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Haha actually I had tried playing the piece and enjoy it! I would love to practice it and even play it @Thatguy v2.0!

Hi everyone! I've decided to post another old work here. The Piano Sonata no.2 in A-flat major (2015) is composed right after the completion of the first Piano Sonata in A major, Pastoral. It's a work in five movements and I will say it's the quickest composition ever for me since I finish the 1st draft of the first three movements within a week and the whole piece within three weeks. For me this is a free flowing one after the strictly cohesive first Piano Sonata, and honestly I love this one more since it displays more real emotions here. The style overall is still very Beethovanian and I am sorry Vince! I choose to post the 2nd movement first because I am really happy to make a fairly good recording in 18th February and I really want to post this even without having a good recording for the 1st movement first. For me this Sonata is not that motivically cohesive as my other pieces is, so the order is not really too crucial here. The 2nd movement itself acts as a counterpart to the serene and motivational first movement with its fiery denial power to the beauty of the previous movement (you will get it when I post the first movement!). I take the inspiration from the finale of Chopin's 2nd Piano Sonata since I am always fascinated by how Chopin wrote with two unison lines and produced such excitement and fury. I also use Sonata form for this diminutive movement as I want to experiment using it within a small time span as in Chopin's movement: 00:00 (b.1) 1st Subject, Exposition, in c minor 00:16 (b. 21) 2nd Subject, Exposition, in f minor 00:27 (b.35) Development 00:47 (b.61) 1st Subject, Recapitulation, in c minor 00:54 (b.70) 2nd Subject, Recapitulation, in c minor 01:11 (b.93): Coda, based on the motive in the first movement (yet to be posted). That D flat minor surprise, muahaha, is to prepare the Fourth movement which is in C sharp minor, my favourite movement of the piece. I also take much inspiration from the first movement of Beethoven's op.111 since it's one of my favourite Beethoven Piano Sonata. I even quote exactly in b.85! (From b.25 of that movement) The overall planning of the movements will be disclosed after the completion of this post, and I will keep practicing those movements (as well as the movements of the First Piano Sonata), so stay tuned! Here is the pdf score and the mp3: Piano Sonata no.2 Second mov.pdf Piano Sonata no.2 2nd mov.mp3 Here is the youtube video if you are interested! P.S Thanks Vince for suggesting me to upload the movement first! P.P.S my favourite recording of Beethoven's op.111 is by Igor Levit since he's a god especially playing late Beethoven sonatas: Hope you enjoy the music and the day!! Henry

Dear keyboardists, Fugue in F minor Competition Prize: $175 first prize, $75 second prize (e-transfer) Deadline: April 1, 2023 Submit to: kimyoungho1994@gmail.com Score: https://musescore.com/user/45989792/scores/7780499 Performance Requirements: Duration: under 2 minutes Instrumentation: keyboard One submissions per person Follow markings as shown, interpret otherwise Video must be uploaded to a personal Youtube channel, then submit this form to the above email Judges: me, myself, and I Good luck! Fugue Challenge Submission Name Performance Link Email or Social Media

Hello everyone! This is a bit different from what I have shared so far. In fact, it is the transcription almost not at all elaborated of a piano piece improvised many years ago. My wife says it makes her think of the dawn in africa, so I'll call it "Dawn" even tho in my files it's a "Quintetto." 🙂 For the whole piece, the beat should stay the same, even though the time changes quite often. There is not much interplay between the different instruments, in fact I picked them only for color. Suggestions and critiques always superwelcome. Maybe I'll try and imitate @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu and record and post the piano version if I'm not too rusty.Quintetto clean - Full Score.pdf

A tune I wrote for Orchestra (mainly winds and strings) the other day. More classically-oriented than my usual stuff. Let me know what you guys think. Vielen Dank im Voraus

This is a piece I was inspired to write from a trip I took pre-Covid to Europe. I spent three weeks traveling by train, including on Czech rail aka České Dráhy. I wanted to capture the feel of being on a train, zipping through the countryside and cities.

This is a motet I composed based on a poem written by ChatGPT. Also, I'm not sure many people will notice, but this motet was also heavily inspired by Bach's BWV Anh. 159 ""Ich lasse dich nicht, du segnest mich denn." What do y'all think? Any criticism regarding word placement and counterpoint is greatly appreciated!

This is impressive. I find the piece coherent. My mind went more to the Rachmaninov of the etudes. Perhaps I don’t have enough beethovenian references.

