All Activity

I have 3 new Symphonic Fantasies on my youtube channel, I think these are closer to what I want than in my previous post. They are more spacious and airy I think. Still, they follow my thoughts, I might occasionally develop an idea, but not in a fixed way. The developments are mostly very "free". All are written in Dorico 6 pro, and the sounds are all from Noteperformer 5. "Anticipation - Symphonic Fantasy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSttXzJnEDs "Arriving" - Symphonic Fantasy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCb13vp-pvk "White Mushrooms - Symphonic Fantasy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7EDQycTcGQ I have provided links to the scores in the description on you youtube.

It'll take some time though.

Oh yes, please do. I'm convinced it will sound different - and better.

Very expressive and tasteful writing — stylistically convincing, with beautifully balanced imitative lines. Honestly one of the prettiest pieces I've come across on this forum. (By the way, I noticed a parallel fifth right before the tenore's very first re-entry between the bass and alto (A–E, G–D), and I think I heard another similar moment elsewhere. Were these choices intentional? The piece is so stylistically assured that they caught my ear — not because they sound harsh (they don't), but because they stand out a bit against the otherwise very refined, Renaissance-authentic counterpoint.) A very enjoyable work!

Here is an extended and revised version of the piece. I’m still experimenting with having a wider variety of instruments, for now they are the same. I’m in over my head with making arrangements like this so all feedback is appreciated

This time I share with you a musical quote from "The Occult" by Colin Wilson. And if you've gotten this far, thanks for reading!

I could play this... Should I record?

“It’s a huge…comment!” Lol. Thanks for the supportive and constructive feedback. I have inserted my comments inside brackets: “It's a huge improvement from the previous piece. The countersubject you've written is very melodious, and you've exploited its scalar nature and its rhythm very well for the rest of the piece.” [The original motive is longer than you thought. There is an important stretto in this #10 (see pic) and I cannot take full credit for the scalar line and the rhythm]. “ The harmony in your counterpoint is very apparent and well-constructed too: the first bar outlines descending thirds, and the second bar is a dominant chord. The issues regarding accented 8ves are also no longer there. You can refine your countersubject slightly though. All of the semiquavers in bar 4 should be raised by 1 pitch. This will both highlight the underlying dominant harmony, and also lead to the E in the following bar more smoothly. “ [yes it sounds better! I made this change to bar 4, 10 & 22. I have also changed some registers because it became too high or separated. Then I made a few adjustments in bar 10.17 and 12.83 (see v3m.mp3) ] “With this change, your solution will be perfectly acceptable, but a slightly more musically "interesting" solution will be to turn the beginning of bars 3 and 4 into 4-3 suspensions.” [The motive ‘forbids’ that change, I suppose. It could be possible at bar 3. For bar 4, on the other hand, I cannot have there a 4-3 suspension because the 3 doesn’t belong to the V chord. In fact there was a 4|7 at bar 4 in the original motive, but I cheated and replaced it with a 8|7 because I wanted a VI, not a iv or a ii° chord. Am I wrong? Should I bring back the 4 of aiv or ii°? ] [And for the 3 other points, I’ll look at it closely and rework my piece. Thanks a lot for this precious advice ;)]

Very nice. It is tasteful. Its easy to follow, even for a child. And that's a compliment! It's not like other composers who try too hard to be original and sophisticated, sacrificing fundamental qualities of music like accessibility and consistency. Sophistication is in the details and originality is a subjective concept, unlike authenticity.

A musical joke. This is a revision where pizzicato trills were omitted.

Hallo @TristanTheTristan! Even your Sonatina has a length of a Sonata, I think it was wise to call it „Sonatina“ only, due to its youthful spirit and its refrain from the drama and heaviness of a „full-fledged“ sonata. So it is a cheerful, enjoying piece at all! However, what refuses me to count it as a piece that I would enjoy to put in my playing list is its hyperactivity expressed by the much to fast and repeating passages with ornamentations (trills, tremolos etc.) which heavily remind me on your signature „TristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristan ….“. I can therefore only emphasize @PeterthePapercomPoser' questions about playability for a human performer and would love to hear the piece as it would be interpreted by a real pianist, whether it's a live recording or a recording from a MIDI file. In the latter case, however, more sensitivity to the technical abilities of a human pianist and their enormous nuances in articulation, dynamics, tempo, etc. would be required.

