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Here's my submission to the Halloween competition, written for piano quartet. I thought a lot about demons and possession, abandoned houses, what's down the cellar, all that 😄 It was a lot of fun, and I hope you enjoy!

Hello all! I am classical pianist based in the United States and have been composing in my spare time since 2023, mainly hand writing and using MuseScore as my notation engine of choice. This post marks my first ever post and submission here on the Young Composer's Forum. If you would like to know more about me, both my website and short biography can be found on my profile! __________ YCF HALLOWEEN SUBMISSION: For this year's halloween competition, I created a ~5-minute long work for a Piano Quartet (Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano). This was my chamber of choice as currently, I am learning, and will be performing, Beethoven's Opus 11 Piano Trio in Bb with two other peers, and felt inspired to write something more traditional. Composed in C-minor, this work is set into Ternary Form (A-B-A') and aims to cast music for the time of Halloween. If you would like to know more about the piece, you can find more information on Page 3 in the "About" section. Thank you for taking the time to view my score and consider this work for this event! __________ (DISCLAIMER: The Midi playback from Musescore Studio sounds a little skewed in the solo violin part, however, this setback does not object to the playability of the part.)

Awesome music, and welcome! Dude, you're fantastic. I almost went this route, kinda the dancey macabre but fun way. Loved it Your music is very well thought out, score is clean and neat, you obviously know what you're doing. Lovely playback too, the rendering is really smooth and polished. We'd love to hear your feedback on some of the entrees, you sound like you have a lot of knowledge for a young age. Well done! 🙂

.animated-text { font-size: 16px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: linear-gradient( to right, red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet ); background-size: 400% 100%; -webkit-background-clip: text; color: transparent; animation: colorMove 5s linear infinite, bounce 1.5s ease-in-out infinite; } @keyframes colorMove { 0% { background-position: 0% 50%; } 100% { background-position: 100% 50%; } } @keyframes bounce { 0%, 100% { transform: translateY(0); } 50% { transform: translateY(-20px); } } Hi again! Here, as promised, I submit this small piece for the Halloween... Competition! Is it Halloween-ish? Dunno, probably not so much... But this is for you to judge. Do NOT expect anything bombastic though. It's a trio for flute, piano and violin so it's 3 instruments. ✔️ It's more than 3 mins, lesss than seven! ✔️ It's somewhat submitted before the deadline! ✔️ And it should definitely be entirely playable. Since here everyone has its own preferences, I am submitting the complete pdf (attached in this very post)+ the mp3 + a YouTube video with the typical (or not that typical maybe) way of showing sheet music. Now, back to more composing. I heard that the competition is strong between the contestants. MP3 Right here (or at the end of the post, one never knows). Bagatela Nº6.mp3 YouTube video HERE. And if you haven't done it yet, what are you waiting for? The deadline for this competition is still a week or two ahead! Look at the rules and drop your piece!!! Kind regards! Ø Thanks to @Kvothe & @MK_Piano for his reviews in the engraving, layout, and instrument-specific feedback. I have attached here the second edition of this piece, released today 28th of October 2025 (first edition was released on 25th of October 2025) . It comes with a Piano+ score that has reduced parts & system separators. Now all parts have rehearsal marks on top the usual measure numbering I commonly use in all pieces. Maybe a bit redundant, but better to be safe than sorry. 101 - Bagatela Nº6 [Completo, 2Ed].pdf Thank y'all for your kind reviews. We'll read each other in the forums!

ghost-town-requiem-kyle-hilton-2025-ycf-comp.custom_score.mp3 I had NO Idea what to name this piece. The score's name has been updated to "Ghost Town Requiem" 😉 But I've worked diligently on it, and I feel that it's as good as I'm able to make it. Really just shot for the Halloween/Spooky vibe with both the Instrumentation, key, and rhythmic inflections. Hope y'all enjoy my fun lil' sextet quintet (sorry my brain wasn't all there when I posted this) piece 😉 Score has been updated; @MK_Piano so kindly took it upon himself to download my score and edit the engraving to make it look purdy 😉 ... I have also had a change of heart on the timbre of the score being in C minor, and have transposed it to B minor, one half step lower for a slightly more rich tonality. I also took some advice from @Omicronrg9 regarding the visibility of the Dal Segno mark early on in the score. YCF Halloween Composition .pdf

