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Thank you! The Fauré Thing is a mistake! It is not suposed to Sound like Fauré!

wish I could see the scores... at 1'14 the cello (I think? or is it the viola?) phrase is very beautiful, at 2'35ff. beautiful chromatic tension. I don't know Fauré well, so maybe it's his style, but I think the piece could be even more impactful with, how do I say this, a more "punctuated" structure, more breathing between different phrases and episodes. I like the warmth of the clarinet piece a lot. As before, I would think that sometimes musical phrases are very compressed one against the other. For example, at 44'' in the invention I would expect some kind of interruption of the flow in correspondence to the cadence, but the leading voice continues on. At 1'05-1'10 of the tema con variaciones beautiful piano part and inganno! So interesting and intriguing the beginning of the variation at 3'... Beautiful suite, great job and good luck!!

I like it! It's very balanced, the theme is memorable and there is a very nice dialogue between the parts. Only thing that left me a bit puzzled, the bass part at measures 17-19 (also are there octaves between C and D at 18 and between D and E at 18-19?). Nice work, very enjoyable looking forward to listening to the prelude!

Thanks for your response! I wrote the lyrics.

Hey thanks Peter. The opening Oboe before the Strings melody come in as well as the harp part in the middle are the OST, the rest of the music is original. I'm also, minus some of the noise that is audible with headphones pretty impressed with the production. Everything aside from the harp, trumpets and percussion is musesounds, which I've never tried until now.

You're most welcome, although it seems that you know more technically than I am, therefore all I can offer is my moral support. However, don't hesitate to trust your instincts and let your creativity guide you as you continue to flesh out your musical ideas. Happy composing, and I'm excited to hear how your piece progresses!

In my studies of orchestration I've been doing some exercises, today I'm showing my attempt at the emotion "content" or an appreciation of the world. I got this from a wheel of emotion that I will continue to use for further exercises. I'd appreciate if anyone could challenge me to showing an emotion on this wheel, this way I do something that doesn't just catch my eye. In this exercise I try to keep motion in the Bass to thirds generally, as well as disguising the root to sway away from strict harmonic rhythm. As well as using extended chords that I think end up allowing me to use long held notes in the melody while still being interesting through those whole notes. Let me know what you think.

Do you know if there is a sample out there that I can listen to? I've never seen or heard tubulars being bowed. Only struck with a mallet; which causes it to ring alongside a secondary minor 6th under-pitch. Thanks.

Hey @AngelCityOutlaw! I am not really familiar with the music from Tomb Raider so I don't know how much of this is original and how much comes from the OST. But what I hear sounds great! Not only does it have great production value and great dynamic contrasts, but the material itself is beautiful. Thanks for sharing!

Hi @Layne! This is kinda cool - I like the mixture between major and minor. How much do you know about music theory? It seems sometimes like your chord voicings are kinda stark. Also - even though the ideas in this piece are pretty cool you mostly just repeat the same idea for the whole time (except for that short respite at around 0:50). But you do add unique melodic layers on top of the pattern. It does sound like a secret laboratory though - I can imagine all the beakers, clamps, burners, and microscopes. So great job there! Thanks for sharing.

Hi @olivercomposer! Wow! Kudos on working with a live recording of the lyrics! Did you write the lyrics yourself? They're pretty good! Maybe the "oh's" at the end of each verse/stanza seem a bit melodramatic but I can see why you included them - they act to conclude and create a kind of recurring coda to each verse. I love the modulation into major - that's a great contrast. The production value is pretty good but somewhat disjointed between the instrumental and the audio of the singer which seems (to me) to be of a slightly lower quality than the vst's. I know this is probably meant to be futuristic sounding but to me it sounds more steampunk/gothic. Overall, great job though! Thanks for sharing.

Hi @Symphonic! Very cool - pointillistic sometimes. There is definitely a recurring theme to this although it was quite unusual and disjointed. Or at least very fragmented/dissolute. I like also all the polyrhythms going at different rates. I was going to say - "but where's the gospel choir?" LoL But is this your own arrangement of Amazing Grace or a performance of someone else's arrangement? Either way the performance is quite good! You also don't really explain how the Palette piece is supposed to be connected/related to the Amazing Grace song. At the point at which they connect they're in the same key - at least that much is audible though. Overall this was mostly quite enjoyable! There were a few spots where I felt like you kept me as the listener waiting for something though. But other than that it was great! Thanks for sharing.

