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🎄🌲🎄🌲---=== It's time for our annual Christmas Music Event!!! ===--- 🎄🌲🎄🌲 It's that season of the year again and time to write music in your adored wintry (or summery for those in the southern hemisphere), Christmas-y, Hanukkah-y, or Kwanzaa-y style! The only rule is that this is not a competition!!! So please review the pieces casually, only using the competition reviewing template on those who have expressed a desire/interest in having their music reviewed in this way! 🎅 In this event - anything goes! Submit music in the spirit of the holiday season of any duration or instrumentation! There will be badges given out for all the participants, of course! We will also give out "Ardent Reviewer" badges for those who take it upon themselves to review all the participants' music! This thread will double as the submissions thread as well as the event announcement. Please post only links to your music posted elsewhere in the forum (so that it may be properly reviewed in its own dedicated topic). The following members have thus far expressed interest in participating: @PeterthePapercomPoser @Monarcheon @TristanTheTristan @AngelCityOutlaw @PCC The event opens on Black Friday, right after Thanksgiving! And closes on December 31st! Excited to see what we all come up with this year!

“ The calm before the storm, the feeling of eating gas station sushi except instead of intestinal problems it’s your ears getting that treatment. Sonic diarrhea is a seven minute work consisting of random noises, groovy melodies, and the sonic equivalent of having a horrible stomach ache… it’s great for the performers too. They get to have a little bit of fun. Structure: this is treated like a Rondo if you may, (ABACA) we have the sonic diarrhea theme (A) , a calmer theme (B) and a very jazzy theme unexpectedly (c). Enjoy!”

not sure if I can meet the deadline, I guess I might be able to share a part of a multisection comp

I'm game. Vamos a ver que podemos hacer.

“It is a very difficult topic for me since I have so many beloved concertos. Especially when I have to choose among so many that Mozart wrote. I consider Mozart and Beethoven to be the top, but I certainly also have some from the Romantic composers that I adore. I will definitely include 2 or 3 by Mozart. And the ones I don’t include, I feel like I will be doing them an injustice, but what can I do—I have to choose some.” 1. Μοzart Piano concerto no 25 K503 . ( This is seriously my personal favorite piece in general, i cant describe what that concerto means for me ) 2. Mozart Piano concerto no 24 K491 3. Mozart Piano concerto no 17 K453 4. Beethoven Piano concerto no 4 5. Ok here i have to choose and one of the romantic era that is my favorite and this concerto is Brahms piano concerto no 2 PS: “Ah, if only Schubert had written a piano concerto. How much I would have loved that.”

Hello folks! Been a little bit (always is a little bit between when I talk on here it seems) I've been hard at work at college writing all sorts of stuff, but amid all the music I'm writing and playing for school, I've also been working on a personal piece for solo piano. Dedicated to someone I love very much, the piece is an exploration of love. Movement 1 is the only movement written so far, and it is about passionate love (maybe I'll call it Eros. Still figuring out names or if I even want names for the movements.) I'll explain the movement's structure so you can maybe understand what I'm trying to do. Intro: It starts floating on an A dominant 7 chord, overtop of which soars a delicate but sometimes dissonant melody with huge leaps. It remains in this uncertain space a little while. Then it bursts into arpeggios and a fanfare-like triplet motif in F Major, gradually building more and more, before collapsing into the exposition. Exposition: The first theme in F minor is fiery and built from two motifs, the passionate right hand and the rumbling left hand. Cadencing in the relative major, the motifs then set off to transition to the next area. The second theme is in the distant key of D major and is a beautiful transformation of the melody from the introduction. A recurring turn motif brings the melody to its PAC and the closing theme commences with triumphant arpeggios (you will hear the inspiration from Chopin Ballade no. 4) but is suddenly overturned by D minor with the rumbling left hand motif of the first theme, ending the exposition dramatically in Bb Major!! Unlike I think literally all of my other sonata form pieces, there is no exposition repeat before the development. Development: In the soundscape of the exposition's closing chord, the developed introductory melody quietly emerges, again unsure, interwoven with fragments of the first theme. Eventually the second theme's rumbling motif takes hold, and a series of violent sequences commences. At its climax, it collapses again in a whirlwind. Out of the bleak, emerges now the second theme, in a hopeful manner, modulating from Ab Major to E minor, and finally culminating in the most passionate and beautiful variation in G Major, with repeated chords and heavy rubato. It reaches its turn motif and PACs in G Major erupting into the closing theme arpeggios, but now being derailed again, even earlier than last time into C minor! And now we're at the Fugue, based on the same rumbling left hand motif that's been so persistent in the development. After reaching its peak, it sequences a little more and is now in C Major and has successfully set up the dominant retransition to the tonic F minor! Recapitulation: First theme is mostly the same as before. The transition is however different and more "bravura" than before. The second theme tragically is now in F minor, and doesn't get its old turn motif to cadence, and instead prepares to close the movement in the drama of the first theme. But it's diverged! We move away from that extreme low register now into the highest register as we hear one last time the full second theme in F Major, much barer and more suspended, but again with its cadence motif. But it doesn't finish quite yet. It repeats the motif, before slipping back into an A dominant 7 chord for the coda. Coda: Largely an exact repeat of the introduction, but what was before a solid dominant pedal, is now broken up by the tonic in the bass, giving a more resolved sound. With no more burst into F major, the movement closes on low D Major chords. Now the reason I really want your guys' feedback is because I want to play this for the dedicatee soon, and I just want to make sure it's perfect before I present it to him. I did show the piece to my professor, but he said it sounded too traditional and suggested I listen to Sciarrino for inspiration 🥲 Let's just say I have different taste than him lol. The performance isn't perfect, and the score is very unpolished! But everything should come across pretty well hopefully. Thank you in advance! 😄

