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Hi @Vinícius Madeira! This is such a nice piece! I really liked it! It should be fun to play. I really liked the mellow atmosphere, harmonics, development, and melody. I intended to write about the parts I like best, but the piece is so wonderfully cohesive—with every element coming together beautifully—that I can't single out any specific section, haha. And You seem to be a very skilled guitarist. I hope it rains in Brazil, but not too much, and that you have lovely weather. Really nice piece! Thank you for sharing! Best, Lithl.

I agree, such talent lurking in obscure corners of YT

I much enjoyed your piece, particularly the lush harmonies and the build up to the full orchestral segment that is very tranquil indeed. Coincidently I had reviewed on this forum, last week, a work by Bach in which he depicts the 'winds' in one of his cantata's; I discuss how he approached this. His portrayal was not of a tranquil wind but violent, turbulent & unpredictable. So when I listened your work I could not help but consider the differences in approach. If your intention here was for purely atmospheric music (that is, background music to fit a scene without anything in particular to say) then this works very well. However if you intended to embed a narrative of sorts, there would need to be a story with some instability thrown that needs resolution (you could transition to a minor key and while not necessarily a need to venture into storm territory, perhaps a little uncertainty in the direction of the wind). Alternatively - and if indeed purely atmospheric - you could add more color to the environment of the scene, with depictions of wildlife at the scene: you could give primacy to certain instruments to depict certain life forms (birds, crabs, sharks in the water 😅) as a tool for characterization. Your work is great as it is now. This is just my humble attempt at offering some constructive criticism. One other thing I will add: I am a big fan of the atmospheric music of Jeremy Soule in the Elder Scrolls video game series. I studied some of this techniques recently and learned some interesting things: The third of triads is often omitted for its effect of emptiness to the ear. While sacrosanct in functional harmony, it can be very effective in depicting scenes with vast open spaces (imagine you as a character in a role playing game wondering the wilderness). The omission also helps the music remain in the background. His use of tonal clusters: outer parts may have a distinctive voice, but in-between he makes use of tonal clusters, with a broad range in pitch, that are essentially a mush of tonalities that most often don't make harmonic sense. But the tonal 'mush' in itself emerges as a lurid & mysterious. It makes a perfect accompaniment when, in the game, one looks to stars and celestial objects in the night sky. I will post an example of this here for your reference. Hope you find it interesting. The effect of these tonal clusters in the strings is one of the sun's glare, it seems.

Hello everyone, my name is Vinícius Madeira; I am a 7-string guitarist and composer. I’d like to share one of my compositions with you called "Água no Sertão" (Water in the Backlands). I wrote this piece based on the lives of people in Brazil's rural communities—specifically the old cattle herders who rejoice when the rain finally arrives amidst a drought.

Hey @BlackkBeethoven ! Glad to hear this piece finally in its finished form! There are many idiosyncrasies in the piece that are characteristically you. Your strongest writing is during the chorale-like hymn sections, first in F major and then in Eb major, a tritone away from your original key of A major. One of the unusual things that make the piece unique is some of the 7 measure phrases that make the melody almost feel like a run-on sentence. Like in the very beginning, the first phrase is a 7 measure phrase. That might perhaps be due to an elision with the beginning of the following phrase. The following two phrases seem to both be 9 measure phrases. However, you do make it work somehow. The modulations also ended up working. While following along with the score I thought I saw/heard something objectionable in the modulations. But that impression disappeared when I just let myself listen. Some of the quick sextuplets/flourishes in the Violins weren't quite audible in this rendition. I know that in Musescore Studio those kinds of things can sometimes be fixed by putting in staccatissimo markings on all the notes. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on finishing it!

Lovely, lovely work. Speaking from the perspective of someone who saw this work in its earlier stages, your orchestration of the original piano sketch is absolutely wonderful. The strings have given such life to the piece. The melody is beautiful and very nicely phrased and the harmonies are 👌🏾🔥. I think the contrast between the piano and strings is nicely balanced (especially at spots like m.38, m.51 - it's like the instrument has a chance to be highlighted in a way that is well placed) The pizz at m.59 😩 so good The piece has good form too. The developmental material in the middle is a nice contrast to the main theme. Wonderful work - I always enjoy listening to your work.