I've attached below the opening 32 bars of a movement for strings, chorus, and continuo in the late Baroque style. The text is taken from Goethe's Einsamkeit; the full text and a sample translation can be found at the end. The form of the chorus will probably end up being rondo-like: A B A' C A. Section A here refers to the opening 32 bars, and A' is A in the dominant key. Section B will deal with the next two lines of text, and likewise with C. I'm interested in how you might proceed with B & C. What kind of textures? What material from A do you want to use? How would B and C relate to each other? Einsamkeit Die ihr Felsen und Bäume bewohnt, o heilsame Nymphen, Gebet Jeglichem gern, was er im stillen begehrt! Schaffet dem Traurigen Trost, dem Zweifelhaften Belehrung, Und dem Liebenden gönnt, daß ihm begegne sein Glück. Denn euch gaben die Götter, was sie den Menschen versagten, Jeglichem, der euch vertraut, hilfreich und tröstlich zu sein. You who dwell in rocks and trees, o salutary nymphs, grant gladly to each what he silently desires! Create solace for the grieving, give instruction to the uncertain, and to the lover grant that he might meet happiness. For the gods gave you what they denied to men: to be a comfort and an aid to all who trust you.

Thank you!

It's a huge improvement from the previous piece. The countersubject you've written is very melodious, and you've exploited its scalar nature and its rhythm very well for the rest of the piece. The harmony in your counterpoint is very apparent and well-constructed too: the first bar outlines descending thirds, and the second bar is a dominant chord. The issues regarding accented 8ves are also no longer there. You can refine your countersubject slightly though. All of the semiquavers in bar 4 should be raised by 1 pitch. This will both highlight the underlying dominant harmony, and also lead to the E in the following bar more smoothly. With this change, your solution will be perfectly acceptable, but a slightly more musically "interesting" solution will be to turn the beginning of bars 3 and 4 into 4-3 suspensions. Then I'd raise the following points about the rest of your piece: As mentioned before, your piece needs strong cadences to serve as musical punctuations. You need a V - i (or I) in the tonic key at the end. You also preferably need another in a different key somewhere else. The tonal scheme of your work is perfectly sensible: tonic - dominant - relative - tonic, and so a second V - i at the end of either the dominant or relative section is desirable. A third or fourth strong cadence may also be added at your discretion. Your subject + countersubject together is invertible (in the sense of exchanging bass with soprano and so on) and so you should invert it! Every opportunity you've had (bars 7, 13, 19) you've presented us with a modified version of the subject and countersubject instead. You are allowed to do these pitch modifications (and I indeed like them), but given you have presented the theme consistently throughout the work as soprano -> bass pairs, you should also present these modified themes as pairs. Utilising these modified pitches as new motifs in your episodes would also be desirable. Whilst you will find episodes like these (i.e. repetition of one passage, with slight modifications) in the oeuvre, far more commonly you will see different episodes being constructed completely differently. They have different lengths, and are based on different harmonic progressions. Melodically they generally still play from the pool of the motivic material in the theme, but the exact details vary from episode to episode. The reason why is not because repetition is bad - repetition is good if done sensibly! But the journey you take to get from the tonic to the dominant must clearly be different from the journey from the dominant to the relative, so a different approach is needed each time. Writing different episodes will also allow you to place the much-needed cadences at will. When you can employ this repetition technique however, is when your starting and ending keys are separated by the same interval. In your case, this means you can reuse your episode between the dominant - relative (v to III) as an episode between the relative - tonic (III - i). If the subdominant was part of your tonal scheme as well then it means you can reuse a tonic - dominant (i - v) episode as a subdominant - tonic (iv - i) episode.

Here is v3, an improvement to v2 of #10. I removed all accented P8ves, also some parallel 8ves and 5ths. And other little things. The changes are in RED on the score. The plot: The leading tone, being absent from the motive, takes its revenge in the counter-motives, sometimes in obstinate ways.

