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Another great movement. What I like most is the balance between instruments and textures.... The fact that not all the instruments are always playing, but that they are in dialogue. And also the modern counterpoint in which the independence of the layers is noticeable. I like that texture between 125 and 138 (it reminds me of the beginning of Sibelius' violin concerto).

Hi everyone! Long time for posting my last composition here. I am going to post the Lamentoso from my String Sextet 2nd movement here finally. Here is the pdf, mp3 and YouTube link of the piece: Lamentoso from String Sextet Movement 2.pdf Henry_Lamentoso.mp3 Here are the previous posts from the String Sextet: First movement: And here is the fugue after this Lamentoso: Here is the structure of the movement: 0:04, b.1-33. Introduction, setting the heavy tone of the movement by immediately using the low register of the violas and cellos. Focus on the first three notes of the opening theme of the first movement, but in minor version. 1:35, b.33-60. Agitato. Use some polyrhythms and tremolos here for my agitation. The melody comes from the minor version of the opening theme of the first movement. I like the yearning from second cello and first violin here! 3:23, b.61-93. Più mosso. Variation on the arpeggiating figure of the first movement first introduced in b.19. The sudden modulation to C minor is to echo the C major modulation in the first movement, b.226, and also augur the C minor modulation in the subsequent fugue section. With a solo transition to the next section. 4:58, b.94-122. Agitato. Again features tremolo here but with metre as rhythm. At first it’s a variation on the first three notes of the opening theme, but in b.108 the theme from the next section is announced early. Modulate to dominant C sharp minor, my favourite key! 6:01, b.123-139. Tranquillo. A cello recitative against the bass notes and the fleeing upper strings. The theme here comes from the Db major of the first movement in b.115, again the minor variation . I quite like the texture here, since the cello is really beautiful in its high register con sordini. Modulate to F sharp major to the next big section. 7:05, b.140-198. Marked “doubtful” at first since it’s the reappearance of the original opening theme of the first movement but harmonized by strange keys and then surrounded by dissonant chords (b.148). Enters into Misterioso passage, maybe trying to find ways to connect back to the world of the first movement. Bartok Pizz. is used as a signal for something enlightened. B.179 starts my favourite section of the whole Lamentoso or even the while 2nd movement I have written so far. It augurs the subject of the fugue which comes next, but for me it’s honest and very beautiful when getting back to F sharp minor. Definitely one of my best passages ever written. 10:43, b.199-end. Coda and transition to the fugue. A recalled memory from the heavenly first movement, but laughed off by the evil sul ponticello 2nd viola. Exhausted, the music gets into the second big section, the six part fugue which I composed earlier. I’m afraid the structure is a bit disorganised, but I like how direct it is emotionally and the contrast it brings with the first movement and the subsequent fugue. I definitely write with my honest emotion here, even though it’s quite sad. Hopefully I’ll finish the whole movement and while piece soon! Hope you enjoy my sadness here! Henry

Sorry to break it to you, but listening to this, I'm getting many clues that you were scammed, because this does not sound real. Even if they had used an electric piano, there's no way their tuplets are that precise at that speed, there's like no dynamic nuance, and the dynamics rarely even match properly, and the pedaling sounds unnatural. Sounds like they took a midi and messed around with tempo changes. The piece itself is well written. The themes are memorable, they develop nice, etc., so well done. The main issue I have is the enharmonic spelling in the score makes it troublesome to read sometimes, so I'd suggest reading into that.

Hey @PeterthePapercomPoser, I've been working so much on my symphony. Revising the first movement and working on the 4th movement - the 4th movement is nearly 20 minutes long now and I promise it will not disappoint. It's just that I'm almost done with a 40-minute symphony and want the ending to be magnificent, so I've been helping others with their compositions while studying scores in the mean time. Thanks for your feed back! I always appreciate your comments. Thank you and yes, this is the beginning of the first "true" theme. I'm not entirely sure where to go with it, but I know I want to contrast the introduction's maniacal nature. It was intended to be a sneak peak, but I will always accept advice and criticism so long as you have as much interest in my work as I do. I figured I should let you guys know I haven't forgot about you all and that I'm still alive and working lol I want to evoke the characteristic evil of an anti-hero in this piece which means I'm going guns blazing through the introduction because I also want the piece to sound cool. Also, The attention span of people as a whole is pretty small, so I'm going for music that is more marketable and relatable for things like Instagram reels and YouTube shorts. The objective of the piece is to rarely lose the attention of someone who doesn't know a thing about music appreciation, theory, or musicianship. I can 100% guarantee that there will be clear themes after this introduction. Thanks again for your time and response!