Hello everyone, I'm Wenhao Zhang, a singer-songwriter from China. Here I'd like to share with you a song I composed, titled "Ghost Party", which features a tango style and incorporates elements of musical theatre. I hope you enjoy listening to it. 大家好，我是来自中国的创作歌手张文灏。在这里和大家分享一首我创作的探戈风格、融合音乐剧元素的歌曲《幽灵派对》，欢迎大家收听。

Wow! I haven't logged in for a long time. I didn't expect that my work received such good reviews. Thank you so much for liking my work so much!

8.5/10

Hey, I was hoping it would be okay to put some of my recordings that are not compositions here. I play early keyboards, so harpsichord and clavichord. Here’s a sample:

And here is @MK_Piano's first submission both to the contest and to the forum!

Your music is great! I listened to the three you posted, and they're all wonderful. This one was my favorite, thanks for sharing 🙂

A 4:30 piece I made in online sequencer in G#. link to behind the scenes: https://onlinesequencer.net/4928420 I hope I at least get a 7.5 average rating

Hello everyone. Here is my official entry of this contest. It is for string quartet (2 violions, viola, a cello, and double bass). The idea behind it was: how can i use the following atonality, bitonality, and sprinkle of halloween fun.

Dear all, Wow - that's an interesting topic for me - Halloween - never wrote a piece for an festival. To make this work more relavent to the work, I did some research to understand more about Halloween. Anyways, here is my thoughts writing this work: I have always known very little for the Halloween festival. To many, Halloween is a festival that focuses on pranking, customing and candies - but there is a long history with mysteries around Aos Sí, the Irish name for a supernatural race in Gaelic folklore, similar to elves. Here are some information from different sources: - Every year, Samhain is celebrated on 31 October – 1 November. During this liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned, Aos Sí could more easily come into this world and were particularly active. Aos Sí were appeased to ensure the people and livestock survived the winter. The souls of the dead were also said to revisit their homes seeking hospitality. From 16th century, there is a tradition in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Wales, where people going house-to-house in costume reciting verses or songs for food. Some impersonated the Aos Sí, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf. Often, a man dressed as láir bhán, a white horse, and led the younf people for the activity. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the 'Muck Olla'; not doing so would bring misfortune. "...In 19th century Ireland, "candles would be lit and prayers formally offered for the souls of the dead. After this the eating, drinking, and games would begin"." These history and myths formed the basis for the plot of this work. HoYin

My friend, @MK_Piano and I were fooling around with some of our scores on a discord call last evening. He had the bright idea to modulate something that's written with an intense emphasis on negative emotion, in a minor key, to a major key. (I have no idea why I've never thought of this lol) This can be done by selecting all notes in the score, and transposing up by a third, diatonically. (Obviously this doesn't take into account any off-key chords used throughout the score, but the result is just as fun to playback lol). Adversely, you can do this in reverse to a score written in a major key. Here's an example, where I've instead of modulating between relative major/minor, I've went through the trouble of modulating to the Major of the same key. (C minor to C major). I used my Halloween Submission as a test dummy because why not. Hah!!! Take a listen: YCF Halloween Composition 2025.mp3 Bright Town Fanfare (lol).mp3

Again, maths. Yes. I will now correct that.

Thanks for the rate! Just to clarify: Based on this table, wouldn't the average be 9.6875 and not 8.4?

Here's my score: Average score: 9.7(very good) I do not think much to say on this piece. Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 9.5 9.5 10 10 9.5 10 9

I have am enjoying this competition. 🙂

maths...

MP3 Play / pause Minuet I 0:20 1:20 volume > next menu Minuet I > next PDF Minuet 1 Ok. So you have some nice thematic material. Sometimes, like bars 3 and 7 don't make sense to me that much. Maybe explain that? Bar 2's last beat has a straight-forward transition to a minor. It just feels off. The second section was more favourable to my ears.

