Leaderboard

See my attached notes; sorry, I only marked the first version, not the second. I'd say if there's one thing to really focus on, it's making sure that your harmonies are very clear. Even if they're not yet completely functional (Baroque, sure), they do need to be very precise. I notice you use a lot of 4ths and 9ths or melodic configurations that result in fourths or ninths, and they're very hard to tell what the harmony is because the inversion is ambiguous. You'll see I marked a few things consistently: obviously try to fix parallel perfect consonances, but we also need to avoid parallel dissonances as well, especially in a two-voice texture. Speaking of parallel perfects, in a measure-for-measure harmony piece like this one, you need to make sure you're avoid parallel perfect consonances in first species; you can't just get away with it by adding some passing notes.

Hey Red! I've been making it goal to comment at least once on the halloween submissions and here I am! In our separate conversations, we have already spoken a lot on the piece, from how you created it, to how a new key/ scale can affect it, and how engraving can make or break a musicians understanding of the work. For those who have known your previous works over the last few months -> year, there is a clear sophistication in this work. I can see the clear sense of structure and harmonic language you presenting and I cannot state that enough. In the halloween sense, I am a big fan of the little dance after the A-section. It is very fun to listen to. Good work my friend! Let this only be a stepping stone to your greater works 🙂

What a wonderful piece of music. Musically speaking, I greatly appreciate your abilty to develop the motif over the course of the work. It was entrancing and even went it felt dissonant, I was listening with intent. I do have specific critiques on the engraving/ format of the score: I think it would be a better decision to increase the margins of the entire score. All printers have a margin where they will not put any ink on the outside of the paper (This is called the bleeds). If you were to view your PDF and hit the print button, it will automatically update the margins. (I have attached two screenshots to show this). I also think you can space out the measures more in certain spots (mm.31-58) even when instruments are playing. A pianist would read a part with all 3 instruments on there to help with coordination and having it spaced out may be a nice convenience. Lastly, I recommend adding system dividers to separate the score and to add rehearsal marks so one day, a trio can actually rehearse and use specific places in the score to practice. Lovely video to accompany this as well! 🙂

It depends on your goal. Your intuition allowed you to make a piece of music that a normal person would say sounds fine/ cool. For a more refined level, you can take that intuition and apply things like chords or melody structure. All of which will allow you to replicate your work more consistently versus "doing so because music theory is essential for writing good music". If you want a free, collegiate-level, link to start learning music theory, consider checking out Music Theory for the 2st Century Classroom. This site is the one I used as a Freshman and Sophomore. It's pages of music fundamentals to complex theory; it is also paired with exercises and worksheets for when you want to practice these skills.

@TristanTheTristan As I am still getting accustomed to the site, I have taken it upon myself to get familiar with some of the other forums and type of music people have put on YCF. I have been interested to explore what people have to offer, and from my curiosity, I decided to also start giving feedback on scores submitted by people for this Halloween Competition. This said, to whomever I comment on, I will be treating them like a professional and write based on the expectation that they know, at minimum, intermediate music theory. For now, I will avoid making a table of my rating, however, please find the following to be my review of your submission. As a final note, I like to be straightforward with colleagues, and by no means am I coming from a place of bad faith. I want to push my peers to new heights, and I will be honest with them so they know the truth and can evolve from there. __________ While fitting the criteria of the competition, I do not see this piece as a practical work made for performance. I have noticed multiple errors where a professional concert pianist would have a high level of difficulty playing this work; specifically "Variation 4" where you employ single note tremelos. However, they are not uncommon to use as Liszt, and Debussy used them in their music. Liszt in the Friska from "Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2" and Debussy from the Prelude "...Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest". In comparison, your usage of them is more difficult due to the amount of note shifts a pianist will have to do, versus the raw technique. In a similar mindset, I do not believe the first section from measures 1-40 to be realistically playable on the piano. Continuing on, the engraving for the score concerns me heavily. The measures seem to be too small or placed too closely together throughout and in spots, like measure 128, you have two different spellings for the same note (G# and Ab). Musically, is it rather interesting and I did enjoy the theme you created. I love to write in D-minor when given the chance, and I was vibing with the "sinister" nature the key provides in your theme. If you would like to talk more or explore these comments, I would not mind doing so. Thank you for taking the time to read this 🙂

@therealAJGS: you can learn after this. Any one here, can help with theory, form, and etc. 🙂

[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!

