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First of all, I have to say that I really enjoyed this competition! It was an intense two weeks—on the one hand, to finish my own composition/arrangement, and on the other hand, to listen to such a diverse range of great musical works. I think all the participants invested a lot of time, effort, and passion to achieve such a result! I must admit that – puh – reviewing seems to be harder than composing! We have seen a lot of atonality and non-traditional musical structure (to mention some, but not to be exhaustive all "Dima’s National Dance" by @Dima, "From Above, Now Below" by @Thatguy v2.0, "Diptych for Piano Quartet" by @Cosmia, "Aos Si" by @HoYin Cheung, "American Cryptids" by @Micah, "Fumage" by @Justin Gruber, "Clowns" by @sebastian Pafundo, "Woodwind Quintet" by @Maxthemusicenthusiast, "The Mist" by @Kvothe, "A Hollow Theme for Halloween" by @therealAJGS) and – on the other hand – more „beautiful“ and „well-behaved“ pieces (for example, "Ghost Town Requiem" by @UncleRed99, "Bagatelle No. 6" by @Omicronrg9 and "Dance from the skeleton ball" by @MK_Piano), which I very enjoyed, too. As „balanced“ between this two poles I would consider "Daunting Steps" by @ferrum.wav, "Trio Variations" by @TristanTheTristan and – lol - my own piece. Therefore, the decision was very hard and due to the subject of the competition, Halloween, the more outlandish pieces were in the better position. The dedications of the badges „spookiest/scariest piece“, „strangest/weirdest/most outlandish piece“ and „biggest thriller“ were – in my opinion – not so easy to distinguish, so that we have one glorious winner in nearly all categories, "From Above, Now Below" by @Thatguy v2.0, my best congratulations. Special thanks to @PeterthePapercomPoser for organizing that funny contest! What did you think of the official competition reviewing template? For me, the competition reviewing template was very useful, giving the focus what to review a clear structure. Even if I did not give a textual review according to the eight categories but only a general one, scoring according to the definitions (i.e. between 0 and 10 points) and calculating an average was useful and helped to determine the winner(s) for the different badges. I could also imagine that in future competitions, the template and the numbers will be used in an official sheet to determine the overall winner. In such a case, however, it would be necessary to formulate more precisely how we should award the points in order to achieve a fair result that can be used for such a calculation. I noticed that some of the reviewers often awarded 10 points to pieces/categories they liked, while I was a bit stingy with this top score (apologies to all participants). I would like to say that such differences in the use of scores between different reviewers, although consistent in their own assessment, could lead to a kind of injustice. What would you like to see in future competitions? I think, the most revenue of the competition is getting a lot of review in a short period of time. Therefore, I would like to keep the competition „just for fun“ without monetary awards. An interesting variant could be to keep the competitors and judges anonymous. Such a rule could be combined with the mandatory use of the template and its usage for the calculation of the winner, as mentioned above. In such a case it would be necessary to require that all participants review all the other entries to achieve comparability and fairness. However, such a strict set of rules could imply that some members would hesitate to participate, thus we could try out that for one competition, but should not apply it to all future ones.

Hello Everybody, I know it's been a while since I was last active here, but I wanted to share a new prelude I've composed. This is a rather short work I plan on sending off to a piano composition competition, since I think the recording will do it justice. Another thanks to my piano teacher who made the effort to record my work. Here is a description of the piece: “A Prelude written during a time of uncertainty, and it reflects the idea of anxiety + release. However, the trio section is especially beautiful. I recommend listening to it while eating vanilla ice cream; it will enhance your experience.” 🍨🍯🎹 Let me know your thoughts in terms of harmony, melody and form. Score Thank you truly

You're welcome! I enjoyed it! First, thank you for voicing your opinion! When we've done competitions with monetary awards and official judges in the past this was an issue that people have brought up. However, ultimately, when the different scores from the different judges were averaged together, as long as the judges tried to accurately reflect the differences between the various musical entries in their scores then once the scores were all averaged together, even if say, some of the judges scored the pieces in a different range of the scale than others, the scoring still worked to accurately reflect the differences in quality between the different entries. In the past when we had competitions with monetary awards, the entrants were kept anonymous by sending their entries by personal message to me. I would then add their entry to the submissions thread. I think in a free contest, this requirement might be too strict. And I personally don't like the idea of keeping the names of the judges anonymous because it discourages discussion and interaction between the judges and the members. Thanks for voicing your opinion!

