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I share the above comments ... my first impression was a piano reduction of an orchestra score. Lots of wonderful ideas for an orchestra work ... with some attention to tempos. Mark

Hello everyone! I wanted to share an orchestral arrangement from one the Bagatelles for piano that I composed a few weeks ago. With the hope of trying to keep on learning orchestration I bought a couple of days ago the new sounds for MuseScore 4 by Berlin Orchestral Tools and the Adler's Orchestration book. I found the sounds extremely satisfying (specially considering that they work in my laptop which is a little slow for most things) which led me to test them by trying to orchestrate one of my Bagatelles. Of course, the score presented here is a performance score, the original file for the audio is much more complex to try to make the most out of the Berlin sounds. For this arrangement I have added several sections that are not in the original piece: Lyrical introduction (m.1~8) A motivic transition to the main theme from the F minor B section (m.43~49). Restatement of the closing two bars for stronger ending. The rest is the same as the original piece but I got rid of the repeats (as the piece would have been too long and the orchestration repetitive). The piece is still in the form ABA' with the A part in F major and the B part in F minor. I have been listening a lot to Ghibli Films orchestral music by Joe Hisaishi lately so some influenced might be found here (not on purpose, but rather just by pure listening). The only thing I did on purpose was the use of the piano as the main instrument (which Hisaishi does a lot). Feel free to criticize anything you think is bad. I tried my best and tried to study the details of the instruments as I was needing them, but I am well aware that orchestrating is a hard task and I consider this orchestration a "draft" as there are probably many mistakes. I tried to choose similar dynamics to the ones I used for the audio rendition but I believe maybe most dynamics should be increased by one level for a real performance to sound as in the audio, but I am not totally sure. Any feedback, suggestion or comment is more than welcome! Thank you for listening and hope you like it! --- Original Piano Version ---

@Jqh73o Thank you very much for the feedback!

Awesome piano technique! 🙂 some suggestion for improvement perhaps could be sometimes when the melody is highlighted in the high register you could make jumps to double the melody in the bass. I think I have heard that technique somewhere before which I thought was pretty effective. at around 3:00 Perhaps an idea could be which I have seen composers like Liszt do where he starts energy sometimes with a trill but you could also do it the way you did where it will be transformed to a run across octaves (for example la campanella or i think he does this as well in libestrum) This could then be transformaed to a background element. An other way of doing this is perhaps keep what you do in the piece but then repeat it later again modulated perhaps a whole tone above which could create suspension and then add the run. I also think this piece could benefit from more modulation. The harmonies in of it self are interesting but they could add more depth through more modulation. I think that this piece may also be a bit too much minor harmonies and could beneficial with a contrasting section of a major section of course still following the same thematical ideas. I hope this is something you can use. I am really impressive with your composing ability which already feel mature. I think you have a very promising composing future ahead 🙂

I agree with what has been said that the piece sounds like a piano transcription for orchestra: If it was written for piano here are some thoughts on the piano figuration: the doubling of the voices is excessive for a piano, in most cases you don’t need to double the voices too much on a piano, it will sound too saturated; the textures are too unstable, with this I mean that there are no clear patterns and you go from one texture to another too quickly, sometimes on the same phrase and there are almost no breaks between the different textures; the textures themselves have almost no running fast voices, in the most complex piano works texturally (rachmaninoff sonata 2, night wind sonata, sonata minacciosa) there is almost always a fast voice like this in their most dense moments; the fanfare motif sounds very difficult and slightly unpianistic, I would state just in octaves with maybe one of the voices of the chord (ideally one that repeats) being played too; the lack of pedal and quality of the midi also chastises the recording severely, so I think in a real piano it would sound much better. After writing this, I think you meant this for orchestra. Structurally I like the way you develop the first themes (and as this is a sketch, I believe that you will also develop the g major theme) But in order to understand it correctly it took me some listenings. I think this problem could be easily solved by adding some resting moments before introducing new material (kind of like a medial caesura, but not in sonata form) Thanks for sharing Manuel