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9.5 8 8.5 9 7.5 7 9.5 9 Entry: Trio Variations in D Minor Hi @TristanTheTristan I am going to highlight areas the areas that believe could reworked. As a pianist, I think those 32nd notes could be replace by tremolos instead. They have a similar effect. The readable in the piano section is hard at times. I do not where the beats are. You have difficult rythmn patterns that make it hard to play. Also, those single note tremolos, are not idiomatic. You will see them more in strings. What you need to do is write them out. Trust me! That is why you scored 7 in playabity and in 7.5 score presentation. You score higher in the other areas for it was original, creative, and you knew how to create variations. You carried through this competition. And you melodic material was spot on. It just needs better notation and idiomatic writing. 7.4/10

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! 🙂

Vote for your favorites in this years Halloween Competition! Those who review everyone's entries will receive the "Ardent Reviewer" badge and everyone who participated by submitting music will receive the "2025 Halloween Participant" badge. Besides that, there will also be four winners: "2025 Halloween Spookiest Piece", "2025 Halloween Strangest Piece", "2025 Halloween Biggest Thriller" and "2025 Halloween Theme Winner". So vote for your favorites! The poll is multiple choice so you can vote for multiple pieces for each category. If there is a tie we will simply award the badge to two (or more) people! And don't forget to have fun! (And you're also allowed to vote for yourself, but everyone will know you did so since the voter names are public! LoL) The poll closes on Monday, November 3rd at 11:59 pm PST so cast your votes before then! (And preferably have all your reviews also done before then so we can award the Ardent Reviewer badges to those who have painstakingly and meticulously reviewed all the entries!) The poll is now closed and the results are in! Go to the results and winners page here: To listen to all the entries go to the Submissions Thread:

God damn it's true I'm just listening to Barenboim's rendition of it🤣. I may try again with glisses and fluttering, on some other piece that is 🗿. Thank you for your feedback Henry :). "01010100 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101" 🙂 I sadly see this in dark mode Thank you Tristan! Seems I passed the test this time! Hi MK_Piano! I tried doing that but the margins don't seem to be updated in any config. I myself have printed a lot of my own scores and ended up preferring two:10mm and 15mm. This time I went with 10mm. I attach this video, perhaps you see something I do not. I checked other printing options and found out one that would increase my margins, but wouldn't increasing margins make margins bigger anyways and then I would end up having a lot of extra margin (My margins + Bleed)? Thanks for the heads up, perhaps I'm still missing something. Video here (I can't upload mp4s). I also tried with other printers and that is when the extra margins came, but I had to activate them. I had some handmade notebook with margin = 15mm at hand. Is this something that only happens with margins less than 15mm? What do you think of a piano part with reduced staves of the other instruments? What would you prefer as a pianist? Full score with dividers, full score but reduced parts that ain't piano, or just piano? Would it be a 100% one option no matter what? Am I asking too many questions 😁? @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu as a pianist yourself, what's your take on it? I'm also interested! For example, in this case we have 0 blank bars in the piano part. I would have thought it's spaced out enough. E.g: It's 10-8-7, and all quarter notes in page 3. Would you make it 5-5-5-5-5 or 6-7-6-6? Doing it any less than 5 when no instruments are playing would be difficult for me (matter of tastes), I could do it on demand of course. 🥶 I'll think about it. I don't tend to in compositions. Just in waltzes! I always do it in arrangements. Why? Not sure. I guess I have not seen them much in anything else than modern music and others' arrangements, but it's a good practice. That or circling bar numbers, but I guess that's less aesthetic. Thank you man, it's always cool when someone comes and makes you ponder your choices and you get to learn a thing or two at the very least. Thanks for your feedback and your optimism 😁. Hoping to stay for a long while this time. Time is scarce but I'll try to catch up! I'll vote for you Kind regards!!