Hi again @gmm ! I listened to this first following along with the score, and then, while writing this review. And I am firmly convinced that the piece is actually meant to be in 3/4. I constantly hear three quarters per bar throughout the piece and am hard pressed to find a single bar where a 6/8 meter would be justified. That aside, I really love the middle section where the bass melody takes the focus of the piece while the arpeggios move to the high voices. Ab major and B major work really well as contrasting keys. Perhaps because B major is the relative major of G# minor, the parallel minor of Ab major. Very clever macrotonal scheme there. The piece exudes peace and tranquility. Wonderful job and thanks for sharing!

Hello fellow composers! I wanted to share a short piece I wrote called Coastal Wind. With this piece, I was trying to evoke an open shoreline with gentle motion, changing light, and a calm but restless sense of wind over water. The instrumentation is small orchestra: string section, double woodwinds, and horns. The piece is in a simple A–B–A form. The A section, in A-flat major, features a woodwind duet melody over cello arpeggios. The B section shifts to B major and moves the melody into a darker, lower register with cellos, basses, bassoons, and low horns, while the arpeggiated motion moves into the woodwinds and violin harmonics create a soft background shimmer. The opening material then returns, and the piece ends quietly as the cello arpeggios gradually fade away. I tried to keep the harmony and form fairly clear, and focus more on creating a distinct atmosphere than building a large dramatic arc. I wanted the piece to have motion and energy, but still feel calm, lyrical, and restrained. I’d really appreciate outside ears on the composition, orchestration, mockup realism, balance, phrasing, use of register, or simply whether the coastal/wind-like atmosphere comes across. Thanks in advance! Coastal Wind Score - CONCERT SCORE Ver1.pdf

Could you elaborate please? What specifically would the award be about? And would it have a French name?

I'm back after around two years. Been composing, but just inactive over here. About two weeks ago, my friend challenged me to write a piece on a theme of 1434 (letters in I lost the game). So... well, I tried. The counterpoint sure isn't good, but hope for some good feedback. Fugue but You Lost.mp3 Fugue but You Lost.pdf

Hello @L.S Barros, Your music is lovely and fascinating in its assimilation of early music styles! I think you'd get more reviews of your work if you posted the scores along with the audio. It's much more difficult to review by ear.

OK, it’s a question of condensation. In other words, reducing the score as much as possible whilst still making it playable. In this case, the editor (Dorico) does this automatically, although you can change it if you wish.

Hello A brilliant piece I really like the idea of taking the melody from the hymn, as if it were a sort of modern ‘cantus firmus’ upon which to build the whole piece. On the one hand, it has reminded me of those composers who included almost – or not quite so almost – literal quotations from hymns and other sources (Charles Ives, for example). Although where I see the greatest influence – surely unintentional – is with Brahms, and I’ll tell you why (from my point of view). Because Brahms was an absolute master when it came to introducing melodies into the inner voices on the piano. And that’s what I see here, and it’s the richness of this piece.

Lovely melody and textures. Particularly the vocal line. I’m not entirely convinced by the final section; the high notes sound too loud. My main comment is about the harp – oh, the harp! There’s no indication whatsoever of initial pedal positions or changes. This isn’t mandatory, though personally, one should have it checked. There are things you simply can’t do, such as this: On the other hand, the harp part is notated by placing each note on the nearest of the two staves. But the correct way to do it, I believe, is to write on the upper stave what the upper hand plays and on the lower stave what the lower hand plays, bearing in mind that the groups (in passages that aren’t slow) consist of four notes per hand. Huge arpeggiated chords are also impossible to play if they’re fast. If it’s an effect where each note of the arpeggio follows the next slowly, then yes. But at that speed, it’s impossible. Each hand can cover a maximum of a tenth and four notes per hand. The chords must be simplified to that (or use two harps?). There are also some very questionable chords: The harp is a complicated instrument and you can’t think of it as if it were a piano. Saludos.

What about a award for instrumentation?

@MK_Piano has provided some very creative ideas for the possible badges for the "From Nothing, to Something" Summer 2026 Competition! Check them out: "L'alchimiste Award"- for the most imaginative transformation of the text into music. "Dans l’Esprit de Verlaine Award" - for the piece that best captured the spirit of Verlaines poem. "The Poème d'Amour Award" - reserved for the piece voted to have best captured the sensation of love. "The Évocation Award" - reserved for the piece voted to have best captured the sensation of summer. Of course, don't forget that there will be 1st, 2nd and 3rd place awards as well. And all the participants will receive a participant award while all the reviewers will receive an ardent reviewer badge in one of three tiers. Don't forget that the competition ends September 24th! We only have a month left! Of course - let us know what other badges we could award to the winners of this competition! We're going for French names of the badges/awards to accord with the French poem that the competition is based on.