[DO NOT REPLICATE - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED] The last calendar year has seen the most growth in my music writing. In June, 2024, I was given the opportunity to work with the Huntsville Youth Orchestra in Alabama, and their resident composer, Robert Bradshaw. I stayed with them for one week preparing my piece "Mountain Storms and Valley Peace" for performance. (You can listen to the world premiere of spotify!) I cannot express the amount of information I received during this experience. It changed me for the better as a composer and as a musician. So much so, it inspired me to write my first suite for Symphonic Orchestra: Chariot to the Moon, Apollo. Over the course of 5 months from August, 2024 - December, 2024, I composed this five movement-long suite detailing the achievements of man in the conquest of space; specifically, the Apollo Program. If you would like to know more information regarding the work, you can read my notes in the "About" section on page three. ___________ This suite takes about 24 minutes to listen to in its entirety. I have decided to share the entire score, with a watermark added, for your enjoyment and to help with following the piece as it plays. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Thanks for taking the time to look and listen to my composition!

Welcome to YC! Anyways, great piece, with clear inspirations from Beethoven and some from Chopin's Polonaises. My favourite so far. Average 9.375 Very Good. Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 9.5 8.5 9 10 8 10 10

Oh, my favourite scherzi? 3. Ludwig Van Beethoven: Op.2 No.2, Sonata No.2 in A Major, Movement 2 Scherzo in A Major. 2. Frederyk Chopin: Op. 39, Scherzo No.3 in C Sharp Minor. 1. Frederyk Chopin:Op. 35, Sonata no.2 in B Flat Minor, Movement 2 Scherzo in E Flat Minor.

Hi Everyone, here's a piano piece I composed about walking in the woods. Let me know what you think. Thanks!

I think Poland is a nice place, especially in places like Żelazowa Wola and Kraków. It has beautiful landscapes and also nice lakes around the terrain of Zakopane. I also surprisingly visited Warsaw, where I visited the Muzeum Fryderyka Chopina. People are usually quite nice there, too. I checked inside the university and took a few photos of the official Chopin Institute building. It is great! In conclusion, it was a great place to visit. I will be back in 5 years (probably) to participate in the 20th Chopin Competition.

back from Poland!

Thanks! ( I would react that, I just can't react more today) I am pretty sure the average would not be 7.4, though. I am pretty sure it would be 8.5. Anyways, (again) thanks for the feedback!

@Thatguy v2.0 Thanks! I am a savant of music theory and put a passion into my music. I am personally picky on engraving, formatting and music structure, and if I were to go around scores, I think that'd be a bulk of my comments. If you really want to know... ask @UncleRed99. He's been on the receiving end of my comments lol

Hello there @therealAJGS Entry: A hallow theme for Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 6.5 8 6 7 1 5 6 8 Average Score: 7 Review: Melodies Themes Motives (6.5): I feel there are too repetieve. Harmony Chords Textures(8): As for textures, you have interesting textures. They interreact well each other. Form Development Structure Time(6): I feel this piece is rather repetitive. I do not know what the general form is. Score Presentation(1): Thank you providing the score. However, is needs polished. I do not what parts on the two trebles staff represent each instrument. Instrumentation Orchestration Playability(5.5): Again, with out a proper score, I not be tell playable it is. Having said that, the instrumentation is rather interesting. Taste(8): For taste: and 8 is correct. Next time; please provide us a score!

@Thatguy v2.0 Entry: From Above, not below Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 9.5 9 9 10 10 10 8 Average Score:9.4 Review: Melodies Themes Motives (10): I truly felt you have achieved the top tier of what atonal writing should be. Like the unsettling of high winds, the melodic materials take on whirlwind adventure. I have nothing else to say on this matter. Harmony, Chords, and Textures (9.5): The tonal clusters of this piece truly blew me away. Nice touch. Form(9): Free form is excellent choice. Organity and creativity(9): you truly were pushed creativity to the mast here! Score (10): The score was readable. However, the only might I suggest is: the pedaling in the piano. instrumation (10): As I meantion before, Pianist like to change the pedal every now and then. If you hold the pedal too long...the notes become blurry. Execution: perfect! Taste: I am giving this 8 because is not for everyone, but it is for some.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9 (too simple) 6 6.5 8 7.5 7.5 8 7 Average: 7.4375 Standard

