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I use here my "knowledge" about schemata and other resources I am learning (musical rhetorics). This is not a baroque o or exactly galant style. It's music inspired in it and using its stuff. The first part is a Fanfare in format AABBA (binary). The second takes the form of a ritornello. There's no third part, I don't want to write it.

Hi again, Gwendolyn. Depends, if these are just sketches, that is, they are going to be extended and not only complemented with a third work, there should be no problem building tension as long as you know what prominence you want it to have. In the full orchestral piece you could alternate periods of tension with periods of relative "comfort" but increasing the tension in each "cycle". Something like this: Some more details and opinions: • The first ~15 seconds on the second part do a good job as an "opening" theme, they sound expansive to me. • After listening a couple of times, I do not really think building tension too quickly be the problem if there's any. Do you want to build a theme based on a continuous flow of tension? Do you want rests, balance? Having the structure clear is key in this case (and very often I'd say, it always helps). Do you conceive this as a single movement work? In other words, no long rests and/or thematic splitting? Do you think there's something else that —apart from the general "mood" both pieces may transmit and the, likely, tonality sharing since both pieces go to F right after the beginning or in the very beginning— Is there any further specific connection between these works? Too many questions perhaps? • Despite agreeing with ma buddy here @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu on the thicker texture of the Fantasy two, I consider the first one texture more elaborate and potentially better, as well as more emotionally charged. However, this is likely a consequence from my said judgement and preference of the 1st over the 2nd. As always, thank you for sharing. Kind regards, Daniel–Ømicrón.

Hello Guys, Here's my brand new track:

Got commissioned by a grad student at my uni for a piece on their terminal recital. Feedback is always appreciated.

Fantasy Two -- part 1.mp3 Fantasy Two -- part 2.mp3 Przyjazna - Fantasy Two.pdf Hello all, I thought I would share my sketches of a new orchestral work, so called "Fantasy Two" for the time being, after an older work of mine titled "Fantasy" that I feel it bears similarities to. I wrote the section in the second audio file before the first, but I would like to fit it somewhere in the middle of the piece if it isn't tedious. I have definitely not polished the dynamics yet and could refine my harmonies. Any feedback on what I have so far and suggestions on what direction to take this piece in would be greatly appreciated -- I am a bit stuck. One concern I have is that I might be building too much tension and emotion too quickly. Would you agree? Thank you! ~ Gwendolyn (formerly MissCello)

Sorry to be late in thanking you for listening and your generous remarks, Henry. I thought this one had disappeared off the board. (The sun and summer are where it's at for me so it wasn't too difficult to write!) Cheers, Quinn

This is the best approach. As I listened to Bernstein's lecture (most of it anyway) I thought he was over-analysing and classifying music too heavily. It could have been an issue of his time, though - the 60s and 70s, when tonality and traditional modernism were "done for", and the avant garde was starting to clatter forth. I suppose for a musicologist to earn his/her living they need this stuff but for a present day composer, no. Musicologists are so very fortunate as hangers-on, dependent on composers to do things that they can write about. But a composer will call in whatever 'technique' is needed as part of producing a work, no matter where it's from. (That makes us all "post moderns" I'm told!) Hopefully, what's pulled in will be filtered through the composer's own voice so, even if it is recognised as an "imported style" it'll still fit in with her/his work. .