Here my 2nd movement of my Piano sonata no 2. I hope you like it.

Hi @Vasilis Michael! I like the light Mozartean touch of this slow movement. The use of minor harmonies in the 1st episode adds just the enough flavouring. The modulations in the 2nd episode is nice too. Thx for sharing. Henry

sorry, forgot to press submit!

[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!

The fifth piece within the group of compositions I had already shared here on YC and have been sharing once again because they had gotten deleted during the renovation of the website in late April-early May 2016, and after a hiatus of a little more than six years (the fourth one having been reposted on July 25, 2019), this is my "Soliloquy for Organ No. 4", Op. 156, composed June 27-29, 2013. As I have previously mentioned regarding these old pieces being reposted, I have been choosing the best ones (in my current opinion) among the 181 previously posted but deleted pieces and reposting them. Here is part of how I had introduced it at the time I originally posted it, on June 30, 2013: "I believe this piece to be one of my grandest musical conceptions, and therefore possibly the greatest piece I have yet composed." Let me here take the opportunity to also put the links of the previous four reposted pieces: 1. Three Fugatos for Harpsichord, Op. 222 (reposted on 28/5/2018): https://www.youngcomposers.com/t36633/three-fugatos-for-harpsichord-op-222-old-deleted-piece-1181/ 2. Three Sententiae for String Quartet, Op. 139 (reposted on 30/7/2018): https://www.youngcomposers.com/t36851/three-sententiae-for-string-quartet-op-139-old-deleted-piece-2181/ 3. Soliloquy for Clarinet No. 5 (Op. 172) (reposted on 11/12/2018): https://www.youngcomposers.com/t37265/soliloquy-for-clarinet-no-5/ 4. Reverie for Double Bass (Op. 25) (reposted on 25/7/2019): https://www.youngcomposers.com/t38143/reverie-for-double-bass-op-25/ Finally, I hope that pieces posted on this website will never again be deleted due to renovation of the website. In addition to many pieces being lost forever (fortunately I had mine all backed up), we will have to dedicate hours of time to find, prepare and repost pieces (as has been the case with this post in which (however) I also looked for and posted the links of my four previously reposted pieces).

I come to you with yet another Muzoracle casting. Lisa is a friend who has kindly bought me my own Muzoracle set (which lets me do these castings for people I know) and Chromatic Harmonica. Thanks Lisa! (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 Lisa asked me if her new breath notation (based on harmonica tablature) will help others with aphantasia to learn to read music. This is my biggest casting thus far - with 10 positions, so I had to take two pictures of it to capture the whole thing: 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 there were two brass cards drawn in the 3rd and 4th positions, I included Trumpet and French Horn. Then, in the 5th position we got dealt a card in the suit of Woodwinds, so I used a Flute. Then in the 8th position we drew a triad of strings so I used a Violin. And finally, in the 9th position we drew a Soloist of Percussion card so I used a Vibraphone. If you'd like to find out more about Muzoracle and how castings are interpreted go here: https://muzoracle.net/ This short musical interpretation of Lisa's Casting is about a minute and a half long. The piece is in Eb major since the black musician's die landed on Eb/D#. I then made the following harmonic/melodic underdrawing that I used in the composition of the music. I started the piece on a single solitary A note surrounded by Silence since the first card drawn was the Silence card. Then as the piece progressed, I added more notes (Cb, D, and G) and let the piece fall into a rhythm. I used the brass instruments first since they were the first to be drawn. Then the Woodwind card got drawn in the 5th position so I had the flute trill between F and Gb. The strings card gets drawn in the 8th position so that's where the Violin comes in, playing high E major (Fb major since its based on RA) chords as a triple stop. Then I used the Db and Bb to build a Bb half-diminished b9 chord with the Fb major chord on top since the 9th position is a Soloist of Percussion card (Vibraphone). The whole piece repeats before finally ending on the tonic chord Eb major (which I added simply for the sake of the music and a clearer tonal identity). If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! And I hope you enjoy listening to this short chamber work I wrote to represent Lisa's 3rd Casting. Comments, critiques, suggestions, or observations are of course, always welcome. Thanks for listening!