That happens to all of us. I will say this to you. Do you realize YOU'RE the reason we have a Halloween competition in the first place? Do you remember asking in the shoutbox about competitions, and I asked you about it? Then the staff talked on Discord and came up with the ideas and polls and implemented them, because of you. Then, since it was fun and poll based, I wanted to enter because I've done nothing but guitar stuff for the past months. The piece I wrote is one of my favorites, and it wouldn't have existed without you being the catalyst. You view this competition as a failure, but you helped create an avenue of innovation for me and others, AND you got to learn about the harmonies you deployed in your piece. You learned some things that worked, and some things that didn't. Thank you for helping make this competition a success.

Outside of rock guitar solos (and even then I prefer not to), I never use an improvisation as a complete melody. Personally, I dislike improvisation. I see composing music as the sonic equivalent to sculpting marble or painting on canvas. It is something that is shaped and refined until it realizes a vision. I think it was Michelangelo who said "I saw the angel in the marble and I sculpted until I set him free". I believe that should be the approach to composing music, and as far as I am aware, it is how all the greatest works were composed.

8.5/10

Very good! Sounds like something straight from a horror movie. I like how the intro keeps a certain harmony and then it sort of freestyles for the rest of the song. but, it feels a bit too little repetitive, because there's no "main" part of the song, but overall I give it an 8/10

Thank you! Hope you all enjoy it!

MY_MUSIC_111_20240324_210640_1_AudioVerb_AudioVerb_1.mp3

Hi @HoYin Cheung! The use of extended technique is flawless and well fitting to the Halloween mood, and the style is very much Bartokian with some very percussive passages (the col legno). I really like the F section. The strings sound very much like an organ itself which fits to be "In a church"! Very professional scoring and engraving as well. Thx for sharing! Henry

Welp, we have a clear front-runner here. Man, this piece is almost flawless. The only thing that comes to mind I could point out would be that the Segno could be better marked. It's not that the way most software and people usually do it is bad, but I myself found it's quite good (performer-wise, reader-wise and lastly it's a matter of tastes) to mark it with segno bars &/or a rectangle surrounding the segno symbol. Example here: . Just a suggestion. The piece itself as I was sayin' was very enjoyable to me. It's fluid, its structure works, you know how to connect the dots very neatly. The instrument choice is very good as well. I like how you don't need to deviate from tonality to get the spooky feeling you. It reminds me of PvZ OST at times, and at other times, you remind me of another composer whose work I have listened to a lot, Paul F. Page. The instrument entries are very balanced, you're stepping into solid ground! What I liked the most though, the return to the segno al fine. It's seamless. The score is alright, perfectly readable... Little I have found to be worth mentioning (I'm very sleepy though so my writing capabilities are diminished). Some overlaps here and there, misplaced dynamics due to software being stupid by default, but nothing else. Congratulations, UncleRed. My kudos. A long day awaits, may you sleep as well as this piece was enjoyed by my brain. Kind regards!

