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Hi @Kvothe, I am not expert in counterpoint, so take my comments with a grain of salt. Most of your exercise would be technically correct, as it is mostly thirds and sixths. I see you have an interval of a fourth in m.14. This interval, in classical counterpoint, would be considered a mistake (even though in other types of counterpoint it would be acceptable). So, strictly speaking, your counterpoint is not wrong. However, most times counterpoint is used as an exercise by setting up some rules and learning how to compose while sticking to them. These rules can be really varied, but some of the common classical rules are: 1. Using mostly third and sixths (up to three times in a row of the same interval at most) 2. Trying to make the melody move mostly by step, with occasional jumps (making the melody as melodic as possible). 3. Contrasting contour between melody and bass to some degree, where at times when one goes up, the other down, and vice versa. 4. Avoiding parallel fifths and octaves, having fifths only in contrary motion, etc. For example, in your exercises the melody is jumping around too often, which, in classical counterpoint, would be considered something to avoid. So, while your exercises are not wrong, I think you would benefit more by setting up some rules and following them, since using sixths and thirds without consideration of the melodic contour would be easy and, while technically correct, I am not sure it would help you as an exercise. Hope it helps and thank you for sharing your exercises!

Yeah I love all three of them as well! But not my most favourite Symphony! Mine is the ninth!

Voted, and it is as I thought, the seventh! Apotheosis of the dance...did Schumann say that? If anyone just said to me "what does a Beethoven symphony sound like?" I would put this on first, not the fifth! But taking another look at the voting results, what's wrong with the second, fourth, and eighth? 😆

Well, I don't mean to sound pedantic, but music is music, is it good or not, and will it last? Beethoven is more popular than the poppiest pop song, given the years.

That makes more sense! Thank you for the insight

I'll quote for you another passage from Chapter 31 of Gabor Mate's "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" - a book about addictions:

No idiom, my style, though of course influenced by others, mainly dead guys like Beethoven and such! Wow, this little dash-off has a lot of views in one day!😃

Maybe create some motion in the inner voices like you already did in m. 4 when the melody is sitting on a long note? Like the chord in m. 5 - 6. Also something that happens in concerti is that the melody is first introduced by the orchestra alone before the soloist plays it. Maybe you could do that here where prior to the Oboe coming in the string orchestra plays the whole 14-bar melody you already have. You could use that as the introduction to the Oboe melody that you already have. Also using some octave displacement of the melody could bring some contrast between different versions of the melody (like if the beginning version of the melody without the Oboe were an octave lower for example). Those are just some ideas I had while listening. Looking great so far! Thanks for sharing.

WIP Update : Orchestrated the melody I have so far. I want this section to just be the oboe + strings. I'm still trying to come up with some material to put before the oboe comes in. I start on a Gm/C chord (technically Gm7/C with the oboe melody), so I just need a progression that will lead me there 😂. I'm thinking French horn melody with suspensions and soft movements (think Hymn for Band by Hugh Stuart). If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

I only saw this by accident, and I really should listen to both, the which-sonata-is-better game! It's been a bit crazy for me. I actually wrote a piece yesterday for a young Ukrainian man's dead grandmother! That Ukrainian wants to come here, family issues, yada yada, but I have a lot on my mind. Anyway, I'll listen now. Bb Minor: first movement is fun, quarters and eighths a bit bangy-tie some together and get syncopation, but always keep up the rhythm. Liking the second movement, seems like a quirky and enjoyable scherzo. Largo, I might vary the rhythmic texture beyond straight quarters? The rondo is very classy! Eastern European quality sometimes, as I like to do: Dvorak Dumka! Whoa; going full Liszt at the end! Next, key...oh yes, e minor. Guitars like that key! From just the first movement, maybe I like this one better? You are good with register contrasts in your piano writing; been talkin' to Herr Beethoven? In general, both sonatas have minimalist passages, Philip Glass-like. Nothing wrong with that! Allegro Maestoso is good, I'm getting Schumann and Brahms lieder somehow! I like things in both, maybe edge in the e minor. I think when you write another sonata, you are the composer, but it might be a good exercise to try a minimalist one, more counterpoint than full chords, look at Hindemith Sonata #2: it just crossed my mind! You don't have to write in his style.

As the third installment in my enharmonic perpetual canon cycle, this one follows a procedure nearly identical to that of the first one and is quite similar in duration as well. The lyrics (once again, in Latin) sung by the choir translate as follows: "Change is inevitable in all things. Everything flows in the balance of those who are tempestive." As with the previous installment, the coda further drives the meaning to greater clarity and realization. YouTube video link:

Hello again, my dear friends, Here is another piece I wrote yesterday. Music of the moment. It’s one of those inspirations where you sit at the piano and it just comes out all at once, and I must say I truly loved this particular piece. Very Schubert-like, as always, but I believe I’ve also added my own touch. I hope you enjoy it.

I'll quote for you a passage from Chapter 22 of Gabor Mate's "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" - a book about addictions:

I've been introduced to a very interesting and enlightening new philosophy book by my friend Lisa. On the surface "The New Existentialism" by Colin Wilson doesn't seem to be a book very much concerned with music but I assure you that it has much to say about creativity and music some of which I share below. (The book was published in 1966 - read all the way to the end for a short discussion of Beethoven and Wagner.) Edit: I think I have shared this long quote here mostly for my own benefit, since I will have to return the book eventually. But for those who get through it, I hope that, like me you consider musical composition your 'originative intellectual work' and that sharing your music and listening to it induces in you 'peak experiences'. Thanks for reading!

Here's another quote from Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being": I do wonder if this story of how Beethoven's "Es muss sein!" motif was conceived is true. If his supposed exchange with Dembscher occurred a year before he wrote his Op. 135 quartet, then he couldn't have heard Debscher's complaint, since by then he had already been deaf!