Thanks to all 16 participants who submitted music to the competition - the recipients of the "2025 Halloween Participant" Award: Fumage - Trio for Flute, Oboe, and Bassoon (Halloween Competition Submission) by @Justin Gruber CLOWNS - Fall 2025 Halloween Competition Submission by @sebastian Pafundo Woodwind Quintet No. 1 - Halloween Competition Submission by @Maxthemusicenthusiast Trio Variations in D minor: A Submission to the 2025 Halloween Composition Competition by @TristanTheTristan Aos Si - Piano Quintet for Halloween by @HoYin Cheung YCF Composition Competition - Halloween 2025 (Submission) by @UncleRed99 YC Halloween Contest Entry - The Mist by @Kvothe Bagatelle No.6 | Om. 101 by @Omicronrg9 2025 Halloween Competition - DANCE FROM THE SKELETON BALL (Submission) by @MK_Piano From Above, Now Below by @Thatguy v2.0 A Hollow Theme for Halloween (Fall 2025 Competition) by @therealAJGS Piano Quintet in G sharp minor - 2025 Halloween Competition Submission by @Wieland Handke American Cryptids - Fall 2025 Halloween Submission by @Micah Dima’s National Dance - 2025 Halloween Submission by @Dima Daunting Steps - Quintet for Piano, Flute, Contrabassoon, Violin and Cello - 2025 Halloween Submission by @ferrum.wav Diptych for Piano Quartet (Submission) by @Cosmia The members have voted! --<< Decisive Fanfare >>-- And the winners are: For winning the "2025 Halloween Spookiest Piece" award with 9 votes - "From Above, Now Below" by @Thatguy v2.0 will receive the following badge: For winning the "2025 Halloween Strangest Piece" award with 8 votes - "Aos Si" by @HoYin Cheung will receive the following badge: For winning the "2025 Halloween Biggest Thriller" award there is a tie with 5 votes each! - "From Above, Now Below" by @Thatguy v2.0 and "Diptych for Piano Quartet" by @Cosmia will receive the following badge: For winning the "2025 Halloween Theme Winner" award with 7 votes - "From Above, Now Below" by @Thatguy v2.0 will receive the following badge: Congratulations to all the winners! We will now move your pieces into the "Competition Hall of Fame" subforum! And thanks to all the following participants who also reviewed all the entries! The contest would not have been as much fun and as instructional as it was without you! The following members will receive the "Ardent Reviewer" badge () for their efforts in meticulously reviewing all the entries: @TristanTheTristan, @Kvothe, @Omicronrg9, @Thatguy v2.0, @therealAJGS, @Wieland Handke, @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, @chopin and myself @PeterthePapercomPoser And thanks to me @PeterthePapercomPoser for organizing and managing all the competition polls, announcements, submission thread, badges, results, satisfaction survey and advertising outreach! I will receive the "2025 Halloween Community Organizer" badge: To take the 2025 Halloween Satisfaction Survey go here: To listen to all the entries go to the submissions thread: To check out the popular voting polls go here: And for the competition announcement go here:

Please fill out the survey to help us organize better competitions in the future! The survey is anonymous so we won't be able to see who voted for what. The poll closes on Monday, November 10th, 2025 at 11:59 pm PST. Thanks for voicing your opinion!

