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hey @Marius_, thank you for your detailed comment, brother. I appreciate your comments on harmony since I am attempting to explore a new language in this work. Naturally, sounding authentically jazz is still out of the question since I am only mildly familiar with this genre. As for the improvisation bit, I’ve had the chance to work with the performers themselves, and suggested that they add a few grace notes/rhythmic alterations to the existing melody. This is probably more appropriate considering they are classical musicians, who aren’t as well versed in improv. A few ppl have told me to change the sax instrumentation to tenor saxophone. When I have the time, I will definitely give it a try in muse and change it to concert pitch too! thanks again.

Maybe finish today, then put it on some Kraut forum! Three variations and decided on a variation-long coda, to go!

hey man @therealAJGS, thank you so much for your kind comment. I’ve just replied to you on youtube as well.

Hello @therealAJGS and welcome to the forum! I think this music reminds me of the OST to "Earthbound" a classic SNES RPG that I played as a kid. The organ sounds remind me of the vibe of that game. So, to answer your question - I think the genre could easily be VGM because this sustains a certain mood/vibe throughout the whole duration of the piece. It certainly doesn't fit in "Orchestral and Large Ensemble"! So I'll move it to Incidental music. Thanks for sharing!

Hello @InterstellerApex and welcome to the forum! I like this chamber piece! It's simple and melodic and wears its heart on its sleeve. Thanks for sharing! Just some nit-picks - why is there a long silence at the end of the piece? Also, in measure 29 I perceive the metric alignment of the music to shift by one beat. So beat 2 becomes beat 1 (I perceive the Bb in the Clarinet and Piano in the beginning of that measure to be a pick-up note). The same thing happens again in measure 44.

@PeterthePapercomPoser Thank you so much for your reply! If I can get better recordings of these pieces I’ll send them, that aside: - I think you’re right about the “wacky/quirky” quality to this “Danse.” I certainly don’t think it could be called anything else. It was actually meant as an homage to Poulenc, something shared throughout the set. This whole partita is more or less a tribute to Les Six (and to a lesser extent, Ravel). When I hear this piece, though, I start to imagine one of the evil muppets (like Animal, or the bomb guy) just staring at you. Bare eye contact. No looking away. Just that muppet, and this music is the illustration of that moment. (The italian tempo/expressive indication literally translates to “Fast and a little bit evil.”) - This truly is the fault of poor audio rendering. When played on an actual instrument, even my fairly poor keyboard skills yielded interesting results. This is a very personal piece. There have been some difficult things going on around me and I needed an outlet. For a long time I’ve had something of a block when it comes to just creating music out of emotion; I always create in abstraction, or at least, tend to. That’s been breaking down a little bit recently, and this was the product of it. It was the first piece completed in the set. - This Pavane is a revision of a much earlier piece. It was in my first year of composing, I joined this forum and this was one of my “Nocturnes” (I have not written any nocturnes I would consider part of my works, aside from a secret project I may reveal later). Anyway, it was very repetitive, and dull. The former quality was kept in this piece, but reworked with a more mature understanding of counterpoint and rhythmic theory. Honestly, I consider this to be nothing more than a real, true-to-vision version of that little piano piece. I just didn’t have the technique to write it the way I wanted to back then.

Hello @Petr Kopuletý and welcome to the forum! I see you've submitted two pieces here before, but I have not had the occasion to review them yet. I like this piece! There's definitely a musical ebb and flow and gradual building and resolution dynamics wise. I think the only thing I have to complain about is that the piece to me lacks harmonic tension and release. It accomplishes its building and resolution through adding and subtracting instruments and having them play louder or softer (or having the piano play thicker chords or more complex rhythms which definitely have their charm!). But then again, your harmonic approach is individual and anything but ordinary. There's even some imitation between the flute and piano at 8:53 which is a great feature! The piece slowly winds down and comes to a well deserved but unusual conclusion - one that I perceive as quite divergent from a traditional tonic resolution! It'd be interesting to look at a score. Thanks for sharing!

Hi @HoYin Cheung! This one is quite contrapuntally complex! The motivic ideas and counterpoint are sound. And there is a clear hierarchy of importance and different elements are brought in and out of the foreground dynamically like a kaleidoscope. There is a natural ebb and flow and a sense of flourishing at every moment of the piece's duration. It is surprising how thematic the piece actually is once I listen again and pay attention, despite the challenging harmonic language and sometimes cacophonous orchestration, with elements seemingly chaotically interrupting each other. The reduction in instrumental forces towards the end really helps to bring the piece towards its conclusion. And it looks/sounds like your harp writing towards the end is quite possible and even easy for the harp to play! Looking back over the score, I notice that the 16th notes runs in measure 28 - 30 in the winds don't seem to be audible (at least I couldn't hear them). Presumably you rendered this score with NotePerformer? Thanks for sharing - I enjoyed it!