@Churchcantor Almost nobody is familiar with Jommelli, and more is the pity. His Requiem is in E-flat major, yet it still sounds appropriately sombre. There are several good performances available on YouTube. Here's a link to my favourite:

You know what... by seeing this sentence immediately those two opening chords play on my brain and the music plays itself non-stop.....

No Doubt C# minor!! My all fav. piece, Beethoven's op.131 Quartet is also in that key. And I write my 3rd Piano Sonata in the key too. My upcoming piano pieces set will be in that key too. Henry

Happy Winterval to all! This is a work I posted previously in the incomplete section, and it takes the form of a mini-concerto for violin (with the movements indicated by the rehearsal marks). It's more or less finished now; though I may still have to tweak some of the voice leading, and haven't started writing in the slurs yet. Since I last posted it, have added a coda at the end, and a whole bunch of counterpoint throughout the piece. (N.B. Rehearsal mark C indicates the start of the coda.) The work was inspired by Vivaldi, along with a modern work called "The Gold Standard" by Richard Harvey. (The latter was the main inspiration for the coda.) Think the most successful melody-line is in the second movement, as this carries emotional weight for me. The other two movements are more like baroque dance music. (I could imagine the cast of "Bridgerton" dancing to them at a ball!) I may have to cut the work down, as we're not really supposed to go over 5 minutes, and I'm now at 6. So any suggestions about where I could cut would be very helpful. Not quite sure the structure is properly balanced at the moment, or whether the movements gel together as a coherent whole? Any suggestions on what to name the piece also welcome. N.B. The dynamics and articulation are intended for midi rendition, and will have to be adjusted before I send it to the orchestra who are performing it next year.

I couldn't help but fall in love with this track from Silksong - Cogwork Dancers after 8-bit music theory covered it:

After undergoing plenty of struggle to find a proper textual setting capable of matching the rhythmic patterns of this vocal fugue, I decided to settle for an altered version of the "Libera me" movement commonly found on Requiem masses. Despite the minor changes required for the text to fit the subject of the fugue, its treatment throughout has been a conscious attempt to make it as audibly intelligible as possible, as opposed to the vast majority of my previous vocal works, where any regard for the text was completely secondary to the music. YouTube video link:

Yes!! Anyway, the sounds you've got are nice.

I'll give it a shot

Thanks Luis: that's exactly what I was aiming for! Can't wait to hear what it sounds like when played by real musicians.

Congratulations. I think it sounds great. I certainly think it has a very classical feel to it, but in many places it veers towards something more modern, such as some of the progressions in the slow section. I notice that it is treated mainly as melody plus accompaniment, which is quite light and with little emphasis on the counterpoint. All in all, it works wonderfully.

That sounds very pleasant. I always think these types of buildings are wonderful.

Here.

This is present because I tried to include the harmonic characteristics of both Carol's at once which didn't always result in nice consonances. Thank you for your review!

Pretty awesome how you were able to seamlessly merge the themes together. Fun dissonance sprinkled in every so often, which could very well be hints of a Bad Santa making his way through town. Or perhaps the Grinch is waiting nearby to cause mayhem. But overall the themes are pleasant and you changed them up to incorporate your own voice. The ending is very pleasant and have fun harmonies. But I do hear a tiny bit of sharp dissonance hidden in the passage. It sounds like something didn't quite go as planned, but it was too subtle for Santa to notice.

Here is my first submission!

I like this -- my 1st ends with the melody on Ab, so I will probably start the profession from the Ab instead of the Eb.

Thank you!! This sounds great Both songs are slower, slightly hymn-esque pieces

I think mozart 25 is great too!

