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Wanting to create a washy-choral sounding prelude for the ensemble to play before my Oboe comes in... I have Fm/Ab - Dbm6/Ab- Abmaj7 - Cm7-Fm9 - any ideas to keep this sound going?

I am so pleased you enjoyed the work!!!! I'll correct the oversight .................. Mark

Any tips or suggestions?

feels better well written, and is faster paced, I just like fast paced songs, I also like how it's kind of more dark? I don't really know how to explain, also, if any of this doesn't make sense, It's probably because I haven't listened to it for a day.

Can you write why? Anyways, thank you for the feedback! (I am not saying I like the first better, it is just that I want to improve.)

Ahhh ok, so leave it and have it stay as 14 I'll need to do some research on concerto structure and what is technically challenging for the obo so that I don't make this too easy to play or boring

The piece that got me back into writing music, this past December...

Yeah - a pick-up and an anacrusis are just different names for the same thing. If you made that first F an anacrusis then your phrase would be 13 measures long though.

Oh okay, now I understand - brain fart moment lol The F is the beginning of the melodic material, but since I have two empty beats before that, I can fill up that space. Couldn't I also just get rid of the rests and make that measure an anacrusis? --> was thinking of having some strings and F. Horn play a countermelody + harmony as the theme comes in. I've never even attempted writing a counter melody before, so that should be fun.

The phrase starts before the melody comes in so the beginning of the phrase is just the beginning of your first bar rather than starting the phrase on bar 2 as if the F in bar 1 was a pick-up. So the phrase might start with some kind of accompanimental pattern with the first two beats being a space in which melodically nothing happens (until the F comes in).

Hmmm, so how do I treat it as an "acephalic" vs a regular/other phrase type @PeterthePapercomPoser? Just wanting some more clarification

Cool! Someone else likes to compose/arrange guitar music!

It's neither good nor bad - or at least it depends on what you want to do with it. It's just a characteristic.

You're the composer, so only you can make that decision. Certainly it can be more virtuosic than what you have! I mean I at least assume that the bassoonist can play some scales in an easy enough key. You can still fit a lot of music into 5 minutes if the tempo is fast enough. Check out this winning Bassoon Concerto that a member here submitted for a competition in the summer of 2020 when I first signed up for YC!

I'll get the second one in pretty soon. I am a bit drunk on beer right now, and can technically compose or enter notes when drunk, but functionally cannot enter notes when drunk! Go figure... Anyone interested: I actually remembered to put in composition dates on these three partsongs! They are of course partsongs, so the alto and tenor voices are not so interesting. The Windhover, 4-29-21. Binsey Poplars 3-20-21, Spring 5-02-21. You will have to wait for the second two: TOO MUCH BEER! 😋

Hello dear fellow composers. This poem (1886) is part of Laforgue’s Imitation of Our Lady the Moon. Here the Moon is no longer a muse or confidante, but becomes the star of farewell and forgetting, sealing human hopes in silence and nothingness. I truly believe that this cycle reflects a part of Laforgue’s own biography — that of a young poet caught in an impossible, broken love story, one almost erased from history, save perhaps for the initial of a name glimpsed in his correspondence. At least, that is the conviction I had while reading these poems. And so here is the end of my cycle: a piece deliberately sparse, rarefied, silent. It is also, perhaps, a farewell to Laforgue — for now. Time has come for me to explore new paths (and I have been kindly reminded more than once that I am probably composing with a delay of about 120 years…). I can only hope that these pieces may nevertheless have found some resonance with you. This is one of my most sincere works, born from a curious overlapping of states of mind with Laforgue. And I believe — to confess under the cover of anonymity — that one is never truly safe from falling secretly in love, even at my age. Perhaps this is what makes the kinship so troubling.

This piece is clever, yet awful. It would make for very good horror movie music. BTW, Outis is ancient Greek for "Nobody!"

I've never heard of that term before lol, is that a good thing?

Many thanks for your review Peter. Do you think this can be salvaged; or should just rip it up and start again? I can't make it too virtuosic, as I'm writing for an amateur bassoonist. I had a choice of instruments, and decided bassoon would be the most challenging. Since it's a quiet instrument, it doesn't come through very strongly against the orchestra. Plus it's in the bass register: so maybe not a natural instrument to carry the melody. I was trying to create a dialogue between the bassoon and orchestra, using call and response. Guess I haven't done a very good job though. The 5-minute time limit is also a challenge, since it doesn't give much opportunity for development.

Thank you so much for your wonderful words and your appreciation of my music. Yes, I consider myself a composer mainly for the piano, although I truly love orchestral music, and especially chamber music. Chamber music is my favorite... I just don’t feel familiar enough with the other instruments, although I have written a divertimento for winds and two minuets for string quartet. For a first attempt, it was quite a respectable effort, and I would definitely like to continue and write music for more instruments—it’s just that, at this point in my life, I don’t have enough free time to achieve that. I have also played Chopin’s mazurkas and polonaises in my repertoire, but I haven’t yet happened to compose something similar, although I would very much like to, and I thank you for pointing it out.

No I've never heard these Dvorak Bagatelles before. You've introduced me to them, so thanks for that! Yes, that's what I always do.

Thanks Peter. Was this a suite you'd not heard before? Will definitely try your suggestion with the strings. Think slurs would probably help too. The flute renditions are the most problematic for me. I don't like the sound where two virtual flutes are playing the same line. I did this because the melodies were sometimes being drowned out by the rest of the orchestra. Think I might resolve the problem by using a single flute track with the fader pushed up, rather than having two flutes.

I think what with the way you changed the melody it now makes more sense to treat the melody as if it was an acephalic phrase. Counting the first measure as the beginning of the phrase, instead of just a pick-up note makes your phrases 14 measures long, with clear markers separating it out into 2 measure fragments (mostly). I think it makes more sense to look at it that way rather than as if the first F was a pick-up note.

Hey Mark @MJFOBOE! I love this song! I love the words, key changes and counterpoint between the various different voices of the choir! It'll probably be a lot of fun to sing for any future choir that might undertake a performance! Great job! The only thing that bothers me is a little nit-pick about how you notated the following rhythm: The right hand of the piano should be a dotted quarter note tied to an 8th of the following compound beat (beat 4 in 12/8), to group the 8th notes properly in their groups of three. Thanks for sharing and once again, bravo! (I liked the original song too but I think this one is even better)