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Hi Syrel I feel like... maybe we got off on the wrong foot. It's my fault, as my past relationships would side with you on. 😛 I'm not sure if you remember, but a long while back, you left a scathing review of someone's music here. You basically called them out for their sound samples being mediocre, and proceeded to lecture them on the importance of sound quality. You weren't mean, but rather condescendingly rude, at least in my opinion. Because of that impression you gave me, I said some things to you, and in hindsight I regret it. Maybe I thought I was being cheeky and savvy. None of that is true. Instead, I think a misunderstanding happened. You see, there is a separate community between those in the academic sectors and the media outlets. And sometimes, there is a misunderstanding because of that. Every time you post something, you mention the score now. You also share about, you know, how it's not great and you're just trying to share what you feel like is required here or something. It's not. You don't have to post a score. Ever. You're using a DAW. Trust me, I've written entire orchestral pieces within Cubase. There was a cool competition I submitted one of them to, and it required a score. I converted the notation file Cubase shat out to pdf and showed them the score. Most laughed at me. "Is this even playable?" "No one can read this" Blah blah blah I was so pissed off. I had just gotten the EWQL Orchestra package, and guess what? You have to use a DAW to execute their sounds. That's fine, TONS of composers write music this way. I got decent at separating midi tracks like instruments on a conductor's staff and made it work to satisfactory results for my skill set at the time. It was fun. But when I clicked "create notation" or whatever it was called, it spat out some illegible nonsense. There was no way to edit the notes on the staff (at least to my knowledge), and I felt embarrassed to submit something so ridiculous looking to a bunch of people whose degrees in music let them feel the need to slander anything not reminiscent of a score bearing the precision of spacecraft. I wanted my music to sound as sonically brilliant as possible. No orchestra is ever going to play my music, let's be real. But I've made a decent enough living in my life, and if I can pour my passion of composition into digital samples, well why the hell wouldn't I? Maybe hybridization of notation software and sequencers will someday occur, but right now they're mi... kilometers apart. I'm rambling, sorry haha. My point is, you're using a software to execute the actual "sound", the "audio", to be as perfect as possible. And, come on man. Let us be honest with each other. Your music is fantastic. I've been listening to the Rust and Bones soundtrack on repeat for, uh, a while now. It's so good. I won't share which track, but one even made me tear up. The kind where it just wells up in your eyelids, and falls down your cheek when you don't even blink to open the flood gates. Gorgeous in every way. But when you post your music with the score your DAW gives you, a lot of people here will be quick to point out flaws in it's construction. That's ok. If you're receptive to that, and you have the desire to create well crafted scores to best represent your music and showcase your intentions, well that's awesome! But if not, if I were you, I wouldn't even post it. It'd be so much work to try and fiddle with it, it's not even worth your time. Especially when there are lots of tempo changes, even subtle ones. I remember that being annoying. Instead, if you post in the incidental/soundtrack/media section of the forum, most people assume you're using the methods you use to compose and don't really question a score. Keep in mind, because of the mostly what I assume is a student/academic based vantage point of composition this site harbors, you might get requests of a score. How great for you, that your music is so interesting to them that they want to further study your craft. Yes your ears are most important, but the aid of a visual representation of what an orchestra is accomplishing at a foundational level of your music is what people can be curious about. If you value the secrecy of your sonic footprint upon our world and don't wish to share your music's notational construction, that's ok. If you're inputting notes with a midi keyboard into your software, and it sounds as beautiful as the music I hear (let's see... I'm on "Remember" now) but you can't figure out why the score it gives looks so bad, who cares. Your program isn't designed for that. If you mention in the post of your music, "This was written with *insert DAW* and don't have a score", no one will belittle you. That's the reality of great sounding music using virtual instruments. And ok I'm rambling again. My whole point stems from what you recently posted. You seemed to be really upset in your comment A YEAR after a few people gave you some great and honest feedback (as well as praise! yay!). Your piano piece sounds great! Maybe it's like a neo-classical approach to your style? You mentioned it's an old piece you found. It sounds like it probably would be, as noted with the form. Was this a study? For fun? These are things that would be interesting to know and talk about. I get that your score may not reflect your midi input. Maybe you inputted notes in a 6/8 way, but the score it gave was in 3/4. Or whatever. It's just another reason I wouldn't even bother posting it. Like I said, no one would fault you. There is plenty to comment on your music without being distracted by it 😄 I read a lot of the "feedback" you get on soundcloud. Reminds me of one of my accounts. It has pretty good attention from a band I was previously in. A lot of people say "great music" or whatever generic low effort version of that they come up with, but probably didn't even listen to the music. They're probably clout chasers, or just post to keep up appearances. Some could possibly be bots. Well, some are for sure bots because of my idiot old roommate/bass player. It's really a great way to share your music, but if you're looking for honest feedback, it kinda sucks. That's partly why I always come back to this forum; there are sometimes new faces, but always great advice. It helps to be active as well. A lot of times people are quick to offer advice or critique (maybe just a bit of praise even 🙂) if you give a bit of insight into their work. Sometimes someone's music just blows me away, and even if I feel like I can only share my admiration for their music, I like to share it. It's helped me network inadvertently too lol. ANYWAY Sorry for all the incoherent confusion my post may have spawned. To sum up, I think that your music is riveting and emotional. It's especially very colorful, you have a great sense of dynamics with the instrumentation, as well as a keen intuition for it's story telling. I'm glad I scoured your soundcloud, it was a fun ride! I think that someone with your experience and craftsmanship would do a lot of members here a great justice by giving your hard work a thorough listen. I hope more learn from and enjoy your music as much as I have within this last chunk of time.