Hi @WowBroThatWasReallyEdgy - long time no see! This sounds like a great operatic introduction - reminds me a little of Verdi in style (not in content). Towards the end of this file you have what appears to be the beginning of the main theme - it's sounding very good! Are you looking for advice as to how to continue or just giving us a sneak peek? It's very dramatic and dynamic! I think it shouldn't be hard to come up with the exposition of the main theme using some of the material from the introduction but making it somehow more unified and expository. Less interrupted by dramatic pauses and hocket-like rhythmic treatment of the material and not passing the material between different instruments but presenting the listener with a clear theme for them to latch onto. Thanks for sharing! Really stoked for how you continue this!

I replaced the original posts mp3, but about the music, Mahler's symphonies were my inspiration for this symphony, as I said I made already 3 symphonies and If I say, I love my second symphony, particularly my 2nd movement, and yeah may some people don't like these harmonies.

Yess!! So much better, thank you for the reupload. In fact, please do us a favor and replace your mp3 in your original post with this new recording. My comments will be the same, fun to listen to, and love your key changes. This is very "chant-like" and some people may not like this type of harmony. I don't mind it at all though, especially if this is the mood you are looking to portray.

Thank you, this is the best render I can do, this file that attached

Hi! Please re-record and upload this piece, it is not a pleasant recording to listen to, due to the tearing, as Vince has mentioned. Putting aside the recording for a moment though, the music sounds like it would be really fun to listen to. Love your key changes towards the second half of the piece!

Yeah I play Piano for about 2 years

This is the worst rendering I've ever heard. There's so much tearing and cranked to a zillion distortion that I thought you blew my headphones out. Luckily it was only my ears... Please do yourself a favor and study up on clipping and balancing your tracks. As for the music, it seems like you're exploring orchestration. Nice! I'd practice smaller ensembles in the future to better layer your instruments; right now, it has just a wall of sound texture to it. Read up on brass instruments. Can they sustain those notes that long? Do you play an instrument? If so, I'd practice writing for that! Welcome to the forums 🙂

Hello, I am 16 and I just made 3 symphonies I need some feedback on the 4th symphony that I making, this is my first movement and I want to know what you thinking about it.

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen! Yes, I did write the text. It's often easier to write what you want than to find a text that discusses a particular topic and that is in the public domain. It often feels like the world is ending lately, between climate change and unstable political situations and Covid, but having someone there with you, even if there is nothing they can actually do to fix anything, makes life a little easier. Over all, I was looking for stillness and simplicity with this piece. I know what you mean that a little chromaticism would have added something, but I didn't want too much lushness, if that makes sense? More, a sense of the plain and the quiet. At the end of the world, things are pretty stark. We're down to the essentials and just quietly sitting. Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I appreciate it!

AUDIO : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bqxe3epHQIU1eZn5WMtwrQ3nvq3wkY2s/view?usp=drive_link Hey everyone, just wanted to show what my next project will be after I'm done with my symphony. Criticism welcome so long as it's constructive!

Hi @panta rei! Once again, I am in awe of your chromaticism and ability to always be modulating and yet in a way that allows themes to be sufficiently exposed. You're always going somewhere harmonically, very often with pivot chord modulations or secondary dominants (or secondary augmented 6th chords?) That makes your piece very interesting both harmonically and melodically. Although I think it's more of a minuet than a scherzando. It's not fast enough to be a scherzo and there's not enough surprising dynamics and the piece lacks the rhythmic drive for that kind of thing. Thanks for sharing!

Hi @Symphonic! Part I - I can imagine this music playing to microscopic images of bacteria multiplying and microorganisms "adapting" to their environment - at least that's what the music and the title bring to mind for me. Very minimalistic, which to me would accompany well images of motion and scurrying and hurrying - maybe in some kind of nature documentary? Part II - The animals are sheltered in for the night. Or they're hibernating during the winter months. (Also along the theme of being "adapted" to their environment.) This music to me has a very 'neutral' pathos. It doesn't sound melancholic, threatening, nor joyful. It's just natural I guess. I think the chamber strings sound good in this context making the music sound much more personal and intimate. Part III - This seems to be a recapitulation of Part I. I also hear it as a new zest for life as the morning dawns. Or maybe the spring has finally come and the animals emerge from their dens after a hibernating sleep? On a side note - this kind of music would be very difficult for me to compose and I don't know if I'd have the self-discipline to write it all on paper. So much wasted space without any themes! LoL But I did enjoy it - thanks for sharing.