Hi! Thanks for listening. I definitely do not have any sort of practical system or toolkit I am pulling from with the quarter tones. They are just something that I love because I feel like only having 12 tones to use at a time is too limiting to the colors, emotions, and moods that I want to express through music. However, I like to use them in this way of just extending the harmony rather than being just sound effects or gimmicky. What I will say with this piece, though, is how much I clicked with using quarter tones to subvert expectations on romantic music. Just taking major / minor chords and flattening the 3rd down a quarter tone adds a complex emotional depth. A lot of the work was finding intentional ways to use a tone to build a chord that fit what I was trying to express in a certain section, which sometimes meant not using quarter tones at all / I would have to mess around to find what pitch worked. My favorite part of this piece is that page 11 true major chord climax. We spend 6.5 minutes never having a pure cadential major chord that it makes it feel so meaningful to arrive there. It helps re-contextualize such a cliche that is present across all of classical music. How many pieces have you heard end on a tutti major chord like that? But, when the entire work is fighting towards that one moment of a true 12-tone major chord, it makes it feel so fresh.

Hello I understand that one can, of course, write modern or contemporary style pieces inspired by baroque formats. So, even if it is titled Prelude and Invention (or fugatto), you can do something else different. However, for my taste, the prelude lacks almost no counterpoint, since the bass is almost always giving a simple bass. And certainly, it can be contemporary, but without a solid counterpoint, I don't know.... The second part has the peculiarity that it starts in a contrapuntal way and very close to baroque and, suddenly, it starts with chords that seem to come out of Stravinsky. That's why it sounds a bit inconsistent, given that it's a very short piece.

I've restarted after about 8 years of lessons and an 8 year break. Warning and an Affirmation: 1. You will sound terrible at first. Very frustrating--its locked away in your cells but cant get out!!! 2. Get a teacher who gets you. 3. Practice: I practice 3 or 4 times a week, for 2 to 2.5 hours. 4. For several weeks/months, it will seem like slow progress--but you are rebuildiNG synaptic connections, fast memory, eys to hand "automation". This simply takes time for the BODY to build. Hit the old etudes, the old practice routine. Try and have FUN. 5. And one fine day/week---- you will have a BREAK THROUGH AND YOUR OLD FORM WILL COME BACK. This took me about 5 months!! Now I am in just about where I was, and working happily. Good luck and godspeed.....

Hi there, I'm in a similar situation as you as I've been trying to pick the violin back up after a very, very long hiatus (my daughter has been taking violin lessons, inspiring me to pick it back up so we can play together). I have no real suggestions aside from your tone quality is quite good and I think with just practicing regularly, you should get up to speed in no time. Best of luck!

Hi @Cafebabe! Please note that some of your previous YT video submissions to the forum can't be reviewed because the video is private and can't be viewed by our members! Prelude - this piece is quite unidiomatic for a Baroque piece since the instruments of the era did not have a quick enough action for the players to be able to repeat notes as quickly as you require here. The harmony and melodic lines are also quite haphazard and illogical. I think this is a result of the piece being conceived in the sequencer/DAW/notation program which grants it a certain artificiality. Invention - I think that this is the better of the two pieces in the set. Up to measure 63 the invention is very well conceived both harmonically and melodically! After that you seem to default to a chordal/harmonic approach that isn't very suited towards writing an invention. Those are my thoughts. Thanks for sharing!

Hi @Bjarke! Is this a sketch for an orchestral work? My perception is that the piece is being played too fast regardless of whether it's for piano or orchestra. There are many features of the piece that seem like they would be more fitted and idiomatic for orchestra. There's many fanfare-like features of the piece where the brass could imitate each other between trumpets, horns and trombones. Besides being more idiomatic for orchestra, the piece is also much more difficult for piano. There are many very thickly voiced chords that are played in quick succession one after another that seem impossible to play on piano. This might be remedied a bit by playing the piece slightly slower. That would also, I think, give the piece the space it needs to allow the listener to fully perceive everything that is going on. Right now, the piece is going at such a breakneck speed that it is difficult for the listener to absorb all of the material. Also, because of the fanfare-like nature of the piece, there are many quick, repeated notes that would be difficult to re-attack quickly enough for them to sound on piano, since the piano would have to have a very quick action. That's part of the reason why I perceive the piece as being nearly impossible to play as-is. But the musical material certainly is very interesting and would be very effective in an orchestration! Thanks for sharing.