Hello @Grant Weep, thank you four your kind comments. I wouldn't take it too patriotic – or perhaps not patriotic at all, since patriotism tends to focus on a specific country (usually one’s own). I rather would like to see both pieces, the fugue and the prelude, as a dedication to all people who suffer from war and repression in whatever country they live or, let’s say, as a „prayer“ for freedom, peace and humanity. No, I’m from Berlin, Germany but that is – one the one hand – much closer to Ukraine as, for example, the United States or Canada, and indeed we had for about two years Ukrainian people (I do not like the word „refugee“ very much) in the house where I live in, before they fortunately could find an own apartment. On the other hand, I spent my childhood and early youth in East Germany and East Berlin—that is, behind the “Iron Curtain.” And that is why I feel such deep gratitude for the freedom I have been able to enjoy since the fall of the Berlin Wall—and in fact, I was standing on that crowded bridge on that historic night of November 9, 1989. Much time has passed since then, and collective memory seems to be slowly fading, but for me, this historic event is all the more precious because no other people have had the chance to gain freedom since then, and I often wonder why the “terrible” Germans, of all people, were given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But now I'd like to set aside the political and historical considerations – otherwise it would get somewhat off-topic - and return to the music: Indeed, there was an amount of effort with the score – particularly in preparing the „ossia“ staves so that they wouldn’t detract too much from the overall impression. But moreover, I struggled somewhat with the 3/8 meter, which itself is beautiful and thriving, but always has the inherent danger from constantly listening as „hum-ta-taa, hum-ta-taa, hum-ta-taa“. There are a number of recordings of, for example, the opening choir and the choir „Herrscher des Himmels“ from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, which suffer from that problem to be as rhythmically monotonous, regardless of the tempo. So, to mitigate this impression, I introduced some „micro-arpeggios“ and „micro-tempo changes“ to get the chords sounding a bit airier. The moment at 2:47 you mentioned is (possibly) the fourth citation of the fugue subject in the soprano (mm. 86). And although the Schubert Impromptu is quite different – due to its faster runs – the moment is indeed somewhat similar, since it changes the mood from „darker“ to „brighter“ (by the way, when looking in the score (mm. 11-12), I don’t see an E but a threefold repeated F flat …).

Thank you thank you thank you!! After getting feedback, I went and reread some Caplin, and brushed up on my counterpoint a little bit and chord voicings. I played with the idea of a core in the developmental section (C section), and a dominant pedal, all that fun stuff. WOW - that means a LOT. Wow. Thank you so much. I really wanted to push myself as a composer and really just commit to the material I had, and instead of scrapping it, repurpose it and find a way to improve on it and make it work. I am very pleased with the end result.

Entry: "Your Daer Beauty lovelier" Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 6 7 7 10 5 5 9.5 6 total; 55.5/80 Average Score:6.9 Review: Melodic material: Cello line, which carries the melody, is even balanced. It introduces the main theme of the piece that is sung in baritone voice. However, we can't hear baritone signing the melody for the other instruments are overshadowing it. It would nice if instruments would drop out when the male voice is signing. Or giving a lighter texture. or only have one or two playing. This is paramount when writing for voice and orchestra. Score prep, instrumentation, playability. : There are several issues with the score. The hairpins are not readable with in the harp part; the bliss is not connected; solo indicators when you only instrument per player. Solo is used in strings where there is more than one player per part, and the composers wants only player to play. Holst did this in Venus. When he wanted to signal a solo player in the string section, he marked "solo". For the areas, where the solo is marked, it is preferred not to have the other instruments playing. This is applicable for oboe part, too. The held note in the reeds is not ideal. When you are writing for wood instruments, you have to remember, that need to breathe. Because there is no phrase markings in the cello part, the bowing will change on every note. I feel you can add more depth here. The triple stop at the end is incredible hard to play. You have wrote out the range of the Oboe'd natural range. In fact, that instrument is no longer in use. It is not in balance with the rest of the ensemble. Execution: Yes, this piece has met the core requirements for this competition. However, the over all mood just seems off. Creativity: this is indeed and creative and orginal piece. Form and time: It was difficult to what the proper formal structure of the composition was, and the timing was slow. Harmony and textures; Overall, the piece is mainly diatonic. There are moments of other modes with in the piece. The piece has colorful textures. Side note: Cantai can be used with Musescore.