Thanks Henry for pointing this out. The scoring software must've created the clef change automatically when I imported the midi file. MuseScore tends to make some odd decisions sometimes. Not least the key signature assignment, where it's chosen to have the piece in E minor. Think the opening section should be in D minor, and the closing section has lots of C sharps: so it would make sense to change into B minor.

Wow the section around b.65 is more extended and I love the interplays! For me the music is getting more concrete and beautiful by adding those developments and extensions! I feel like the sound is better now but can't concretely tell the difference! I just notice you use bass clef for violin in b.89 where you should keep using treble clef instead! I hope you can have the finished product soon!

Oh wait does he dislike Beet? Isn't that against the rules or something? The recording doesn't portray the ff but that's not important, better microphones will come along I'm sure. The performance is so nice anyway, we don't see somebody playing his own piece with the plus of it being NOT EASY. It of course reminds to the Sonata 32 Mvt. I a lot, but it's more extended and harmonically different despite they both share key. I'm not too convinced by some passages where the underlying melody blurs a little. Apart from that it was a very intense listening that does not disappear the more I press the replay button, and that's another positive point I'd give to it. Still, the full work needs to be checked for a complete and more accurate judgement so I look forward to listen to it! Thank you for sharing your work Henry, I hope it gets more views in the future. It definitely deserves it. Kind regards, Daniel–Ømicrón.

Damn Henry, you're quite the player! I loved that you have a live recording of this, your playing is ferocious! Masterful job at portraying the music, you did an excellent job bringing these fiery notes to life. I'm very curious with the other movements, as it's not always common to have a dramatic and very fast second movement. I'm reminded of Shostakovich's 10th symphony, where he had a decently long 1st movement followed my his heavy metal short second movement. I'd like to comment on the nature of your Chopin 2nd Sonata coda type of texture, but it's impossible without hearing the other sections of your sonata. I'm really glad you mapped out the form for us, as at first I couldn't really discern the different themes. But after a few listens, it was quite clear. I really like how you took Sonata-allegro form and compacted it into a minute and a half of music. Very interesting! I don't think I've heard that done before too often, but it was really cool. Very well crafted work you have here Henry, and I'm amazed at how great of a player you are. This was phenomenally performed, wonderful job in your recording!!

You're too kind, Peter. I'm glad you appreciate my foray into the world of the augmented scale, it's a flavor I've neglected for way too long, and feel like it's just becoming part of my style now. I kind of view it like the diminished scales, where they can really go anywhere and really tried to exploit that. It's funny you say that. I have 3 rough drafts sketched out for future preludes, and one is heavily saturated with Kefka's clown makeup. 🙂 Thanks a bunch, man. I always hope that my music makes it in your radar, and always love hearing your thoughts. It means a lot to hear from someone as experienced and as good as you, and the next one may come sooner than you would think!

Dude, you guys rock. Thanks for checking it out Alex! I'm very happy you have thoughts of dabbling at this one, I'm very curious about how it feels with playability. I played through most of it, but as a more simple version before I really started to explore the whole tone parts of it more. Thanks again! Damn, that's awesome! AND the Ivory Tickler himself? You're too kind Henry 🙂 Thanks for listening man. I love when people relate my music to a piece I haven't heard before. Will check out

The piece is very beautiful and emotive because of its simplicity. I like how instead of choosing a chord borrowed from the parallel major mode you just go full on whole-tone on us (you could have gone with an F# minor chord - choosing a minor chord from the parallel major mode is quite a common borrowing when trying to write melancholic music but I think your choice is better and more striking and unique - I feel like the piece really captures or hooks the listeners attention right away and holds it for the entire duration of the piece - never a dull moment!). It's very mysterious and I feel it's like something out of a dream (or maybe out of Final Fantasy VI LoL). The harmony is perfect, if only our standard way of notating pitch-classes wasn't so clunky then your diminished 4ths wouldn't be such an eye-sore! I think this piece is a great example of a melodic-harmonic adventure. The melody and harmony really are a concerted unity in this piece and I can tell they were conceived together and really belong together. I love your improvisational touch in measures. 53 through 59! I think that is probably my favorite feature of this piece is that it manages to squeeze some poly-stylistic inflections into it which is very appropriate for a piece written in today's day and age by a composer with your "particular set of of skills" ... I mean ... experience. Thanks for sharing this gem and I'm looking forward to the next installment! I can see why so many people are fired-up about learning it!

