points, I might fix it in the future thank you so much! funny people here follow after my youtube I'm now kind of regretting I didn't bother making that piece playble though

The Death of Conformity What's Acceptable in This Century, was not Acceptable in the Last Century Proving that "The Death of Conformity" , is not a Fantasy but a Reality. The Death of Conformity.mp3

video is OUTTT

I very much enjoyed this! I watched the youtube with score. The starting measures actually which gave me goose bumbs! I don't know the Ukrainian national anthem but knew when it came in by the colored lyrics. Would be great if singers could be added. I haven't written a fugue in a long time but listen to Bach all the time (my fav composer as well). This fugue appears true to form even as it's very chromatic. Of course Art of Fugue comes to mind. Congrats on this work! Thanks for comments on my first jazz composition attempt, Night Train Home. I have a long way to go learning jazz, and appreciate mentioning Nikolai Kapustin who I've never heard before. I listened to several of his jazz piano solo works and hope to work to his level of expertise.

Hi Wieland, Many thanks for taking a look at my piece. I'm a total beginner at writing for theorbo, but I notice you've correctly notated your score an octave above the sounding pitch; whereas I've written mine at sounding pitch! So will have to correct that in my next draft. It's uncommon to use a grand staff, as theorbo players prefer a single staff (usually in 8vb bass clef). Looks like for your composition, the musician would have to do some extensive retuning of the unfretted strings, and there may not be enough of them! That's why I decided to rewrite my piece without any accidentals on the lower 8 strings. The tab notation for theorbo uses fret numbers for the 6 fretted strings, and these are written on a 6-line staff. (Each line corresponds to a string, and the top two strings are tuned an octave lower than you'd expect on a classical guitar: so you have re-entrant tuning.) For the unfretted strings, you typically write the number of the string below the staff. So where it says 14, that would be string 14, etc... Forgot to mention, my piece is for a workshop and concert later this year. So a real theorbo player will be helping me revise it (which should be interesting!) Alex

Hello @Alex Weidmann! A piece for theorbo – that is something for me! I really enjoy, that the theorbo is (at least here in Germany) increasingly being used in baroque orchestras alongside the harpsichord and a small organ as a Basso Continuo instrument. I think I first discovered it about five years ago and am always delighted when it is used, for example in Handel's Messiah. It lends such warmth or even a “Mediterranean feeling” to the accompaniment that it surpasses the somewhat “boring” harpsichord and organ, which are unable to play dynamics, while they are needed for rhythmic and percussive accents (the harpsichord) and harmonic filling and foundation (the organ). As I see, you have dealt extensively with the special features of the instrument, especially with regard to playability on the low, diatonically tuned strings. Even if I can’t read the tablature notation, I can imagine that trying to translate the notes into that notation helps to empathize with the player and to avoid playability issues. A two part invention with the voices distributed between the two registers might be challenging to play, but I like that counterpuntual style, together with the arpeggios and flageolet notes! As I used a theorbo too, in a piece I arranged for the 2025 Christmas event – not as a solo instrument but in a continuo, paired with a harpsichord and a small organ, I am no longer sure whether I have taken the ambitus of the theorbo and its special tuning features into account correctly. Therefore, I have linked this piece here, maybe you’ll find a lot of errors ... Greetings, Wieland

Ellooo! This is a very very simple and short passamezzo i made a while ago. The technique i used is pretty straightfoward, i used the passamezzo bass notes as pillars and in between free counterpoint. That way it doesnt sound so monotonous. And it allows for spicy imitations! Enjoy.