This is a massive improvement from your other versions of this theme. Honestly, I can't believe this is the same piece you've been working on, it's the same theme, but an utter transformation. Apparently this also works very well as a string quintet! Your themes are beautiful and memorable, and the harmonization is gorgeous. I can seriously sit down and listen to this a few times in order to learn from your work. This version just goes to show how good structure and a good recording can completely transform the same melody (something I've been trying to tell you for awhile). Your key changing is also really well done. Honestly I feel like you made a massive leap from the previous version(s) to this version. Whatever happened, something must have clicked!

Thank you for sharing this video @Luis Hernández! I completely agree with the sentiments expressed in it. Exactly — I think one thing that the twentieth century taught us composers is that not all innovations have the same generative potential, for opening new directions. You cannot create anything meaningful by simply negating what came before, or appropriating it with irony, approaches that reduce history to a museum of dead artifacts. Developing a personal voice requires building upon models, which can be quite diverse and individual in character especially in today’s globalized society. To be a truly contemporary composer, (i.e., con-tempo, “with the time”) you need one foot firmly in the past, and one foot ahead in the future. To quote on of my favorite writers on aesthetics, Jacques Maritain: It is indeed true that there is no necessary progress in art, that tradition and discipline are the true nurses of originality; and it is likewise true that the feverish acceleration which modern individualism, with its mania for revolution in mediocrity, imposes on the succession of art forms, abortive schools, and puerile fashions, is the symptom of wide-spread intellectual and social poverty. And yet the fact remains that art has a fundamental need of novelty: like nature, it goes in seasons. And Baudelaire, himself considered one of poetry’s greatest innovators: It is clear that systems of rhetoric and prosodies are not forms of tyranny arbitrarily devised, but a collection of rules required by the very organization of the spiritual being: never have prosodies and systems of rhetoric prevented originality from manifesting itself distinctly. The opposite would be far more true, that they have been a help to the blossoming forth of originality.

Honestly, I think it's a weird theme for writing variations because it's very bare. Even though there's an implicit harmony, it's really just a melodic line, not very rich rhythmically, doubled across three octaves. I feel like you have to break away from that vertical pattern because it gets monotonous pretty fast. Meaning, I'd try to write some variations that explore melodies hidden within it, and also fill in the harmonies that are sometimes incomplete in the original theme.

I wanted to share this reflection entitled ‘ORIGINALITY IN ART’ (the trap of wanting to be original). It is by Agustín Calabrese, a great composer and teacher. The video is in Spanish (he’s from Argentine), but I’ve transcribed almost all of it and run it through a translation tool. I think it offers a lot of insight on this subject. We must not worry about being original. At the very least, we must not consciously seek originality. Being the first to do something is not, a priori, a virtue. Claiming to be at the cutting edge today, or even believing that this is possible, makes no sense whatsoever. For the past few decades, we artists have had a global view of the entire history of art. That was not always the case. Bach was discovered and rediscovered several times, first by Mozart and half a century later by Mendelssohn. It is impossible to take things to an extreme that has not been explored before... [...] ‘Adolescent’ avant-garde impulses lead nowhere and fizzle out of their own accord; they are like a snake eating its own tail, and one cannot build in that direction. True innovations are rooted in tradition and build upon it. Innovation as something that breaks with a previous tradition, disparages it and treats earlier practices with irony is an anomaly of the twentieth century. In a healthy culture, styles evolve and transform progressively over a long period of time. Eighteenth-century positivism and the Enlightenment have led to the arts being evaluated using a method appropriate to the sciences. As if art were required to progress indefinitely. This doesn’t mean we have to repeat things that have already been done, but the only way to be original is to be true to ourselves. We shouldn’t write music that we think is politically correct or that people expect of us. Every person is a unique blend of tastes, influences, stories… If we let it flow without worrying about belonging to a particular movement, we will inevitably create something new.

Hey everyone! Happy to share my finished piece - Metamorphosis! I'd love to hear any and all feedback 😁 -Metamorphosis-.mp3 Metamorphosis - (Score).pdf

Thank you for your comment Mark. I will try the French Horn as well , i think it will fit especially the nightmare theme at around mm.33-48. There i currently use the English horn at an interval of a third above the main melody, but i am not sure that it fits well!