A few more. Here's what the book says about Mahler: Mahler had an incurable ambition to write the longest, noisiest and most expensive symphonies in the world. This he actually achieved several times and not surprisingly, it was a long time before people could be persuaded to listen to them or that impresarios felt like trying to make them do so. It was suddenly realised that Mahler had not written long, boring symphonies of the Brahms type which you have to listen to carefully from beginning to end in order not to miss the themes, but had, in fact, simply strung together hundreds of attractive little tunes, and it was possible to go into a coma for a lot of the symphony and still get involved when you came to again. It is possible to switch on the car radio in the depths of Surrey to what appears to be a Mahler symphony well in its stride and to arrive in London and find a parking place with it still going on in a forgetfully energetic way that suggests it might still be in progress at 5.30. It is quite obvious that all conductors get lost during a work like the 7th which Mr Cooke has now called the ‘Mad’. No doubt someone will prove one day that Mahler was crazy. If not, why did he go to such trouble to write so much when he achieved better results in his short symphonies like the 1st and 4th. ABOUT Bruckner: "It is generally said that Bruckner was a simple man - practically a Nature Boy, you would gather from some writers. If, after listening to one of his symphonies, you still feel that he was simple, then we must all be gibbering idiots - well, perhaps there is something in that. In fact Bruckner was as deep as the Ocean. He was also an organist and organists are far from simple men. / Another misrepresentation of Bruckner is to bracket him with Mahler. The only thing they had in common was a liking for long symphonies.....(etc) = = = = And another couple of definitions: Pentatonic: Music that can be played on bagpipes. Perfect Interval: A period of time long enough to queue up for and consume a cup of coffee. .

This is lovely! The first movement gives me a quiet fantasy sort of a feel, which progresses towards (mov 2) a more sombre place, almost giving the sense that something is wrong, or something wrong is coming. The third movement has more energy and feels whimsical at some parts, and overall has a duality of something wrong/something exciting, if that makes sense (a painting with many details and lightings, possibly describing lively activity - I really don't know much about visual art). The last is one I'm not sure of, it didn't feel very connected to the rest of the piece (possibly because this is much simpler in terms of everything as compared to the first three movements) and it didn't feel like an end to me, but perhaps it was like coming back to the first movement in a major, simpler tone. Edit: Also, what software did you use for the audio? It sounds very good.

I really like the effects you achieved in the first violin part at m. 25! You seem pretty adept at playing with different textures in a string quartet setting. My one question regards the harmonics in the first violin part - are these intended to be fingered harmonics? As an amateur violinist, these would be quite difficult to perform - beautiful non the less, but tricky!