Thank you so much much @murphybridget! Here's to hoping to improve this movement and to be inspired for continuation! Currently I'm thinking a fast scherzo (maybe g major) as a second movement, since the first movement is allegro but mostly eights so (I think) feels kinda pulled back. Then a lyrical adagio (a minor or e minor) as third movement and then a final rondò (c major but with important c minor episodes). But as soon as I have a little time I want to work on this first movement... any feedback on what's most urgent of course super appreciated!

Any feedback?

MP3 Play / pause triopf1 SR 0:00 6:14 volume > next menu triopf1 SR > next PDF triopf1 - Full Score You're welcome, and I must say that I enjoyed every minute of listening to your work.

As a composer who has worked very closely with a harpist on (admittedly tonal) music, I am very much in agreement with Gardener's approach. I've thought of this approach, before, myself. Yes, it will leave some holes in the 24-TET multi-octave scale, but good planning by the composer will help greatly. I'm only now dipping my toes into the problems of quarter-tone orchestral writing that (hopefully) won't be a disaster. Bowed strings with their unfocused mass (relative to woodwinds, etc.) and vibrato supposedly make for more convincing performances of quarter-tone harmonies. However, I fear that even professional-level players will be aurally disoriented by the intervals. One possible solution is to use a harp (treated in Gardener's way) to provide a subtle undercurrent of solidly plucked pitches to help orient the ears of the bowed string players. Just a thought... That said, I can speak from experience on the matter of the challenge of "mixed scordatura", which is to say scordatura that varies among the individual strings of a multi-stringed instrument: I composed a short duo for violin and viola - both with mixed scordatura so as to facilitate a Pagannini-ish (albeit much slower) simultaneous left-hand pizz with right-hand bowing of just the right pitches, as well as to facilitate certain quick double-stops to effect four-part polyphony (canons) between the two players. To be safe, I provided TWO versions of the score and parts: One version expressed the notes corresponding to standard fingering. The other version expressed the actual sounded pitches. Initially, the producer forwarded only the version that expressed the fingering (not the sound) - and soon I got the panicked e-mail because the players have perfect pitch and were thoroughly confused by the discrepancy between what they saw and what they heard! Fortunately, I asked the producer to send the OTHER version of my score and parts to the players - and bam - an amazingly good performance ensued.

I've added the score.

Thanks, so much, Thatguy! It's me. I like to sing through things when they are in my range so folks get a better sense of how the lyrics sit in the music at a first listen. Yes, there was apparently a constant stream of abuse and paternalism while they were on tour. At the same time, they were doing sold out concerts in major venues and performing for the British royal family, so the whole experience was... a lot. There is a good historical record of the whole thing from letters that survived. Katie Manye isn't a well-known historical figure. She was a member of a large musical group, not a solo act, and then she went home and did boots on the ground work that does much good, but doesn't earn headlines. What she said really resonated with me too. The nice thing about this one is it's really just a round of "I don't sing," and "All shall be well," with a verse layered on top for interest, so it sounds a bit complicated but you could teach it to someone who doesn't read music, as a campfire song for instance. I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for taking the time to listen.

Thank you for the kind words! Interesting to hear what people think about the somewhat dissonant stuff. I'm quite used to it and as it's my own piece there's always a chance that I perceive it as more coherent and conventional than how others might perceive it. Ultimately I prefer slow moving, easy on the mind kind of music. As for a score... maybe in the future... but I'm ashamed to admit that I find that part of composing to be very painful 😄

