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The Shadows where the Mewlips dwell Are dark and wet as ink, And slow and softly rings their bell, As in the slime you sink. You sink into the slime, who dare To knock upon their door, While down the grinning gargoyles stare And noisome waters pour. Beside the rotting river-strand The drooping willows weep, And gloomily the gorcrows stand Croaking in their sleep. Over the Merlock Mountains a long and weary way, In a mouldy valley where the trees are grey, By a dark pool's borders without wind or tide, Moonless and sunless, the Mewlips hide. The cellars where the Mewlips sit Are deep and dank and cold With single sickly candle lit; And there they count their gold. Their walls are wet, their ceilings drip; Their feet upon the floor Go softly with a squish-flap-flip, As they sidle to the door. They peep out slyly; through a crack Their feeling fingers creep, And when they've finished, in a sack Your bones they take to keep. Beyond the Merlock Mountains, a long and lonely road, Through the spider-shadows and the marsh of Tode, And through the wood of hanging trees and gallows-weed, You go to find the Mewlips - and the Mewlips feed.

The harmony is definitely confusing, it gives the piece a very different, interesting feel. I'm not sure if its supposed to be peaceful, ominous or romantic. Or perhaps all 3? Sure, this could work in a video game, maybe in a somewhat serene, but darker scene. You know what would be fun? If you converted this to normal harmony, so we can get a side by side comparison. My guess is that this would be very romantic.

This is a song, Tolkien setting, I wrote in 1993 at the age of 24, and recently arranged as a tone poem for string orchestra. It is so dissonant that the music scares the composer! Eb Minor might be considered a weird key to begin with, but even I have trouble telling what key it is in! Not atonal, post-mahlerian perhaps, but it is about swamp monsters that eat you, so... The Mewlips-Tone Poem for String Orchestra Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Various Instruments | Noteflight The poem is posted in the Noteflight comments, so you can follow the music with the words, if you can stand to listen to it; again, it scares me!

One more thing orchestral I can post, an opera overture from 1995. If I enter any of the opera, probably extract a suite or something if I don't feel like working myself to death! Overture to the Opera Hypochondria Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Various Instruments | Noteflight

Three Roads Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Various Instruments | Noteflight I consider it a sort of Tolkien setting, because he liked this Child Ballad, and quoted this fragment of it in an essay.

I have a kind of personal "program" for the first and second movements, that I came up with long after the quartet was written! The first movement is a conversation between me and Dmitri Shostakovich, with Beethoven and Brahms politely listening, and Antonin Dvorak keeps bursting in the door drunk, whistling his latest theme! The second movement, Courante and Fugue, is even funnier: the Courante sounds to me like the barrel organ is out of tune at the carnival, and the fugue sounds as if Beethoven, whilst sketching out a fugal section in his late quartets, was even drunker than usual...

Although microtonal, this piece was intended to be a little more palatable harmonically. I use 1/6th and 1/3rd tones so I guess technically it's 36 tet. The microtonal adjustments were only applied to the underlying harmony rather than the melodic voices so it could also be considered poly-microtonal (12 tet and 36 tet together). But I consider the microtonality in this to be really "lite", but let me know what you think! I also kinda was thinking of this as a VGM track rather than a concert-piece although I guess it didn't really end up that way. I'd appreciate any of your suggestions, comments, critiques or just observations. Thanks for listening!

My word… It begins with a pathetique-esque anguish, falls into nihilism—“nihilistically scherzando” (loving brilliant!)—the adagio-like contemplation tries to tame the nihilism—Honestly? I absolutely love the emotional direction in this. Some people may say that the jazzy section sounds a bit off in a neoclassical sounding sonata, but for me—it has enough juice and meaning to stand as something intentional and felt—even if not “idiomatic” in the general sense. What stood out for me is the development section. It was gorgeous and well directed. Also, incredible job playing this yourself! That deserves a round of applause for its own sake.

I like your "Holy Spirit" but I think the explanatory note at the beginning is a bit too much. You ask about professional looking scores? To look professional, assume professionalism on the part of your musicians. You might write easy parts that can be put together without a lot of rehearsal time, but any choir should understand a simple "stagger breaths throughout" without further explanation on your part. The conductor/director can explain what that means if any choir members are very new to singing. I'm not sure about the direction to take this piece out of time like Gregorian chant. The accompaniment is very metrical, except for the first few bars, and as such will impose a strict rhythm on the singers. Did you just mean for that instruction to apply to the first few bars? If so, then indicate where strict tempo resumes. If you meant for the whole piece to be a bit loose-y goose-y then a direction for "rubato" here and there may better achieve what you are looking for while keeping accompanist, conductor, and choir together. Cheers! Sounds nice!

