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This is a piece I wrote years ago, for some reason I was reflecting on all the needless poverty in the world and this bubbled up. Sorry if it depresses you! Mike

I know, it's kind of a weird title. Most likely a reflection of my Asperger's, OCD, and depression. I'm kinda proud of this one because I wrote it completely without picking up an instrument. Just me, some virtual instruments, my Sonar 8.5 DAW, my laptop and a mouse. Here it is at box.com: https://app.box.com/s/5pohfncrhmxa732qzu1l3w6on2zxvwyr

It's quite a melting pot of different stuff. Starts off with synth but never revisits that until the very end where things actually start sounding pretty nice! I would say build a piece on that! I'm not sure that the organ is helping. The solo string is off in the sound.

Good stuff. When you get to the beat drop, add a little something new each time you loop the idea - even if you change the notes in the dubstep bass instrument, it feels like it's all part of the same thing and could use some extra to help spice it up. That can be applied elsewhere in the track as well, not only after dropping the beat. Check the transition at 3:15, don't let the momentum disappear. Good idea to drop it way down, but give us something to dance to while you do it - i.e. bass drum quarter notes, arpeggios, something. Good track! Gustav Johnson

Hey! Awesome track - overall I really like it. My comment for the part which sounded unprofessional (aka could be improved) were the brass/orchestral chords blasted at us in the beginning (0:14, etc.). The volume was good, I think it was just that there was immediate on-off of the sound - i.e. the envelope felt fake to me. listen to what you did at 1:24 and you'll hear a difference, mainly in the release of each chord. Things like that are especially obvious when they're exposed in the forefront as they are in the beginning. Like I said, it's not wrong, per se, just could be better if adjusted slightly. Good work! Gustav Johnson

PS The "help" section within Musescore is hard to navigate, but there are useful forums for Musescore online. Just google "how to combine rests in Musescore" or whatever else you are looking for and you should find multiple pages where other people have asked the same or a similar question and gotten a response. Good luck!

If you are familiar with the board game "Go" that is popular in China and Korea, there is an expression: "Lose your first 100 games quickly." If this is your first composition it's a great first effort, but don't have any expectations of success for your work at such an early stage. Just write, and you will learn from the writing. You're going to lose the first 100 games no matter what you do. You don't know the right things to think about yet that would help you win. So don't take too much time to think for now. Play. Enjoy yourself. And the knowledge will start to seep in from the experimentation. I could definitely recognize the bird songs in your piece and enjoyed them. To combine rests in musescore, click on the first of the rests to be combined, and then select a higher note value from the palette at the top of the page. The program will automatically combine the next few rests to make up that note value. For the tempo markings, you can specify them exactly as you did, so the playback will sound precisely the way you want it to, but then "hide" them, so that they will not show up on the pdf of the score, or when a paper copy is printed. Use the dropdown menu to open the "inspector." Click on the tempo marking you want to hide to select it, and click the checkbox that says "visible" to make it hide or reappear. It will still be visible in the score while you are working with it, so you can make changes later if you need to, it just won't print or show up on a pdf that you export.

:) I'm so glad it didn't hurt you, I was worried you might take it as a big punch to your motivation. Good luck with future compositions. If that's your first attempt... well done, it's much better than mine XD You really should consider making them shorter though. That was one of my main problems in my first two years together with repetitivity (is that a real word?). But it seems like you count it as a good thing, because it's a part of the style. It's completely fine, I don't expect our taste in music to be the same, I actually never met someone with my taste in music... so it's not a surprise XD I'll probably comment on your future compositions. I don't have much time left before I have to go to the army (btw I got about two more free weeks in surprise), But I'm trying to give as many useful feedbacks as possible :)