I agree but that's because atonality can't really be taught (except that colleges can make a bit of money trying). I doubt even serial composition can be taught. It has its basic rules about which a brief explanation should suffice. These can be modified by a composer ad lib or carried to their extreme. It's all too easy to slap anything together under the aegis of atonal music, along with some elaborate pseudo-intellectual programme notes and a clever looking complicated score. I've painfully heard results on BBC's Hear and Now, splatters of noises different from an orchestra tuning up only because it isn't based on the oboe's A. - Premières that are usually dernières too, thankfully. A professor at a local university with whom I'm acquainted tries to teach it (he says) by hinting at form but he’s most cynical about it. Tells me what I already knew – that most such composers really haven’t a clue what they composed when it comes to rehearsing it. However, I distinguish them from those who knowingly, deliberately move into working with less tonality as a result of their development - the symbolists among the first (for want of a category). Results will not adhere to the aesthetics of the tonal era and if one's definition of beauty rests solely on that era the door is shut for them. But as tonality evolved into chromaticism the aesthetics evolved with it. The harmonic minor scale eventually became acceptable because by a trick of melodic movement (perhaps started by the Romantics) the interval of an augmented second was allowed. To me it would be pointless claiming the classicist Brahms 'had' the aesthetics (and beauty) where Bruckner did not. So we move on to the likes of Debussy, Delius and their ilk. While Delius held to a basic tonality albeit chromatic, Debussy showed signs of moving away from key. His use of a whole tone scale was just one indicator. As far as aesthetics go then, we have at least one big consensus – the one you speak of. But it isn’t an absolute. Sure, it can't be applied to “stuff thrown together” which can be fashion or the promotion of critics (the problem when any art gets involved with money). But it and beauty can lie in the hands of individual composers and listeners who have less expectation of tonal syntax and language. It can move into the realm of deeper and darker emotions beyond just the pleasurable by avoiding linguistic traps. As I said somewhere else, atonality can be amenable to a bigger audience if it allows that audience enough time to adapt to a work’s evolving structure. (Let's be honest - for some even the most atonal work can start to sound normal and likeable with repeated listening, but it's a matter of first impressions). So the difference (to me) comes down to craft. I believe that it’s an error to dismiss work not conforming to traditional structures as craftless. There can be as much craft in an atonal as a tonal work. In technical terms I suppose I write atonally – in that I have no regard for key or rhythm but it’s far from slapped together. I’m obsessive about harmonic shift, progression, contrast; intervals, timbre, timing. I can write pretty tunes if I want (my fake Mozart didn’t do too well here though!) but I don’t want to. Thousands of people already do that but for me, self-expression would be frustrated. I'm no way putting down those who still embrace tonality and many self-express very well like that. Ultimately it depends what one wants to do with sound. In art terms I’m probably the poor man’s Turner rather than a wealthy Titian. Whether my stuff is judged to have craft is not my call but I certainly put the effort in. Teaching atonality suggests it can be reduced to a procedure. It can’t.

So people have complained about the clacking on the clavichord and it's something that I will deal with in time but for now this is what I have. I wrote this over the summer and it's my first truly multi-movement (as opposed to just multi-sectional) work. It might be inspired as much by the virginalists as by Couperin, D'anglebert, etc. Anyways I hope you like it but either way you are free to criticize/ comment and so forth.

Yes, this new project will be easy to do it in both languages. I'll post an example later of what I'm trying to do.

Yes, I encourage to take a look to those "old" techniques. My YT channel is an auxiliary tool, in fact. I upload the scores and the music but the explanations are in my blog. Unfortunately, the blog is very big now and impossible to translate everything into English. I'm working on a new project. It is about rhetoric figures in music. They were so importante in the baroque era and later. I am writing short examples examples for these figures to make my own catalog. I am thinking how to publish it (in the same blog perhaps).

Oh I miss that! But at least it does not carry the main melody!😅 Actually I find this combination fresh. The vibraphone provides something mystic and tambourine for me is like the guide from somewhere distant. I am sorry I cannot give you information on that, since I am an even poorer orchestraionist than you!! But there're definitely some guys great on that here!

Henry, Thank you so much! I like your idea about continuing with the cello, especially since it is already arco at bar 18. A smooth transition should be easy. I should definitely give the strings a role in part 2 as well. I'm so glad you like the vibraphone. I have not really heard the combination of vibraphone and tambourine before, but I thought, why not. I can certainly give it a solo. Do you play or know something about that instrument? I don't know much, honestly. I appreciate your thoughtful feedback as always!

Hi Gwendolyn, I find both parts very promising. I love how you use the timbre of woodwind so well especially that of part 1. Very nice bassoon introduction and great wind writing. Part 2 is great as well with its generally thicker texture. I actually don't think the tension built too quickly in both parts. After all in part 1 the strings only appear in pizzicato and never play the melody, and there's no bombardment of brass! But I don't know how long you are going for this piece, but at least for now it's perfectly fine for me! For part 1 I see the melody only played by the winds. Will you transfer it to strings? Maybe use that same kind of treatment as in the winds: Cello introduce the theme first, probably in high register, then viola and violin. The interval of fourth is very important in your melody. Will you take that into further development? For part 2 the strings can definitely join in later passages! I really enjoy the vibraphone. Will you give it a solo too? For me both parts are just in the introduction part, or the introduction of theme and motive. I think you can transfer the melody to different orchestral colour, then decide what to develop. Henry

I actually think the leap of seventh from b.3 to 4 quite difficult for the bass, though not necessarily a problem. I love that D# and Db "clash" in b.8, very spiritual for me. The chord in b.16 is great as well.

This is pretty important to me too: deciding what to prune and what should be replaced; prune density-wise and content-wise, creating alternative trial versions. If at this point I haven't scrapped the piece I'll leave it for at least a month so I can bring fresh ears to criticise it, make final changes - or possibly then scrap it. I sometimes create and print off a short score (orchestral sections each on 2 staves) before scrapping it in case something is usable later on.