Your piece is for orchestra. This is a competition for chamber works for between 3 to 5 instruments total.

Dear all, I am seeing other composers to arrange pop music recently, so I give it a try. (So bored this weekend for some reason) It is Like JENNIE by Jennie (Blackpink). It is my first time transcribing a pop song. There are no official scores available online for my reference, so I have to do it by ears. (Tried transcribe it with Youtube-to-mp3/midi converter but that was a mess too) If I have to say, the most difficult part is to mimic the half-singing-half-speaking voice of Jennie. Complicated rhythm and very chromatic (and nearly atonal) "melodies" that I have to do it in 0.25x. Took me almost 3 hours to complete the transcription for the 3-minute piece and did some orchestration for the another 1-2 hours. Hope you enjoy it and please feel free to comment on it. Thank you! HoYin Disclaimer: I do NOT own the music. All rights reserved by Jennie et al. Original MV: My arrangement:

@MK_Piano Thank you for your kind reply. I hope my music is still pleasant to "post-tonal" ears. I treat it as a compliment when audience tell me they are willing to revisit - that means there are some places of work that is worth memorizing. While in the post-tonal context, while there are lots of idea I want to express in my work, I agree that there should only be "necessary" details in the writing - audience should be able to enjoy the work with their ears - instead of intelligently enjoying the tuplets or excessive dynamic markings by compulsively referring to the score.🫠 Gosh, I apologize for the double stops. I hope all violinists and pianist will forgive me for the effect.😆 While this work will be a part of my larger set of project "Festive", I do want to make it distinctive from other few works. So yes, I am writing this Halloween music with a storyline and realistically refering to the tradition - glad to hear from you I might have succeeded to convey the idea. Thank you!

I enjoy this piece! The choice of the woodwinds is good - balanced timbre - especially with oboe adding some sense of mystery to the work. The melody is pleasant to listen to, and the development is natural and colourful. But in terms of the competition, I think it might not be the best fit in the "Halloween" theme (perhaps too joyful? 😅) However, I think section N and O lost some "energy" there - I know you may want to depict the gradual diffusion (dying out) of the smoke - I believe there are potential to be more harmonic before the recapitulation. Regarding the playability, I think it is completely fine, in terms of the clear indication and suitable difficulty to the players. Irregular time signature is a feature here. I think it is a light-hearted work that is worth a concert performance! Good work!

In the modern landscape, this, to me, was refreshing to listen to. I have experienced listening to bad post-tonal works where my peer thought more noise and crazy writing benefited the music or hall being played. I appreciate the landscape you painted and would not mind listening to this again in the future. Of course, on an objective level, this piece is difficult. I think it would be effective when played live, however, I would be the one to pass off learning it and give it to the next musician due to the ensemble difficulty lol. When applying it to Halloween, I think you have succeeded. Maybe not in the terms of the 'trick or treat' or lighthearted celebration that happens each year, but in terms of capturing the eerie and scary images a haunted house or creepy film shows. Good work!