The 1080 resolution is still not enough for me to be able to see your score clearly with my middle aged eyeballs. I'd recommend making your videos with fewer bars visible at once so the notes and text are bigger for people viewing on a laptop screen instead of a large desktop monitor if you want them to use the videos as a promotional tool to encourage purchase of your sheet music. Certainly sounds nice, but I'm too blind to see it to give more detailed feedback! You can also post a pdf of the score and a sound file for people to use here to review your work. 🙂

...and our local orchestra, Northern Neck Orchestra, and a local pianist could probably handle it, so there's that...

Yeah; I'm doin' it, and probably would have a greater effect as a piano concerto. As a guitar concerto, would either have to be a very small string orchestra, or guitar amplified!

Only said it offhand, but I am always torturing myself and inadvertently coming up with a pretty major project! Within ten minutes, I am THERE with my piano concerto idea! Concerto in E Minor for Piano and Chamber Orchestra! Lot of work, but the music is there already. Arrange guitar part for piano, wind doubling, and I can already think of what to do with the two horns and trumpet. Add tympani...

Thanks!

Really, I COULD turn this into a piano concerto, with single winds, two horns and trumpet without too much strain, but not now!

Thinking if performed, should be 3 1st, 3 2nd, 2 Vla, 2 vc, 1 db, so guitar could be heard better, but I would be open to full string orchestra, and guitar amplified!

For your consideration, a little chamber concerto I wrote in 1998, and almost forgot I had written until I found it in a closet in 2016! Concerto In E Minor For Guitar And String Orchestra-1 Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Various Instruments | Noteflight Concerto In E Minor For Guitar And String Orchestra-2 Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Various Instruments | Noteflight Concerto In E Minor For Guitar And String Orchestra-3 Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Various Instruments | Noteflight

Got around to listening to this, and not much to say that seems to have not been said already, and in a way, I am still trying to scrape my brains off the ceiling! You have Jazz, Gershwin, even a measure of Liszt's B Minor! If I write a piano sonata, it will be lyrical and contemplative, certainly not so virtuosic, but damn...

Cool! Beethoven is Beethoven, but it can be good to just have it come naturally as well.

Yeah I think writing with motives is probably the easiest way for me to write! You can just copy and paste and also have coherence haha! Yeah this one is fast, since I consider this Sonata an easy piece to work on! I seldom make sketches too!

So you wrote your sonata pretty fast too? I took 4 months on my symphony-concerto for electric guitar and orchestra, but that's a symphony! I still didn't make a gazillion sketches like Herr Beethoven.

I'm getting around this morning to listening to the whole thing. You do seem to work out motives better than I do; I just vomit it out!

haha thx! In this video the audio is generated by my bro @Thatguy v2.0, but it's playable for me haha. As long as I remember, I took 2 actually composing days for each of the first 3 movements of the Sonata, and took two weeks (around 7 days?) for the last movement. I usually work really slow on my writing, like I took 2.5 yrs for my String Sextet and 6 yrs for my Clarinet Quintet! Henry

You know, quite a bit of difference in us as composers, and in our respective violin sonatas. I am in Virginia, you are in Hong Kong. You are an excellent pianist, I can hardly play the thing and have only mastered fretless bass guitar! Both your Bb sonata and my C major sonata have a lot of Beethoven in them, and I don't know how much time you took on your sonata, but I dashed my C major off in 13 days, not a sketch, not a correction, right onto paper (not into Noteflight), and I sure didn't work every day or every hour of every day! Parts of yours, anyway, seem like you took a bit more care...

hello peter, long time no see, I can see you are really delving into your experimental side. You’ve also managed to incorporate artificial harmonics and sul ponticello into your short piece, which comes across quite well. My only gripe is the main theme itself, while memorable I think there should be a lead in into the second phrase, as to maintain its momentum. great job making full use of the resources musescore has to offer. I am excited to hear how you develop your individual voice, as you dig deeper into complicated musical techniques.