Variations on Dies Irae.mp3 I haven't quite been feeling the compositional drive recently, but I did try writing something for one of the informal group competitions over on MuseScore that I'd thought I'd share here as well. I would have definitely liked to write more variations but I was kinda lazy and went with three, which I hope contrast well with each other. I'm always revising my work, so is there anything that you like/dislike about this? As a pianist, I'm also not good at composing for string instruments (this is my...second ever attempt at a string quartet work?) and would be happy to receive feedback on my string writing too! I feel like I may have been too enthusiastic with the slurs and probably should remove a bunch of them... Variations on Dies Irae.pdf

Hello this is my new marching show I'm working on, its meant to be a musical representation of the concept of infinity. The first bits before the hit are muffled because the winds are facing towards side 2 so it should sound more like an echo. Im posting to ask for opinions on this idea and concept

Hello dear people. I have composed a new compostion and i would appreciate it very much if I could get some critique on the composition, anything you notice is vaild and some points I would like critique on it this: The cohesiveness of the piece, how well the piece creates tension for example, if it feels like the piece have "bumps" where it feel like it goes off. How well I exsecute the harmonic progressions and cinematic feel. The composition is influenced by Thomas Bergersen whom I listen to a lot these days. Like pretty much on a daily basis. Thanks so much in advance

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:

@PeterthePapercomPoserThanks for asking ^^ I won't be reviewing this round for now, since I'm new I don't feel that I should, but perhaps in the upcoming events I will definitely be involved, I'm really impressed with this site and quite happy to have stumbled upon it.

I think it's harder because for me it's very important to evoke the casting in the music as closely as possible. So I can't always just write the music I want - I have to follow the underdrawing of the casting. Thanks for your review!

Very unique piece of music, interesting rhythms, and interesting choices for harmony (dictated by the dice)? Do you find it harder to compose based on the rules from the game, or is it easier because you are essentially following a template? Cool piece, and rhythmically weird, in a good way!

Hi @林家興 I think this one is a good effort to write a variation which you succeed with a lot of different styles including contrapuntal, romantic and more impressionistic style. For variation 1, I think you should definitely explore and extend the fugue more haha. The subject is clearly not so developed when only the exposition of a fugue is presented, plus a counter-exposition with the inversion the fugue subject! Also, you could have the viola stay in b.35 so that the subject entry in b.40 would be by First violin with a 4 part counterpoint there. For variation 2, like @Monarcheon I really like the harmony there. Just for the ending typically a pizzicato wouldn't be written with a long dotted minim but instead just with a crotchet? Variation 3 is my least favourite variation but it's just subjective lol. Just one stupid personal thought: I always think variations should be developed through the order of the variations, and I think you can add more variations in the E minor first with the more negative mood before going to other keys to explore different styles. Also, are there any reason why the variations are arranged in this way? Thx for sharing! Henry

Thank you so much my dear Henry. The andante came natural to me and I think I'm more than pleased. Thank you so much for your appreciation and your attention as always . Warm greetings to you

Hi @NicholasG! The brass passage in 0:39 is way too loud and it scares me lol! I think you should definitely tone down the dynamics there! I would say it would make a good trailer music. Thx for sharing. Henry

Hi @Bjarke! I like this Perpetuum mobile texture which really gives motion to the piece, as well as the imitations between the hands. The modulations are effective especially for a cinematic music. Of course, dynamic details would be crucial to propel the flow and drama of the music. Thx for sharing. Henry

Hi @Samuel_vangogh! Like @Monarcheon said the use of 014 set is very apparent start from the beginning, as well as in b.20 choral texture which is basically the superimpositions of multiple 014 chords, which makes the whole music structurally tight. I actually like the direct shift of register since I think it's a good contrast particularly when you combine it with the change of dynamics, timbre and texture. I also agree with @Monarcheon that you could have added more rhythmic variety to the music but given the short time of the movement it's fine for me. Maybe add some more rhythmic variety if this movement would have a contrasting section. Also I feel like the piano writing could be more lucid. Thx for sharing! Henry

Hey Peter, I ignore all your casting and go straight to the music lol. I like the beginning which sound like serial music to me tbh and the irregularly regular rhythm between the brasses. The bitonality starting from b.11 is a nice touch too. Thx for sharing! Henry

Happy Halloween... 👻👻👻👻👻

I took it.