@Justin Gruber I appreciate this submission a lot. Some of comments or ratings seem to come from a place of tonality and western structure versus the post-tonal lens this casts. For the style, I think the execution works well. This said, this will take time for performers to nail due to the syncopation playing tricks on their ears, however, I think it is a better condition for it to be challenging on an ensemble level versus a soloistic level. (I have a feeling you already know this to be true lol) For my personal style, I would space the measures out more and keep it to 4-6 measures versus a long stave of 8 measures. Even though you can fit 8 measures in one system, it grows to be a little "cluttery" at times (Measures 56-80). My final critique is when you apply this piece in the sense of "Halloween". I am not 100% convinced this conveys Halloween. It seems to cast the fall season in my opinion. I did not feel a "spook" or sense of "creeping" when listening. Other than these comments, I found your work to be enjoyable! Love to see when people employ some good front matter and proper copyright information. 🙂

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

@TristanTheTristan Since this a barque dance, a minute , it is AB (binary). So the A section is tonic (C major) and B section is domiant (G). m3 of the A section, is vi and leads I...this is fine. Then in measure m7, it is V-I and we repeat the A section. We don't transition to the minor!

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7.5 8 6.5 8 8 7 9 7 Review: Form Development Structure Time: 6.5 I score this 6.5 for it was hard to listen to ABA form for 7 minutes. You have to keep in mind that the general listener has short attention span. ABA are usually shorter. But given the time frame that we had to meet...I realize the challenge it was to write ABA. Score Presentation: 8 I score this an 8 for the score looked professional; and if you send this to ensemble they would be probably say yes. Instrumentation Orchestration Playability: 7 There were some interesting spots when the music went into 7 where the division changed every measure. Not to mention that meter of the piece changed throughout You have to count for sure. Originality Creativity: 8 This was truly original concept and your put thought and creativity into. Kudos Melodies Themes Motives: 7.5 In the A section, there was ostinato that held it together. that was interesting, The interplay between flute and oboe grabbed my attention. Harmony Chords Textures: 8 The texture of this piece was not homophonic but polyphonic and borderline polymetric. So there was more independency of the three parts than chorale. Execution: 7.5 It meet reequipment to write a trio and time, but I did not feel it for Halloween. Taste: 7 This is hard to describe. I feel this would be great for concert. Average score: 7.6 Standard

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

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8.5 9 7 8 10 7.5 9.5 8 Wow! I am going to be Robert Schumann! -Hats off Gentlemen! A genius! Anyways, Average: 8.4375, Above Average

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7.5 6.5 5.5 8 6.5 9 6.5 6.5 Average: 7 Standard

@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

nice! quite a fitting piece. there is a lack of theme though. some interesting chords and great texture. Average: 6.875 Below Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 4 8.5 9.5 7 7.5 7 6.5 5

Cool music! Ah, col legno... I should have used it, really nice color touch. That was probably my favorite part, like footsteps of whatever we're running from haha. You did some cool things in the intro too, I like the overall esthetic you went for. Some of the entries used winds which were really cool for color, but we just had different options with strings. I like the shrill atmosphere the strings are capable of, sounds like you too advantage of that too. Well done! Vote for your own piece, or your favorite, or mine! 😛

lol I love the character you put in your posts as much as your music. This is so cool... descending chromatic harmonies like spiders, soft sweet out of tune sounding melodies, extra spooky reverb... so great. I really like how you gave us scary vibes, but there was a sense of lightheartedness too. Perfect score for character, this is a front runner to me! Nice work Daniel, glad to see you back around! 😄 vote for me

8.5/10

7/10

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

Yes, I agree with the superb transition from the col legno section as @Omicronrg9 mentioned. Great idea. I feel like this work is always intriguing to me, and has lots of pontential to develop - can't wait there are more with this piece. To the very end, I might have modulated it to some distant keys to add more "mystery" to it, if you find it appropriate.

