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Hi all, I've not posted anything here for quite a while, been busy with other things, but I've also been working to finish my first fully orchestrated piano concerto. The first movement was posted here about a year ago, but the second and third movements are new. The first movement has also been edited and hopefully improved as I added a short cadenza that I felt was missing from the first movement, as well as changing the odd passage here and there. Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with the final edit. As always, any comments are welcome and gratefully received.

After a long hiatus without writing much music or being active on this site due to both professional and personal reasons, I've trying to get back in the swing of things. I've been revising older works and this piece in particular I've come back to off and on for awhile. It is the second piece in a set of six solo piano pieces dedicated to my daughter (the keys loosely spell the first 6 letters of her name) and I've always considered the least polished as while there are individual parts of it I liked, it never sounded quite right to me. This is the latest revision and I welcome any comments.

Composition completed on 10/24/2015 You also can watch this piece here -

https://soundcloud.com/user859741024/aesthetic-night Recording on SoundCloud an alto saxophone solo with wind band

@Tónskáld covered some foundational stuff, so I'll just focus on engraving... You need to make sure that when you're putting rhythms in that everything is sectioned off in their own beat, and since you're using 5/4, that everything is in some sort of grouping. The very first soprano line, for example, has to be dotted eighth, sixteenth tied to another sixteenth, then the remaining 3 sixteenths.

Juan, these are so fun! Thank you for sharing with us! Just a couple notes: In Écossaise 1, you have some notes in the right hand with an accent and a marcato. I would clean that up—just use the marcato. In Écossaise 4, you have some quickly repeated notes in 1/32nds... are those playable that fast? It seems a shame that the piece's playability could be ruined by just 3 passages. In the postlude you have the tempo marked as Larguetto (which is arguably the Spanish rendition), but the Italian spelling is Larghetto. I loved how they were all different moods! Great job, friend!

There are so many accidentals that change so frequently, it's probably best just to leave it as is (no key) so the singers can read the notes more quickly. Lots of great chromatic passages in here that I really liked! There is quite a bit of doubling going on (the difficulty with SSAA choirs, I know), and I wonder if things wouldn't sound better if the S's and A's sang in unison with their respective parts until somewhere later in the piece. The harmonies were strange but that's a matter of personal taste. I also didn't hear much thematic development, and the quarter-note/half-note passage at the end seemed rather abrupt—maybe that was on purpose? Overall, nice piece of work. Keep up the good work!

This is a good topic for discussion; thanks for bringing it up! I think each of us creates "original" music in the sense that we as composers create works of music that are uniquely our own. True, they may resemble certain styles and forms of other composers—I'm not sure one can ever escape that since all of our musical ideas are built upon stuff we've heard before and internalized. As we become more experienced, we're able to remove ourselves farther away from those influences, so our music slowly takes on its own voice. As to the "style" of originality as defined by the classical music elites, I'm stumped there. The style of music heralded by the elites as "purely original" is, as you mentioned, atonal. Proponents of atonal music posit that it's a musical era just like Romantic or Impressionism, but I disagree; up until the Modern/Postmodern era of classical music, composers followed the natural "rules" of music. Debussy (an Impressionist for those following along at home) did some weird things with tonality but he obeyed the rules. The human ear is wired to interpret certain pitch relationships as consonant and others as dissonant—and these days, some as purely chaotic. Modern/postmodern classical music, with its strong atonality, is the first musical movement to actually rebel against this natural rule, or at least disregard it, in the hopes of staying original. So, all this to say that modern composers have abandoned tonality because they believe there's nothing "original" left to be had there. Again, I disagree. It takes a lot more work and creative thinking to find an original voice in the world of tonality, but it's entirely possible—and very satisfying! I've a hunch that the great composers of our generation remembered 100 years down the road will not be the progressive, 12-tone serialists churning out mind-boggling, gut-wrenching cacophonies; rather, it will be those who continued to tinker with tonality and made music that meshed with the human soul. My goals are rather simple: write music that I like. I'd much prefer to revolutionize music than reach a big audience, but (for reasons mentioned above) I don't feel like that's going in the direction of the current avant-garde styles. There's still hundreds of years' worth of exploring to do in the world of tonality! So how original do we need to be? Well, be as original as you want to be! Some people create amazing works that sound like Beethoven or Mozart could have written. Others' sound like something from an outfit from Mars. The problem I find is that composers are either cliché tonal composers (little musical training) or else they're atonal. This probably has to do with the fact that atonal music is the prima donna right now among the elites; atonal music will receive the most praise (and it's difficult to criticize since it doesn't follow a lot of rules), so "serious" composers seek originality via that route. If there are atonal composers reading this, please don't get the wrong impression! I respect your compositional styles 100%; my point is that atonal music is not the sole arbiter of originality. As you might have guessed, my music is strongly tonal. However, I use a rich combination of chords throughout so it doesn't sound too cliché. In fact, I hate having to use conventional chord progressions; I strive to avoid them when I can. My works have a strong thematic element to them but are rarely melody-driven (in other words, not like Tchaikovsky and other Romantics). I also use a lot of unconventional modulations that loosely tie to the previous key. And I love counterpoint—I always try to use it when I can. It helps ensure that all players have "interesting" parts to play! I guess I'm describing Impressionism, and maybe that category best fits my musical style. Anyone is welcome to take a listen to some of my stuff and give their own opinion. 🙂

Composition completed on 11/24/2015 You also can watch this piece here -

Yes, you deciphered that correctly. I am entering a competition that I checked all my instruments with, and they said that all the instruments and the two extras (guitar and panflute) are "perfectly acceptable for the competition". I have quite a long list of competitions that are very equipped for orchestra (including some for younger composers), but I'll be sure to check that everything is acceptable first. I do also have a piece for piano, two violins, a cello and a flute which would be easier to find a competition for. I don't think I'm good enough to get a placement in anything, but I do love the idea of it. To be honest, I just wish for feedback. For someone to tell me whether I'm doing o.k for where I'm at; 5th try and never had a single line of advice from anyone. But I'm too scared to ask anyway for fear the answer will be horrendous. Anyway, thankyou for your advice. I wish you all the best for the future. Layla tov

Composition completed on 10/23/2015 You also can watch this piece here -

I don't know how much music history you've studied up to this point, but this whole notion of material-based originality came from the genesis of the Romantic era, where the advancement of middle-class music making along with the general advancement of music printing/publishing combined. Composers started using super fancy/exotic-sounding titles and used increased harmonic changes to be more expressive and have their pick at the newly free market. I'll elaborate on my own opinions/answer more of the proposed questions if this discussion gets more lively, but I'm more a fan of the way the Classical era dealt with originality, where quality was based upon how well you could use old forms and conventions in your own style/ways. It doesn't sound very modern to us because it was their styles, but Haydn's and Beethoven's music were pretty novel when they were written. The modern era has taken this Romantic ideal of expression and newness to its extreme, trying to push progress without having the patience for it. The elitism and high-artness of modern classical music generally glosses over the music most people will listen to; how subtle its changes are to formulas, but how effectively catchy the songs are. Maybe my thoughts on this will change over time.

I like this one too, lovely melody, well done.

Bravo, this is a lovely prelude, I like it a lot, great work.