Oh, how you flatter me so! 😆 On a side note, I'm definitely not much else other than a subpar pianist outside of composition. I listen to a lot of music from a bunch of different genres and put them together based on what I've heard and feel sounds 'right-ish' to my (relatively inexperienced) ears. I will say that it's a lot easier to do that with a more amorphous genre like funk or jazz, though, than with a more rigidly structured genre like classical music. I guess that's probably how I managed to put together these 'alright' sounding solos despite having no experience with said instruments. I don't really know about my friend's plans for the piece, honestly: he says he's happy enough with just using the MIDI for now (again, it's only a modestly budgeted student film), though I know Musescore's playback on the saxophone is less than competent for high-speed jazz pieces like this (the 'growl' effect, for example, sounds awfully mechanical, and I myself am not a fan). I intend on lowering the fidelity of the sound to give it a 'grainier' auditory aesthetic: that should make it fit with the 'vibe' of improvisational jazz, if you catch my drift. If my friend does plan on getting this performed by his school band, then I'll write him a fake sheet to help his performers out. It'd be pretty hard to pull off these polyrhythms in-performance, I'd say (lol). I'll post the final edited version later at the top once I'm done with it. Thanks for your kind words, they mean a lot to me 😊

Music is a challenging, but very rewarding endeavor.

I'm back yet again with another Muzoracle casting! (Muzoracle is a storytelling/divination tool similar to the Tarot card deck, but with cards with musical concepts and 12-sided Musician's dice and Solfege dice.) This time Lisa asked the Muzoracle if the symbolic calendar she is developing for people with Aphantasia (people who lack the ability to visualize things in their mind) will help them and her: My interpretation of the dice and cards is displayed below. The cards involved are a Tritone of Strings, Major 7th of Voices, Minor 3rd of Woodwinds, and Minor 2nd of Brass. So I decided to write a chamber piece for Cello, female choir (SSA), Clarinet, and 2 French Horns. If you'd like to find out more about Muzoracle and how castings are interpreted go here: https://muzoracle.com/ This time the piece lasts a total of ~1:45. The piece is in B as shown by the black 12-sided Musician's Die in the bottom left corner. The solfege dice landed on Ti (A#), Ra (C natural), and Do (B) and I ornamented the harmony with all the interval cards that were dealt. I also created an extra harmony by stacking all the intervals on top of each other starting at B. This resulted in a B diminished major 7th b9 chord that I sometimes made use of in the piece. Also, the entrances of the various instruments/voices were staggered according to the order in which they were drawn. So Cello starts the piece, followed by the entrances of the voices, then the Clarinet, and finally the French Horns. If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy listening to this short representation of Lisa's casting! Comments, suggestions, or critiques are of course, always welcome.

Here's my spin on the 1996 Tomb Raider theme, which I expanded the main melody with my own a bit. Let me know what you guys think of it.

Alright, let's get this out of the way. Why would anyone copy you over Rachmaninoff (which they can for free)? Or Mozart (which they can for free), or Beethoven (which they can for free), or... you get my point? Why the annoying diarrheic PCC over the score? Can't you just put your name as a copyright at the bottom of every page? Even if you want to keep your anonymousness, can't you still do that while saying PCC at the bottom? And if you're that paranoid, post it on Youtube or another platform that won't go under in the near future. Once you post online, your piece is copyrighted. And if you're STILL paranoid, why bother posting a score in the first place??? If you said, "hey, I don't feel comfortable posting the score online", no one would fault you. ANYWAY, I agree with our dear beloved friend Henry. Although, I like your more unique approach to the form, and I think it works. One of my favorite things to do musically is to take a form and expand or revise it in some way. Your piece isn't the "typical" sonata form, but you do a lot of cool, almost improvisatory things in the exposition and other moments that in my eyes make the form more of a guideline rather than a concrete formula. Very cool. I listened to this a few times (mostly without the score 😛), and the repeat was crucial to me. It helped create a picture of the form when I would get lost. Very nice. Just when I thought I was getting lost, and even if the themes felt disjointed in difficulty and material, the repeat made it all work, and helped me know where you were once I heard it. Disjointed material can work together, but maybe in the future I would continue to explore ways to make it bond more seamlessly. For instance, your tempo is very rubato throughout, and if you had more sections where we could feel even something as small as a constant rhythmic pulse could do wonders in making your sections more cohesive. You seem to have a flair for the drama, and those moments were my favorite. All in all, very unique to my ears, and a wonderful performance. I love all of the emotion you pour into this; I can feel it with your playing. Your music is thoughtful and evocative, and I'm excited to continue listening to your playing/music. Well done 🙂