Hi @mercurypickles! Danse - I love the wacky/quirky nature of this Prokofiev-esque piece! The parallel b9's in the melody also add a lot to the character of it. Makes it sound like a dancing clown or something! Haha. Also - I think if there were 4 8th note pick-ups to this it could easily be considered a Gavotte. Or if it had a quarter note or two 8th note pick-ups it could also be a Bourree. But since it doesn't have either of those just calling it a "Danse" certainly fits! Ricercar - for me this is perhaps the most formless and indistinct part of the suite. In the beginning, when listening with the score it looked like maybe it had more of a resemblance to a canon than a ricercar, which I presume to be a slow/early form of a fugue. I find it really difficult to hear any independent voices in this piece which I think is supposed to be a display of contrapuntal knack. It just sounds like the top voice gets the emphasis making it seem like a homophonic piece rather than polyphonic. Pavane - This one also has some very interesting harmonic inflections! The recurring motif is easily identifiable throughout the piece and there's actually more voice independence here than in the ricercar imo. I also think this might fit under the description of an instrumental version of a dance that has kind of lost some of its dance-like sprightly-ness. Thanks for sharing these! I hope to eventually hear the whole suite - overall I definitely found these enjoyable!

I am a firm believer that the Alain Mayrand video up top is the single best video on orchestration on the internet right now, no joke.

Hello @PaavolaPyry and welcome to the forum! Very interesting piece! I have a limited (some) amount of experience with guitar playing as well as microtonality. From what I understand in your tuning indications the G string should be tuned slightly sharp, and the B and E strings slightly flat. Since the piece is in drop D tuning as well and basically using D as the tonic, this tuning puzzles me. If you were trying to achieve intervals closer to the ones found in the harmonic series, I'd think that you'd want the G string slightly flat as well (bringing your G#'s in this piece closer to the idealized 11th harmonic and a "purer" tritone sound). Although when I write microtonal music, I have vacillated between different goals, sometimes deliberately going for an "out of tune" sound to create a warped sense of tonality (using 24 tet). Other times I do try to get closer to the intervals in the harmonic series with justly tuned intervals though (using 1/3rd and 1/6th tones). What is your intent with microtonality? Thanks for sharing and I'd be stoked to hear more!

After coming home I took my guitar and wanted to experiment. There is a bit of microtonal stuff in there based on tuning. I have written a piece for orchestra and guitar before, but for some reason I feel like I am overwhelmed with possibilities at the moment. My plan is to expand this idea for orchestra. This is basically a transcript of my improvisation. It will be orchestra with a guitarist. I want to brainstorm this stuff. Form will not be identical. Feedback on notation technique is appreciated as well. I actually thought about removing all the time signatures (since the caesura signifying a 1/16th note break is a compromise in itself), but it's there for now. Audio file isn't perfect, please check the score simultaneously (had problems with the arpeggios where there is a simultaneous E and E-10c). (Oh yeah, this is on solo guitar, it doesn't say it on the score apparently) For some of my own immediate thoughts: I am in-between starting the orchestral version with the guitar on its own or starting with an intro of some kind. I like the abruptness of the start of the guitar theme. It's like stubbing your toe and being angry at the table corner for bestowing such pain upon you. The guitar impro version is also quite dense, so maybe there's space between the ideas. Additionally there is a lot of fragmentation, which can work well in a Rite of Spring style, where everyone sort of does their own fragment. Maybe this could grow over time (I also like the returning to theme). In the C part the recording does not convey what it sounds like on the guitar (issues with my own technical limitations aka lack of will to fight with musescore) and there is something I want to do there. One of the larger problems will be the microtonality. Of course guitar is quite a different instrument to many others and the microtonality here is relatively tame (except for the bends) and some instruments can certainly be prepared to match the vibe of the guitar (microtonally tuned harp?), but I feel like it will still pose many issues. Although I must admit, sometimes older string quartets etc. are not perfectly in tune - and I love that vibe. And if you find the piece humorous or straight up dislike it, don't be afraid to say it! I don't want to be stuck in an echo chamber and I have thick skin. Honest feedback is my favourite. Keep in mind still that this is the start of an idea. Apologies if there are some etiquette mistakes, new here. Love from Finland -Pyry 30 degrees.pdf

Obviously everyone hates this! LOL! I wrote it at great speed, and the idea was to make a piece with a very bizarre and fluid structure, to match the odd instrumentation. I wanted to try writing for a weird collection of contrabass instruments, as I thought this would be a good challenge. The contrabass ophicleide is one of the rarest instruments in the world, with only five in existence, three of which are unplayable: so I can rest safe in the knowledge this will never be performed! 🤐

Thanks so much for listening! That's all all really helpful. The challenge was apparently inspired by a short cue from Harry Potter ("Buckbeak's Flight"); although I didn't actually discover that until after I'd finished writing on day 5! For the piano sketch, we were told to use four piano tracks, one for melody, one for harmony, one for counterpoint, and the last one for extra flourishes. It's actually quite a good idea, because it makes the orchestration process much quicker and easier. We were told to write about 30 seconds of music; though I went beyond that (and some people ended up writing about 2-3 minutes!) I wanted to use harp and celesta for extra colour, as these are frequently employed by Williams. He also tends to have triad fanfares in three trumpets quite often: so that's why I used one here. Probably should've added some woodwind runs as well; but I felt that would make it too busy. The challenge gave me some new composition techniques: so it was definitely a helpful thing to take part in. I may decided to expand this into a longer work of 5-10 minutes at some point. Anyway, thanks again for the analysis, and the links. Alex.