Lately less that what I'd desire but life goes on and through and I cannot stop it, seemingly. Who knows, we'll see whenever I publish that sonata. Looking forward to check your wind quintet too! Regarding the commentary on difficulty: I always that playing intensely tends to be easier to learn than playing equally technical but with that lightness as you describe. Just to put an example on Beethoven seeing that you mentioned him, the beginning of his Sonata No. 17 Mvt. III turned out to be more "difficult" to me than the 3rd movement of his Sonata No. 14.

Haha I try to maintain a monthly basis but still fail to meet the schedule! I really hope you can recover well and maintain your body for the busy schedule. It's hard to study and compose without using a lot of energy! And you spend much time reviewing pieces here. Maybe it's only for this particular piece that I find the D major usage frivolous. I will really look forward to your Sonata and see how you use that key!! Btw. my wind quintet is also in that key but I don't have time to revise and make a video of it. No.7 is just not as dark as the previous ones but it's a very cool one! For me it will be really difficult to play with that lightheartedness and chicness. I am always afraid of Scarlatti's Sonata with its light touch and ornaments and here the piece exposes my weakness! This piece is definitely an upgraded version of a Scarlatti Sonata with chicness in it. It's quite difficult to play the notes and rhythm like those triplets and tuplets here but that lightheartedness and chicness is the most difficult thing if you have play this "right". Your score is really detailed so that we don't have to interpret many things, but to achieve the effect will be very difficult especially for a Beethovaninan like me! Henry

I tried to maintain a weekly basis but my illness and my loose sense of time in this regard didn't let me do so. Dots ain't coming back, I promise. Hmmm frivolous, D major? I used to think it was not my kind of key if you know what I mean, but turns out my biggest sonata (up to now) is in fact composed in D major. Perhaps I should upload it here in the future and see if this makes you think about that key some more as I did hehe. I am sorry, if my computations are not wrong, darker nocturnes won't come back in a while but whenever they do I hope they pay off for your await! As a pianist, what do you think about the difficulty of this one? It'd be so good to have a full-fledged difficulty rating or a minimal one like in IMSLP, it's just that I'm interested in that kind of feedback. Kind regards and as always, thank you for your words Henry.

Not the only one who mentioned it. They are indeed bothering, and I didn't expect them to be so so annoying but at that time I was more worried about making a certain amount of videos per month and I published it like that. A mistake, clearly. I have never done that again as far as I remember. Thanks for the compliment but don't be that harsh to yourself lol, in my case I guess I gained some experience on that due to my accordion playing. Oh that's a nice idea, I did something similar with the nocturnes. I never dedicated any piece to anyone "officially" before. I am glad that there's (for now) always some moment decent enough for you to question those things and mention it. And the others did? That's quite an achievement to say the least haha, but it's true this one has more light than the prior ones. Many things can happen at night I guess, and the main reason behind keep calling it nocturnes, specially from the tenth and so on, ended up to be just the fact I mostly composed them at night (plus that they're not multi-movement works). I also did think of certain events while composing this and the rest, everything happening at night or at dawn (10th). The very last three of my nocturnes are 0% nocturne-like in the common context, they're not dreamlike but very lucid, in opposition to the first four. Again many thanks, it's so nice to get positive comments with criticism in this forum. I hope the following ones don't disappoint you either! Ah, you spotted the Easter egg LOL. Kind regards!!

I enjoyed the simplicity of the beginning, and the triplets into the chordal section. It was reminiscent of Rach's Elegie.

Organ, yes. LOL. Yes you'd better do or else... @Alex Weidmann's comment about its playability made me think, perhaps I could give it a go sometime in the future despite being way below the average in that regard. Kind regards!

Made another version tonight. Rebalanced the tracks from 3:10, and added a bit more new material.