Hey Damniel my boy @Omicronrg9! This one is goddamn grotesque my man. The beginning is a bit frightening as fitting to a Halloween themed music, nice repeated pizzicato motive used on the violin. But to me what stands out is after the first section in b.31 when an innocent Mozart k.331 like theme appears. Even it starts normal, I still don't believe its apparent naivety, and you mix that apparently naive theme so well with the Halloween grotesque mood with those dissonant but not overly dissonant harmonies, making the music somewhat dragging between naivety and evil like a darkened version of Alice in the Wonderland. This feeling is amazing to portrayed to be honest. I like starting from b.92 all these elements are put tighter together for an even more exciting and wonderful contest of moods. Maybe adding some glissandos in the violin and flutter tongue in flute will make the music even more evil. Thx very much for this weirdly wonderful piece! Henry

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I don’t feel there’s any need for my input… Lol Though I will add a bit of my own $0.02 to build upon this reply; pivoting off of his use of the word “Uncanny” I think I would also use the same word to describe how my experience with this piece felt. And I very much so agree; If this piece were allowed to mature for some more time, the ideas presented on your score could be spot-lit easily. The potential is there, in black and white! i think you might also benefit from reviewing your understanding of chords, leading tones, harmony, and form. Some of the score feels as if you were unsure of what to do, and just played the “fake it til’ you make it” game until you made it to a stopping point where you could then introduce the next idea that you had in mind. that being said, my advice would be to revisit areas in the score where you felt a sort of “writers block” at, and instead of allowing yourself to “wing it” through, slow down and really analyze what it is that you could effectively achieve. Lastly, yeah… This score wouldn’t be considered “complete” being under the 3 minute minimum, and if this were a true competition, would be immediately disqualified for judgement 😕

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!

MY_MUSIC_300_20251022_040911_041520842.mp3

What a cool ensemble, having the bass clarinet and bassoon. I think you really hit the mark with instrument choices, I imagined a black cat walking a wooden fence with the full moon out. Very much a picturesque halloween piece, and you write so fast too! The balance of quirky parts (my favorite was the clarinet rhythm section at like 2:50) and lush UncleRed-type chordal figures with piano worked really well. Score looks good, some enharmonics issues (watch the leading tone) but definitely clean and neat. You're pretty good about your score editing, so nothing new there. 😄 Quintet? 😛

This is about the overall consensus of what I would've said had I been here earlier. lol However, I'd like to add, that this score is quite repetitive, and sort of irks the ear after hearing the same thing so many times over. I also am having a hard time pinpointing any specific key that you intended the music to be in. (Seems Atonal, or keyless. Perfectly OK choice, but I'm not so sure it makes a lot of sense, in my head. That's likely due to my way of seeing music. So that point is on the whole, irrelevant.) Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 6 3 6 9 4 7 7 6.5 Overall Score Average: 5.25

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 4 7 4 10 10 5 5 5 Overall Score Average: 6.25 Melodies Themes and Motives: 4 My reasoning for a 4 is because the music, for me at least, seemed difficult to follow. I did lose my place a couple of times, and there really is no melody, not any one line that sticks out at any given moment. Although, I believe that this piece's intent is to be jarring, random, or playful in it's nature, if I'm assuming correctly. (I'm sorry, I couldn't take the time to read the introduction page. 😅 It kept cutting off for me. Possibly something to do with my browser) Harmony, Chords, Textures: 7 Overall, I think the harmonic complexity and textures presented here are very good! I don't have a lot of technical wording to use to describe it, as it's very unique, but nonetheless, well done! Form, Dev., Structure, Time: 4 (I'm assuming it's supposed to be this way) I wasn't really able to differentiate too much between your sections. The textures change, but not in a fluid manner, from what I observed. The Development of the piece is mostly unchanging throughout the piece. There are moments of more pronounced dynamics, then moments of lower dynamics with only 1 or 2 parts playing. Which does show some form of development, but this would be unclear to the average listener. I also have to say, I've never seen or even considered using a time signature with a denominator of 16. 😅 to be frank, I have no idea how I'd even begin to count that. I simply followed the notes on the page, as I heard them passing, to get through those measures. Personally, I feel there may have been a more sensible choice than 3/16. (Simply my opinion) Originality: 10 What else can I say? Never seen anything like this one, honestly. And I'm diggin' the uniqueness of it, despite any of my grievances with it. Score Presentation: 10 Very Professional - Very Demure 😎 Ins. Orch. Playability: 5 Overall, this is technically able to be performed... However, I feel that an excessive amount of time would go into rehearsing something like this, with 3 musicians, just looking at it practically. The syncopation is off the CHARTS my man... 😭 As well as some parts where I notice the pitch jumps over an octave from the previous note/measure, which can be very difficult, especially for wind players, to execute. Execution: 5 It would scare me if I had this music set in front of me as a musician. So I think that qualifies it as "spooky" but it's not very reminiscent of pieces I'd consider to be "Halloween-ey" or however you'd put that 😅 Taste: 5 I only put a 5 here because I'm not quite sure what sort of flavor you were shooting for. I feel that this score is more reminiscent of your own taste, adding to the Originality of the score. So, I'd wager that this is a totally unique score of your own design/genre, mostly. That's about all the input I have on that topic.