Hi @TristanTheTristan! It's a vigorous sonatina brimming with your youthful energy! The only thing I didn't care for was the meaningless shows of impossible virtuosity. I think you are not composing for a human being but rather for the computer program which is a shame. Making music possible to be played does not make it worse which is something I don't think that you understand. But even with that - I enjoyed many parts of the piece - the adventurousness of the 3rd movement especially. But the 2nd movement was horribly boring and the melodies in the 1st movement were meaningless scalar passages. There are so many parts of your piece that are mechanical and robotic that I won't go through mentioning them by measure number as it would be too herculean a task. I don't know - don't you want to write music that could someday be performed? Or do you want to be known as a midi or Musescore composer for the rest of your life? Thanks for sharing.

I would be more along the lines of giving a good classical guitarist an electric to play around with for a couple of months.

This sounds lovely! Great job

I made this very small renaissance motet for 4 voices, Cantus, Altus, Tenor and Bassus. However my stupid brain wrote the text wrong and instead of "Sicut LILIUM" it became "Sicut ILIUM", I only noticed it after finishing the motet! But besides that part everything is in accordance to what it should be. Enjoy! Text: Sicut [l]ilium inter spinas Sic amica mea inter filias

Greetings @Wieland Handke! The F-natural in bars 3 and 4 of the 1st and 2nd entry is very much intentional, even though it does generate a certain degree of instability not present in the original, fully tonal rendition of Mozart's own canon. In fact, I should thank you for highlighting the matter of accidentals, as the previous version did not, in fact, feature completely real transpositions of the theme. There were a handful of mistakes every 3rd bar, not contrapuntal, but harmonic and thematic, as the continuity and integrity of the transpositions was broken with leading tone and its minor 3rd/5th of a dominant chord being raised a semitone higher. All of that has now been corrected, so unless any more oversights of mine were to resurface, every single entry should now be a real transposition to the lower major 2nd of the main 18-bar-long subject. I'm glad to learn that the current length of this canon would prevent it from seeming far too repetitive to the eyes of an educated listener. Indeed, I was worried it might end up sounding excessively mechanical despite the flowing timbre of legato strings, as monotony may distort even the most sophisticated of musical devices into pure pure noise after far too many identical, tiresome reiterations. It's a relief to know that to you it did not appear to be the case here, and I must thank you for your acute observations, for otherwise I might not have come to realize that the transpositions were not 100% exact. I should also probably check @PeterthePapercomPoser's take on the Persichetti exercises, especially considering this canon on different scales you just mentioned. I'm anticipating a gold mine of modal/post-tonal contrapuntal solutions! Thank you for this recommendation as well.

Oh that's a difficult question about the differences and preferences between the two versions! For the first impression, they sound similar. And that is not meant as superficial impression, but rather I'm all the more amazed at how these three different scales retain their personality while now acting together (or against each other) in a different distance and relation. Maybe the tertian variant is more melancholic and serene, while the quartal one has a more excited character. This impression might be emphasized by the fact that the three voices are now narrower together in the tertian version and the sopranino clarinet does not play in such a high register and is less shrill. (By the way, I like that you’ve used three instruments with different registers, so that the voices are clearly separated, despite the somewhat annoying sound.)

Hallo @Fugax Contrapunctus! I’m astonished how it works to create such a harmonically balanced piece while stepping down a whole note for each subsequent voice entry! Since @PeterthePapercomPoser also presented a canon based on different scales in one of his recent Persichetti exercises, I would like to know if you transposed some of the canon imitations into other modes or scales to achieve this harmonic consistency? I didn't check it out thoroughly, as I initially thought you had changed from minor to major to minor in the first three entries, without noticing that there is no F# in violin 2 in bar 4. No, the three entries are identical. But now, I think I’ve probably figured out the trick: The theme starts on the lydian fourth, F# in the theme being in C major – at least for the first four bars. However, a few bars later the melody starts to descend to the flats handing over the harmonic center to the next voice. So the descent is inherent in the melody which might be a bit difficult to learn due to its harmonic instability. While being heavily repetitive by its nature, the entire canon is not boring – at least not at this length. If being part of a larger work, such as an oratorio, I could imagine that it would be contrasted by a more declarative and stable section.

Yeah. It is also tremendously difficult... Let's say two guitarists somehow managed to premiere it by playing the main part together.

The really! How? Is how someone would actually perform this...😦

Firstly, You combine the symphony and the concerto, and the you add an electrical guitar. wow. i am IMPRESSED. (really! How?)