Hi Vince, I like the atmospherics of this piece, with its dark and brooding tone. It's also great to have a piece I can actually play! I used to be a pretty decent pianist; but am very rusty now: so this is perfect for me. Many thanks for sharing, Alex

Hi Daniel, You're like a modern day Chopin with all these nocturnes! The ornaments give this one a semi-Baroque feel; but the harmonic changes sound very modern. Interesting combination! Hope you fell better soon, Alex

I will for sure try to play your piece! Haha beware of the 1 hour length of the piece! 🙂😈

Dear @Omicronrg9, Finally you have a new post here! Actually I have the same issue with Vince as the dots seem really distracting. But normally I just listen to your music without watching the animation so it's fine for me. I enjoy this waltz actually with occasional outburst and funny little touches. My feeling for your works is "dark and chic". For me this nocturne is less dark but more chic than the previous nocturnes maybe since it's in the frivolous D major. I really don't have anything to critique here since I really enjoy it. The only thing to "critique" is a personal issue: I don't get into this nocturnes as much as the previous ones maybe because it's not dark enough for me, a dark person! 😅 For me this is quite different from your previous dark mood nocturnes! For me my favourite passage is b.111 when the right hand is fleeing up high. Very beautiful there. Henry

So I ate these pork steaks today. Something didn't feel right, but they were good. I mean, I feel OK I guess, my stomach doesn't hurt or anything, but as I'm watching your video I'm seeing all these dots randomly jumping around... As with others, I love how creative you get with these graphic midi videos, but man those dots were annoying. I REALLY did like the dynamic markings for each hand, I thought that was really cool. But I only bring up the distractions in your videos because I'm assuming most of the time if someone hears your music on Youtube, they'll be watching the video, and it would be nice to see the notes more clearly. I don't mind the different colors, I actually like how you time them, but anything really fancy with the graphics is a distraction to me. I dunno, maybe most people dig it and I'm just acting like a boomer or something. Now on to the music. Well, for starters, I've listened to enough of your music to hear similarities in the style. Not the content, mind you, but the style. And that's a good thing, because I really like it. For instance, you always have really creative decorations and embellishments in the melody, something I suck at. I admire it, and every time I hear one of your pieces I'm reminded that I need to do it more. Actually, I think it'd be a cool idea to start dedicating the preludes I'm writing to members on here where I've been a fan of their music. Maybe one of you could have those ornamentations....hmm...brainstorming off topic here. Sorry Anyway, another thing I really like about your music as a whole is that there's always one or two parts that speak to my heartstrings, like... every time I hear a section like that I'm just like "whoa..." *flips hair* For me in this one it was section at bar 74. It gives me dark-Bach-meets-pop kind of vibes, and I really like it. One of my favorite film composers is Danny Elfman, and he does the same thing. He always has moments in his music that stop me in my tracks and I have to analyze it to see exactly how he did it. I felt the same way listening to every iteration of that spot in your piece. Lovely colorful melody, and the writing seems spot on. Seems kind of Chopin-esque in some ways, which I adore. If I were to "critique" anything (you know I have to at least say SOMETHING like that), I would say that this really didn't feel like a Nocturne to me. I know "Nocturne" is a loose term, but it was so bright and jovial throughout most of it that I just didn't get the sense of wonder and dreaminess I would normally associate with the style. Idk though, would love to hear your thoughts. Well written though, and as I always say, I love your style. It seems like you can never disappoint me with the character of your music. Consider me a super fan! ...the dots...oh the dots though... P.S. I almost didn't see this. I don't know about you, but I use dark mode and the background for the text is white lol. Yes...weirder...I'm excited for that 😄

I'm glad I helped you find this forum and that you enjoy being part of it. 🙂 Thanks hahaha. Yes, I'm super busy lately and I am taking some meds that make it harder to compose. But with some luck I sould be able to post a dark lied next month, a really dark one... See you soon! Indeed, it is one of my most honest pieces and I simply followed my heart with this one. The ending is the best thing in my opinion, it is one of the most special things I have created. Thank you so much!

Thank you so much!

Hi @Ivan1791, I am so glad you are back! I have to thank you since you are one of my reason why I find this great forum! I always enjoy your benighted music style, often dreamy, unconscious, atmospheric. I often link your music with one of my buddy's, @Omicronrg9 since his music is quite dark for me as well! I really look forward to that! I guess right now you are quite busy on all sorts if musical activities and it will for sure help your composing! Kind Regards, Henry

Hi! Musescore has many weird playback problems so the suddent jump from mvt. III to IV and the thing with the violin in the second movement and the third movement where it suddenly disappears wasn't supposed to happen. Anyways, I'm not too worried with it because my works are written for real players not a program, so this isn't supposed to be an actual performance. Your thoughts are very interesting particularly the part about solving the tension too early in the ending. I will experiment with keeping it longer in my next sonata. Thank you!