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!

Pros: Keeps a certain mood throughout good instrument layering Cons: a bit repetitive Suggestions: make some parts more playful or intense. I'm agreeing with Tristan here, 7.875 standard

Hey there Justin Wow, this is fantastic! There's so much color throughout, and I love how you really explore some of the possibilities the instruments are capable of. Long trills, variation in expressions, all wonderful. It was interesting to hear how you developed your melodic cells, since there was a purposeful lack of melody. I love your jaunty changes in rhythm, and your approach to sequence-style movement in your chords (sorry don't know how to properly say that). The A sections were so free and fleeting, kind of reminded me of Debussy or how jazz musicians move chords. Very cool stuff. I don't know how "halloween" sounding this is, but it's an outstanding work nonetheless, one that you should be very proud of. Feel free to offer advice or say hi to others, you sound like you have a lot of knowledge we'd be happy if you shared. Thanks for posting, and be sure to vote for me for your favorite halloween piece 😄

Hey Tristan Well, I think this piece is definitely a front runner for most unique ensemble, more so than mine at least haha. Cool choice to use two pianos and only one string player, I was curious to see how you'd pull it off. I like the variety of variations you have, it made it interesting all the way through. My favorite was probably 5, but I also really like the subtle build of the last variations leading into the coda. It's also smart to have ones like variation 10 to help break up the monotony. Cool music! I hope the competition gave some inspiration to music you would otherwise have never written. It did for me 🙂 Cheers buddy, good stuff. Keep writing and practicing!

Cool man, I love the dark style of this. That quarter note bass line at the end sounded like it was building up to something faster, maybe movement 2 eh? 🙂 For some reason I got metal vibes hearing this, which is good, because metal owns. Love your music, but we gotta update your program... you deserve better sound samples! Thanks for sharing!

Hey Max This is great, I love woodwinds. This was my favorite part! I know midi doesn't do ANY music justice, but I think it's especially true with your piece. The eerie nature and sparse texture you were going for was really cool, and the winds can really bring it to life. But the midi makes it kind of drag, whereas I think a live performance would really highlight the silence between the notes and well as the shrill colors the instruments are capable of. Speaking of the bossa nova feel you were going for, I really hoped you developed that more. The slow part before it felt like a prelude, building to something faster. When it came, it was over so quickly, then back to the slower section. The ABA works, but I think it should be an "aBa" instead of an "AbA". Maybe there was a time issue, or maybe it's just hard to know how much of a chunk your piece is of a slow or fast section. It's fine as is, these would all be thoughts on future music, but that's the impression I got. Wonderful stuff here, you should share more when you write it! Don't be afraid to poke around the forum too, lots of great people around here; they'd love to hear thoughts from you. Be sure to vote too!

Hello @Justin Gruber and welcome to the forum! Thank you for your submission! I have taken the liberty of editing this post to include the mp3 you uploaded to the other post and I'll delete that other duplicate post since we want you to submit your music as its own dedicated topic so that the members at large can have a space to review it properly. Thanks again for your participation!