Another way would be to move to Abmin for a moment and then, from there, to its parallel major of Cbmaj (enharmonically equivalent to Bmaj). I think it could be quite smooth specially if you go through the V64 --> V progression (B/F# --> F#). For example: I guess this couldn't be considered a lush progression, though. As @Monarcheon suggested, for a lush progression it might be better to start with some line (maybe melody, or a strong bassline that you know points towards B major, or both) and start filling in the remaining voices in any way that sounds good.

I'm more of a voice-leading kinda gal, but I came up with this on the fly. I have no idea if it works in the context of your own work, but in general, I'd advise starting with moving lines that mesh well, then filling in gaps. Happy accidents happen all the time!

@PeterthePapercomPoser Hmm, I'm not exactly sure what you mean; I don't see anything missing on my end. I didn't replace the file with anything, just changed my explanation!

Greetings All: Sharing my Viola Sonata on this Thanksgiving-Eve. The style I was trying to emulate is early Beethoven, in my own inimitable way. The parts are equal - in fact, as was often the case in Beethoven's sonatas, the Piano takes the upper hand about as often as the Viola does. Hope you enjoy! Composed: April 19 - July 4, 2022 at Austin. Style: Classical, ca. 1790-1800. Duration: 18:10. Electronic Rendering by Finale 26 music notation software’s "Human Playback" with NotePerformer 3 artificial intelligence assisted interpretation.

This could be a study on how to use slurs effectively in bowed instruments. How did you get the slurs to sound so good btw? The microtones add an interesting color to the piece and the rhythms are fun to listen to. You used 5/8 with a purpose. Also, the ending is so normal and calm compared to everything else, does this mean that love was found after a chaotic journey?

I wrote this piece with the goal of submitting it to a competition. However I could not get myself to format the music to my preferred level, and a general disdain for the form of the piece, so I decided not to submit it. I have worked quite hard on this piece, bringing out many new textures for myself. But I am at a point where I am too entrenched into this piece to make the large formal changes I want. So I would like to share it with you all. This piece is about a Whale and a Whaling ship, and their corresponding battle, capture of the whale, and bringing it home. I thought this might be an interesting idea for a competition, with a lot of dramaticism inherit, and generally a little easier for a listener to make the connection. Let me know what you think of the piece. I'd love to hear your input on the different textures throughout. I think this piece has some pretty awesome moments and I hope you guys will let me know.

This is a really fun piece to listen to! The brass writing is top notch. The highlight for me though, was the duetting between the piccolo and flute. Not a combination I would've thought of using. Love the strange sound of the flexatone! Will have to use that instrument some time in one of my future works. I wonder, would it come through as strongly as this against a full orchestra? Or would it need to be amplified?

This one is a little bit minor, little bit dorian, kept it on the simpler side. 😄 I hope you enjoy, and as always all comments and thoughts are welcome!

I really love this. Some harmonies are so interesting and gave very special timbre and atmosphere to the whole prelude. Well done my dear friend. I really enjoyed it

Actually now top six sould also have Beethoven 5.

You don't really need to learn how to use MuseScore. All you need to know is how to import a MusicXML file, and then export the audio file. Two very basic functions. The virtual instruments and voices are assigned automatically. Of course you can get better results by tweaking some of the dynamics and articulations; but you'll get a decent audio without doing any of that.

I'm not familiar with Jommelli, though I do know the Michael Haydn Requiem (influenced Mozart's), the Bruckner Requiem (modeled on Mozart's and in the same key of D Minor) that he wrote at age 24 and revised later in life, and even the Salieri Requiem, which has some great vocal writing! Gee Whiz; the Jommelli Requiem was written in the year of Mozart's birth! How weird is that? I will listen to it. My Requiem is MODELED on Mozart's unfinished Requiem, if you listen closely and see how I broke out the text. It does not SOUND like Mozart, except for the occasional turn of phrase.

Those octaves ARE divisi; I just don't mess with musical directions or even bowings on Noteflight. It's hard enough for me to just enter the notes! My manuscript has everything, though I'm not sure I even messed with that in the ms of this particular number! Vocally, this is beyond the means of the average church choir, obviously I would think! 😆

What is your favorite key/Note? or really, When you think of a melody, What key is it normally in? I came across this about a month ago where I noticed most of my music was in the key of D minor, and when I thought of a melody it was also in D minor; even though now there's a bit of B mixed in. It's just sort of a simple question, and I really want to see what others have to say about it!