I AM taking the repeats out of this piece; it is certainly not as good as my new variations with the Deutsch name (Hey, German poem by Goethe, of all Germans); it will not take me long!

Hey man! Great work at coming this far. I can tell that this style of orchestration was stretching you, but I hope it opened your horizons and you’re growing a lot:) Here are a couple of my thoughts: Distortion: I also noticed the distortion over time. It was slight and in the background, but perceptible. I agree with both the above analyses that it’s part Musescore (which could be fixed with a DAW), and part a thicccc orchestration lol:) Composition: This is already a great start. I don’t know if I would call it a “cue” (that seems to mean introduction to me), but it seems like a mid-scene Star Wars music. What I think would help you most would be developing your melody with a more cohesive theme (maybe using period or sentence forms), then using it to create a simpler piano sketch. Having everything sketched out on one (or two for complex pieces) pianos/organs/accordions helps to have a clear vision of how much harmony is going on at once. Then you can orchestrate and double all you want to get the timbre you’re looking for. These are some of the most helpful videos I’ve found for this topic, from my favorite YouTube composer Ryan Leach: This one covers using just a basic 4 or 5 part writing sketch, then adding octave doublings to give it an epic feel. I really recommend only using 4-5 parts/pitches at a time for emotional purity. This will also help cut down on the mud/distortion: Next is an example of another young composer who was coached into writing a cinematic piece from a sketch. Then finally, “How to Orchestrate…” is the pro composer’s version, starting from a more complex 2-piano sketch. I hope that in giving high quality feedback, I might be able to receive high quality feedback when I post something:)

Clicked on this and listened to it, but I just got defeated in trying to write a white-heat piano piece in one sitting, and my brain hurts, but having even read Beethoven piano sonatas ON THE TOILET! Beethoven himself would not turn up his nose at this, and it DOES sound a bit like him, though not derivative; I would say in the style of, it's like one of his easy-going first movements of a piano sonata. I WILL listen to the whole thing.

This is a really good piece, and I have really been enjoying your music! Very exotic, and you are well-trained and have done your homework.😃

Hey, some of you pianists here learn this right fast, ya hear? 🤣 Ich koennte auf den Boden gefallen und sterbend lachende!-W.A. Mozart. My German is improving...but still rudimentary.

BTW, I never mess with dynamics, slurs, bowings, etc. in Noteflight; it takes a long time to enter there anyway, and dynamics sound exaggerated. My scores if written in manuscript have these things, but if writing direcly into Noteflight as this one, and the one I just posted are, I also don't bother. Anyone playing my Noteflight music may edit the scores themselves.

12 Variationen Über Das Lied "Heidenröslein" Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Piano/Keyboard | Noteflight Began this piece at about 11:30 last night and trying to finish in twelve hours, writing directly into Noteflight, and it is a virtuoso showpiece. Took on a life of its own, and I can't even play piano! I am giving myself a sort of Diary in the comments!

Hey Mooravioli, I like your piece. The harmony is weird and complex. I think for this kind of music the danger is making the harmony too unconventional, which makes the piece hard to listen to. A lot of people that experiment, do it too much. You don't: you keep the listener hooked and curious, and know how to tell a story through chords. Another thing that helps is your use of melodic motives. Really nice! I especially like the resolution and ending from bar 195 onwards. Consider using a tenor saxophone instead of alto, it better suits the melodies you've written. Low notes on sax are often harsh and unpredictable, writing a little higher in the instruments range can give a nicer sound/more freedom to the player to choose the right sound. You can also definitely explore the vibraphone's abilities more. Remember that professionals can play four notes at once! Listen to some bebop vibe players for reference. Also, five sharps (or four for tenor)? why would you do that to anyone? If you raise everything a semitone (Eb major, concert pitch), your players will thank you. As for the genre - this isn't jazz. I would probably call it contemporary classical. If you want to write jazz, listen to the music. If you'd like to write in any style, you need to be familiar with that music. Of course that shouldn't discourage you from writing this music at all! It sounds cool, and that is what matters. I just wanted to say, if you call this jazz and show it to a jazz musician, they will look at you like "🙂 that is really ~interesting~ jazz 🙂". For improvisation, your best bet is to write chord symbols and let one player completely free, like in traditional jazz songs, because that is what players are used to. Saying 'feel free to improvise' and 'improvise less' is very vague, and may not give the effect you want. What you could say is 'feel free to embellish' or something, if that's what you had in mind. In general: if you don't want someone to play the written notes, don't write the notes...

Thanks!

Hello @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu! Thank you so much for your lovely reply! I am really happy you found it soothing! And your suggestion is something I've been debating on for quite some time on the piece but have been unsure about. So, I take this as a good sign to extend it a little more! Seun

hello, it's been a while because i switched browsers, but here's a new song! also, can someone tell me what genre this is? i can't tell.