Yeah... I think is that the main theme is kind of sad, even if it is in mayor, but there is a tumoltuos adventure in the middle, near the end the theme is more proud, but the adventure theme still lingers near the end, and finally it said YES! with that added 6th epic armony, that do the trick i guess 😕.

Hello @latebeethoven_addict! 1st movement - this actually manages to be a good sonata form structurally. The problem I perceive with it is that the transitions and modulations sound very forced (on account I guess of this being an old work of yours). Another problem is that the ideas/themes have no unity and don't seem to be related to each other at all. Very often you default to writing various arpeggios and scalar passages that have no point or substance (because they're not guided by a melodic sense or thematic significance). Writing scales and arpeggios for their own sake is just about the most boring and pedantic thing a composer can do. The fugato passages are also very poor on account of being short and based on unrelated musical subjects. They also break down quickly as if you weren't able to sustain the fugal process for very long, so you just resort to adding voices which aren't related to any of the subjects or themes. 2nd movement - many of the same remarks from the 1st movement apply here. There's lots of forced modulations and transitions. The music doesn't breathe - there's scarcely any resting time for the listener to relax and feel like a phrase has finished before another one begins. Also again there's lots of arpeggios and scalar passages just to fill up space. It doesn't sound very dance-like or like a minuet and the rendering is very mechanical with no tempo changes to add any kind of humanization or ebb and flow to the piece. There's no space between one movement and the next so unless you're following along with the score it's very hard to tell that one movement has ended and another has begun. Usually we advise members to save their movements as separate files so that the listeners can freely choose which movement to listen to making it easy to start listening to the piece where they last left off if the piece is as long as this one is. It's not very reasonable to expect members to listen to a piece that's this long in one sitting. 3rd movement - this one also suffers from many of the same problems as the previous two movements. But it introduces consecutive repeated chords that change chromatically in ways that don't make any musical sense. Another thing I haven't yet mentioned is that you often introduce very random sounding tuplets into your scalar passages. To me, they don't make any musical sense. If you were in some kind of Chopinistic rubato type of section where the tempo was controlled by a steady pulse in the left hand with a tuplet being played over it so that the ear can conceive of it as a type of rhythmic ornament then that would be fine. But there doesn't seem to be a reason for your tuplets - they're another one of those things that you seem to do for their own sake or to try to introduce some musical interest. Imo that's not a good way to do that. If I had to choose I'd say my favorite movement would be the 3rd. Thanks for sharing! I'm assuming you've progressed and compose a bit differently today on account of this being an old piece, but I hope that you will still find something useful in this review.

Hi @arpeggia, really great work, I very much enjoyed it! I agree with Henry, there is a "Chopin" flavour to it (e.g.: from b. 42 to b.51) . I especially enjoyed the transition around b. 31, then the section from bb. 64 to 77 --> really very clever move, super interesting! And in general, I really enjoyed the transitions from triplets to eighths (and vice-versa), they give a feeling of great energy. PS: was it a recording? If so, what at performance!!! Thanks for sharing, I liked it, Kind regards, Julien

Hi @PeterthePapercomPoser, Many thanks for taking the time to give me your feedback. Interesting, gives me another perspective of my work, thanks! (I never looked at it like that, but indeed, your analysis makes sense!) Had to look at the definition ;-), and indeed, I used quite a lot of it in my piece. And thanks for the comment. Thanks for that, it for sure will encourage me to continue composing! Take care, Julien

Thank you! It would be a great idea to compose a metal/rock opera about the story of Faust... 😄

I love how calm yet not melancholic it is.

I recently became reacquainted with this track from Final Fantasy V by the great Nobuo Uematsu - Overworld Theme:

Hi @pateceramics! I like the text of this song! Did you come up with the lyrics yourself? It makes me think of the distant astronomical future (the 'heat death' of the universe) where the red dwarfs (the longest living stars) will be the only surviving light and heat sources in the universe before everything goes dark. I do wonder sometimes if any humans or living beings will be around to witness that. I like how the beginning of the song slowly exposes the F major tonality gradually by adding more factors of the chord. There's also some nice word painting at the end where all the voices die out one by one while they sing "as the starts are turned out, one by one". It's also good that you include a key change for some harmonic contrast although for me, it's not enough, as the song stays in a predominantly diatonic and major context throughout the whole thing. I yearn for some chromaticism to help bring color to your harmonies and melodies! But overall, I enjoyed this song - thanks for sharing!