I've noticed that for Christmas music (yes - it's that time of year and I've already written a piece for the season!) I always tend to write in the key of Eb major for some reason. It also happens to be the key of my favorite Beethoven Symphony - No. 3. Perhaps it's because of that symphony that people ordinarily think of that key as "heroic" but I think of it more as a warm key. I also prefer flat keys, even if it causes way more flats in the key signature than is practical. For example - I prefer Ab minor or Eb minor to G# or D# minor. I'll just use the Ab major and Eb major key signatures and write extra accidentals for the notes I need to make it minor. Interesting topic!

Hello, I will be just looking at your “ the evening sun”. Great pacing with the strings so far. Also, I like the flute solo thing. I like the mood that is giving off I like the little effects from the strings popping out sometimes I feel like the melodies can be smoothen out a little more in the brass I like the percussion arrangement and the instrumentation in the use of the percussion I believe that was a bassoon solo and it’s higher register I couldn’t tell that was very good The ending with solid, and yeah, it was a good composition just a little thing about pacing and what not and the piece direction it was one of those pieces that feels continuous because it’s short it doesn’t feel like the same thing and it’s structured in a good way with different instrumentations throughout and unique orchestration anyways good job

@PeterthePapercomPoser Oopsie, yep, fixed. (Unless it was a bass oboe 😮)

I'll just tag @MJFOBOE in this thread. Maybe he might be able to help you..

Hi Churchcantor: I've never thought of doing that, as I have rather few views, and I'm very much an amateur, but if you have Dorico Pro version 6 I could send the files. I have never tried to make a printable "engrave" version in Dorico, and as it is, the files are rather unreadable when i go to "engrave", I need to change the font or something, the staff-lines run into each other. It would off course be a good training to make an engrave version, so I might look into that, give it a month or so, then I could send a PDF. If you are interested, I have a couple of new small symphonic pieces: Sun in November October Nights

Wow! Some surprisingly good counterpoint, though it's difficult to see how it will all fit together without the text underlay. Consciously or not, you've taken a cue from Niccolo Jommelli (1714-1774) in scoring your Requiem for voices and strings alone...his Requiem (1756) was the most popular and often requested of its day, until Mozart wrote his in 1791. The sparing orchestration makes it more likely to get played. I agree with ComposaBoi on just about everything he said. Measure 11: The tenor part goes dangerously low, down to B below tenor C; consider a D instead if it won't mess up your counterpoint. Measure 17: Awkward for Violin I - the C on beat 3-1/2 is icky to try to reach down to there, it means shifting a third down the fingerboard for one note, then shifting back up again; consider the G above instead. Measure 31: Odd ending, it seems to me. There is no third in the chord, and while that's not without precedent, I don't feel like it works here. Consider an E-flat as the final note in the Soprano and Violin I. Show us more of this as you have it! Well done!

I tried to make a song based off early internet viruses, even from before I was born using my notations software's transistor bass, made in 1988 with it unchanged since. sorry for the audio being absolutely chopped and laggy, i just might of went a bit crazy with the drums😅

I would second that. I can't really get a good impression of your piece from Noteflight, the playback is too ropey. (That may be why you're not getting many reviews.) MuseScore would give a much better rendition of your score, even with no tweaks whatsoever.

The counterpoint is very impressive, so well done! I would have liked to see how the lyrics align with the notes, but I'm not sure if note flight is capable of that. I would definitely recommend musescore if you can fit it on your computer. It is free after all. The main issue is how you're writing for your forces. Violin octaves are a little unreasonable for a tutti section. It's too difficult without a good justification. I would either NOT have the octaves, or have the violins divisi. And the voice ranges are going into risky registers. There's a good short guide "ranges for choral singers: a guide for composers" by Chris Hutchings that's literally just a page and tells you pretty much all you need for writing for choral voices. You can probably find it online.

Nice tone painting so far the orchestration is really nice too A good job with the orchestration and combining slurred and staccato textures together. On mallet instruments it’s a fairly rare use to do doubles. Great job with the accel. Good with using the smaller end of dynamics. A nice with the double reads low double reads with this pattern of single notes staccatos Flexatone that’s really good good use in a professional setting for that. The textures around 105 is really good. I appreciate the dissonance and surrounding force surround it. I appreciate the English horn solo. And good attention to detail with the Bowing. I rarely see non-string orchestra composers incorporate, bowing directions in the score but like that’s good. Circa measure 180 maybe a few measures next there is a engraving error with the suspended cym part good job with voicing parallel fifths it gives the effect that is needed. Good job with this slower parts. solid ending and with full magnitude as well Anyways, I enjoyed this piece a lot. I hope you well and keep up the amazing work.

Hello @JorgeDavid To me this rather sounds like Rachmoninov vocalise. You share the similar the melodic fluency that his did. Yes, I can hear the Bartok and Stravinsky. But, I am not sure how. The vocal line is beautiful; and the piano part is nice. It is nice piece overall. This would be great piece for a warmup.