This is really one of the competitions I enjoy the most on YC! Hope more ppl can take this survey so we know how to improve on our next competitions! Henry

Hi Burlaw Guy and welcome to the forums! Nice atmosphere you created. Quite simple but it mostly works, soundwise. You don't get into complication, and thus little trouble comes. However, I am not sure of how you recorded this but it's clearly wrong (compared with what the score reads) at many places. It's specially noticeable in the off-rhythm passages that should not be off, and the last section in which you have a piano solo that is everything but equal 8ths! Score-wise and in regards of other aesthetic and musical aspects I believe @TristanTheTristan and @Thatguy v2.0 have given you some advice that is worth checking in my humble opinion. My best advice, if you want to make scores and compose your works yourself for Orchestra, is to first learn how to make them readable, useful for real orchestras or any size, and overall learn about the disposition of these instruments, their characteristics, etc. You won't get to idiomatic writing in the blink of an eye, but you will spot strange stuff in your own scores and maybe in others'! For that purpose I must recommend you a book by Samuel Adler called: "The Study of Orchestration". Examples of strange scoring (for a real orchestra) are: What strings? Violins, violas...? All of them? 4 scores for all strings? This is ambiguous and apart from that you got violas on a separate staff! The order in which you present the instruments in a general score also matters. More to some than to some others but a standard order is always advised. And just to put some more examples of GOOD writing practices for orchestra and details found on a bit more in-depth analysis of the score: • You present female voice and choir parts, but then they turn to Vo. and W. What happened? • The horn can be transposed to F and Bb, normally it's on F as it's the case in your score but knowing things like these and specifying them never hurts! • Specify the type (and if you want, the number) of instrument playin' in every part. "String section" says very little. "String section" with block chords, says a bit more, but not about the piece, but about the approach used to reach it. Normally, you have 2 violin sections, 1 viola section, 1 cello section and 1 double bass section. Get acquainted with the terms divisi and unison, again not 100% needed but an accumulation of good use of conventions and fine details makes a score shine. I know the image I sent you is pixelated but all things I'm saying are in part there. Really, reading a treatise of orchestration such as the one I suggested will greatly help you in this regard! Finally: it is a bit strange that you have almost no brass but the horn. The score overall needs some polishing but it can be read. Beware of overlaps. A bit all over the place for a review, I know, but I just intend to not repeat what my colleagues here said and to give you some more stuff to work on. Hope any of this was of help. Best regards, Daniel–Ømicrón.

Damn man, thanks. I am deeply honored. Thank you (and Peter!) for keeping this forum alive all this years. May we forever see it sprouting posts with new compositions. Now I can see the text thanks to quotting + using Text colour = Automatic! Before... 🥶 I like the "happy-go-lucky but creepy quality much like the way clowns are happy but creepy to many people", did not think about clowns. Actually I have never been into a circus or never assisted any celebrations in which a clown was performing 😰. It's neat to see that the music made you make that connection without extra input. What do you mean by cinematic repetition of themes? Just curious Thank you both for sharing your impressions guys :). Damn, what a contrast between your impression and Peter's! I agree that it's not very spooky, in fact I think I have like 20 pieces way more sinister than this thing. But elves? Gold dust? Wild! I am grateful, not everyday I can read other people's perception of this or any other piece of mine, my public is very limited 😁. Good luck in the polls and once again, many thanks, Mr. Handke!

hahahaha, OH THE SHAME WILL BE SEEN

Thanks for your comments. Yes, some chords with black and white clusters can't be played 100 percent accurately, and that's not necessary. It would just be much more difficult to write out what would work out exactly given the tempo. I wanted the widest possible range of clusters.

I finish reviewing all of them! I have to say, this is by far my favourite competition on YC. It's so hypered and lots of members of participating in it, not just submitting works but also commenting each other! That's what a forum is for right? I wish this popular vote format will contiue in future competitions! Henry