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Hello! This was my shot at creating a few variations on the theme that @Ivan1791 posted in the 'Challenges' section of the site yesterday. One thing to note was that the flatted sixth scale degree in measure 5 (Ab in the original key of C Major) was important to the original composer. I did my best to keep it around in most variations, although the harmony differs from the original intent in some cases. In minor key variations, I changed this to a sharped sixth scale degree in order to maintain the 'borrowed tone' aspect. Let me know what you think overall! Thanks for listening. EDIT: Brief explanations / explications of the genesis of each variation can be found in the musical score.

My second minuet and trio. I'm learning alot in writing these pieces. I would appreciate any feedback, I have no idea whether it's absolutely awful and impossible to listen to the end? Are the melodies boring? Is the harmony awkward? Is it too predictable or cliche? If you played and stopped listening, please let me know why. Even one word replies such as, 'yawn' are valid criticism and appreciated because I'm blind to my own music. minuet_and_trio_in_G.mid

I wrote a Romance for piano trying to explore some romantic harmonies I'm not very used to. It has a ABA' form. A is like a Funeral March, but It should be in 4/4 metric to be a Funeral March. B is a more lyrical section, contrasting in texture and tempo with A. At the repetition of B there's a modulating section using dim7 chords. Any comments regarding style or harmony are wellcome. Hope you enjoy it!

Hello everyone! 🙂 These days I am studying Korsakov's "practical manual of harmony" book and, with what I have been learning there, I harmonized and orquestrated the problem 25.2. I do not follow Korsakov's rules strictly throughout the whole pice but most of the time I tried to follow them. The orquestration is basically a copy of the orquestration done by Shubert Deutsche Messe, D 872, first movement choral. The instruments are always just doubling the SATB voices. Hope you like it and thank you for listening! ------files and musescorel link----- Orquestrated version noteperformer audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QT8S1ZEO9wxUQl3i09XdL9juvWvc28dn/view?usp=sharing SATB + cello version noteperformer audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AS7fxlehTGpD8CuPPPNwfEYrYK5oYEJ0/view?usp=sharing Orquestrated version score: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19XSAqQdMYDKbj9fDQaJQUIy149N98WIV/view?usp=sharing SATB + cello version score: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pSAhXA6CtdwumkNa_w9XWix4sw8xiqR8/view?usp=sharing musescore version: https://musescore.com/user/30851752/scores/6225623

This music would have been written for the court of Queen Charlotte, serving some functional purpose. Sounds like it’s early 1760s

@Bradley Scarff -- You're probably right. I was thinking that I should have done some more dis-assembling / re-assembling of the theme, and possibly broken it down to its most basic elements more than I did. Next time I will! Thank you for your compliments and review. I appreciate it!

fantastically written! I don't feel like you took advantage of the thematic material as well as you could have done though he second variation is my favourite because I think you did it exceptionally well there, however the rest at least to me fall a little flat. Either way well done.

Very well done.

This sounds great. Well done!

No, although I can send this to you personally later.

@Markus Boyd Thank you for your nice comment. My ambitions would be to regularly get to have some of my compositions played in concert and have some commands. My short term goal is to manage to have one of my choral pieces sung in a concert. What are yours? I think that at the moment my style is more close to "modal harmony" or "impressionist".

Mine as well. I find it helps to go in with a plan. When you wrote it, did you already have an idea where you were going to end up with the recap? For example, if you already knew what you wanted Rehearsal J to sound like (or at least had a general idea), and you already knew what the end of the exposition sounds like, that would help you plan how to get from A to B. I like the way you did it. I think it ends better with the A theme than it would have with the B theme.

Yes, you are probably right. I don't play a wind instrument, so it's always helpful for me to get insights like this. Thanks 🙂 Amazing idea that I would not have even considered if you hadn't mentioned it. I actually tend to do this rhythmic change-up fairly often in 3/4, so this is a useful tip for me. I've even been experimenting with layering 3/4 and 6/8 rhythms on top of each other in more contemporary-sounding pieces. It's a bit of new material for sure, though the flute is playing a slow, D minor version of the main theme during this bit. The orchestration just sounded a bit thin to me there, so I added in the clarinet as counterpoint. You may have noticed that I'm pretty poor at creating development sections in general. It's always been my Achilles heel. As for the 'BA' recapitulation, I can only say that I wanted to end the piece with that particular restatement of the main theme. I thought about having it be a sort of ABA recapitulation, with a full restatement of the main theme after the development section, but I thought that might be... overdoing it. Thank you for all of your compliments! I am glad you liked certain aspects of the piece, and you've certainly given me some things to think about. @gmm

Hi Noah, thanks for sharing your piece. I really liked the opening with the tremolo violins above the horn melody, it kind has a "Blue Danube Waltz" feel to it. One thing I noticed is you have the trumpets entering at Rehearsal B on a high concert Bb. I would think the trumpets would completely dominate the orchestra in this register, I'm not sure if that was the intention after the preceding quiet section. Also in the section you have the Flutes and Oboes on repeated staccato notes, I wonder what it would sound like if instead of repeated notes they were playing a staccato arpeggiated figure. I think this might add a little "flair" to the winds in this section. I noticed you like to bounce between a 6/8 and 3/4 feel at several points throughout this piece, which is a really neat effect. From a notation standpoint, it would help if you grouped the note stems to make this easier for the performers to realize. For example, at Rehearsal D, group the first two measures as a 6/8 feel, then return to 3/4 for the next few bars that have the "triple" feel. You don't need to actually change the time signature, but group the notes so the rhythmic "feel" is more obvious to the performer. I wondered if I could also ask you about the form you used. From what I can tell you use AB, repeat AB, development, BA. I was curious how you came up with the structure of the development (starting at Rehearsal G and ending at Rehearsal J). I can find references to the original themes, but some things seem kind of random. For example, the Bb clarinet part 5 measures after Rehearsal H - is this derived from some of the earlier themes, or is it new material? If this is something I'm just missing please feel free to point it out. Also, was there any reason you chose to recap theme B (starting at Rehearsal J) before you recap theme A (Rehearsal L)? Not that there is anything wrong with doing this, just curious why you decided to flip them in the recap. Btw, I liked your decision to restate theme B in the low strings and bassoons at Rehearsal J, and I liked how the timpani adds to the "bounciness" of the "triple" rhythmic feel here. Thanks again for sharing!

I like this a lot. Shows much promise, and as do you as a composer considering you arranged for a performance (something which the vast majority of us on here do not seem to manage). What are your goals/ambitions with respect to composition and what style do you seek to learn/emulate?

Thanks for your support, Soup ( Even if it's a little biased :) ).