Hi Kvothe! This is nice material. Solid at the beginning, but I kind of lost trace towards the final moments of the piece. Sound-wise it does its job very well. The very end felt uncalled for. It was everything but conclusive to me, which can be good at some places but I'm not sure if this is one of them. There are also some unexpected transitions and effects that struck me like "let's experiment with this". Nothing wrong with that either, this is a relaxed and informal competition afer all but... Dunno, I'm quite sure that if you let this material mature it would become way more interesting than what we already have here. Like, from 1:05 to the col legno sections, damn, epic transition. I also like how the col legno blends with the upper string voices, but to put a contrasting example I don't like how the first very strong phrase that sounds again on ~0:30 gets dissolved and transitions to some sort of uncanny fanfare that if extended it could prove to be a worthy piece on its own. Another thing I would like to point out at least superficially: dynamics. There is always room for them, and while abusing them can be a pain for performers, underusing them is not very good either. I think this piece suffers a bit from the latter, but not so much anyway! I notice marcatos, accents, and other articulations, but say, for example: do you want the same strength/volume in the stacatto-pizz. hits in the intro and just after the beginning of the A section? And yeah, let me be honest: I get that sheets are not usually overlooked much but since I myself try to take care I cannot avoid commenting you there are a lot of details that this score needs improvement on. Some examples right here: overlapping rubato, tempo marking —intentionally?— microscopic, and a very minor one that could legitimately be brought up by some nit-picky performer: where does the rubato at the first bar begin? First note? Third? Second? You also have 2 rehearsal marks with "B" at M40 & M45, plus a "C" elsewhere near the end. Finally, let me be that guy and tell you: your piece has not reached 3 minutes, and according to the rules: Not that in this case anybody's gonna take that very seriously, but since it's still 23/10... Maybe this is enough of an excuse to revisit this piece and give it another go? And if it doesn't work, you already got a solid submission posted! Just as a suggestion 🙂 At the end of the day, if what you got is completely of your liking, to the sky with it! May any of my points prove useful to you 🗿 Kind regards, Daniel. P.S: I subscribed to your channel, maybe you could post the video here too!

I couldn't pass up another chance to do another Muzoracle casting for a friend. (Muzoracle is a storytelling/divination tool similar to the Tarot card deck, but with cards with musical concepts and 12-sided Musician's dice and Solfege dice.) This time, Kat asked the Muzoracle if she will be financially stable. My interpretation of the cards and dice are displayed below. The instrumentation of the piece was guided by the suits of the cards drawn. Since the triad on the left is in the suit of strings, I chose Harp. The triad in the middle is in the suit of brass, so I chose Trumpet and French Horn. And finally, the Conductor card on the right is in the suit of voices, so I chose a 4-part women's choir. If you'd like to find out more about Muzoracle and how castings are interpreted go here: https://muzoracle.net/ This short musical representation of Kat's casting is about 2 and half minutes long. The piece is in Bb, since the black 12-sided musicians die landed on Bb. I then made harmonic/melodic underdrawings that I used in the composition of the music. Since the first solfege die landed on FA and the card drawn was a triad of strings. I start off with Eb major triads in the harp. Then I included an Agitato brass passage based around RA (the RE in the image below should be a RA - it's a mistake). Then I switched to a triad based on MI, before moving the music to G minor through a D7 b5 kind of harmony. Then, in order to end up back in Bb major at the end I transposed the whole pattern up a 5th and retraced my steps in a retrograde, back to the beginning chord. If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! And I hope you enjoy listening to this short chamber work I wrote to represent Kat's casting. Comments, suggestions, or critiques are of course, always welcome. Thanks for listening.

Yes, Quintet. I was discomboulated when I posted this xD Thanks Also, I'm glad that I've left an impression with "unclered-type" chord figures xD I didn't realize I had a unique way of structuring chord voicings 😅

Here is my submission for the competition! I look forward to the feedback, and thank all others for their submissions as well. I haven't finished going through the other submissions that I have not commented on, yet. But will do so ASAP! Enjoy 🙂

Wow...this is awesome!! Very fitting for the competition, and so much color and technique. The Bach quote was clever 😄 Great job man, wonderfully written!

Hi all! As the Halloween season creeps closer, I decided to produce a small, ultra-short film rooted in my love of the holiday. A couple years ago I produced a similar short featuring some of these same characters, which I did also share on here. This is a pseudo-sequel to that video as well. I would love to hear your thoughts, feedback, and such! I did submit this to a local film festival and will hear back soon on if my submission was accepted. It was fun trying to play with some different things sonically, especially with the introduction of the theremin into the mix. While trying to go from an almost cartoony sound and look at the beginning, to a more sinister one at the end. Hope you enjoy the watch/listen!

Thank you for your like! The lead singer is me, and there are other singers singing along with me. 谢谢你的喜欢！主唱是我，还有其他歌手为我伴唱。

你好 @张文灏！ Welcome to the forum! The tango style is well maintained in the music! Is the vocal by yourself? Thx for joining and sharing! Henry